Comtrol Corp has added two new multiport boards to its range enabling Sun 386i workstations to be turned into multi-user systems. The Hostess 550 and Ultra 186 provide four, eight, 16 or 32 additional serial ports, so that terminals can be attatched to the 386i. The Hostess 550 is a buffered board which reduces the number of interrupts generated, allowing the CPU to transfer a burst of data at very high speed, whilst the Ultra 186 has an on-board 80186 to offload the system processor. Sun 386i drivers bundled in with the St Paul, Minnesota-based company’s boards cost $550, $900 and $1,300.
