SUPER I/O CONTROLLER
Serial / parallel communications ports
The Super I/O chip (SMC FDC37C932) supports two serial ports and one bidirectional multi-
mode parallel port. The two 9-pin serial ports (on the rear panel, and whose pin layouts are
depicted on page 37) support RS-232-C and are buffered by 16550 UARTs, with 16 Byte
FIFOs. They can be programmed as COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, or disabled.
The 25-pin parallel port (also on the rear panel) is Centronics compatible, supporting IEEE
1284. It can be programmed as LPT1, LPT2, or disabled. It can operate in the four modes
listed on the next page.
•
Standard mode (PC/XT, PC/AT, and PS/2 compatible).
•
Bidirectional mode (PC/XT, PC/AT, and PS/2 compatible).
•
Enhanced mode (enhanced parallel port, EPP, compatible).
•
High speed mode (MS/HP extended capabilities port, ECP, compatible).
FDC
The integrated
flexible drive controller (FDC) supports 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch flexible disk
drives, and tape drives. It is software and register compatible with the 82077AA, and 100% IBM
compatible. It has an A and B drive-swapping capability and a non-burst DMA option.
It has a 16-byte FIFO, though this is disabled by default. It supports burst and non-burst modes.
It provides perpendicular recording drive support. It has a high-performance internal digital data
separator (no external filter components are required). It provides automatic media-sense
support.
Keyboard and Mouse Controller
The PC has an 8042-based keyboard and mouse controller (the socket pin layouts are as
shown in a diagram on page 37). The C3758A keyboard is supplied for use with the Windows
95 operating system (though it will also work with other operating systems). It has the following
capabilities:
•
Space bar power on, to start the computer from the
Off state (if power on from keyboard
is enabled in the
Setup program).
•
Windows key (next to the [ALT] keys), which has the same effect as clicking the “Start”
button on the Windows 95 task bar.
•
Pull-down key (next to the right [CTRL] key), which has the same effect as clicking the
right mouse button.
RTC
The real-time clock (RTC) is 146818A-compatible. The configuration RAM is implemented as
256 bytes of CMOS memory.
Serial EEPROM
This is the non-volatile memory which holds the default values for the CMOS memory (in the
event of battery failure, or the user pressing [F9] in
Setup).
