February 1998

Brooktrout Technology
410 First Avenue
Needham, MA 02194-2722
Ph: 617-449-4100; Fx: 617-449-9009
Web site: www.brooktrout.com

Pricing: TR114-P4L (4-port): $3,295; TR114+P2L (2-port): $1,995.

Imaginine this scenario: You want to upgrade your fax server from 8 ports to 16 ports. So, you open the fax server ... Egads! You’re completely out of ISA slots. What to do? You could move all the hardware to a 10slot backplane PC, and then reinstall your software, but that could be quite a hassle. If only you could open the PC, install your fax boards to a PCI slot, close the PC, and install a driver. That way, you could be done in a matter of minutes.

But what’s the point of playing “what if”? PCI fax boards don’t exist. Or do they?

As a matter of fact, Brooktrout recently released a PCI version of its award-winning TR114 series of fax boards. We decided to take a look at one ourselves, since we were already impressed with the ISA version. We weren’t disappointed.

The Brooktrout TR114 PCI fax series includes a 4-port DID board; a 2port combo (loop start and DID) board; and 4- and 8-port digital cards with MVIP and SCBus for use with its TRNIC, Netaccess PRI ISDN network interface boards, and other industry-standard network interface cards. Brooktrout is also shipping the TRNIC+P24T, a digital network interface board with an MVIP interface that provides a seamless path to integrate the TR114 series universal port boards with T-1 digital lines.

PROS AND CONS
Pros

• Excellent price ($3,295 for the 4-port PCI version — same price as the ISA version).
• Works with existing Brooktrout boards.
• Easy to install.
• Cons
• No Windows-based utility to troubleshoot and test the fax board.

INSTALLATION
To confirm that the PCI boards worked with legacy ISA TR114 boards, we made a point of installing the PCI board onto a PC system that contained TR114 ISA boards. We also wanted to confirm that the PCI board’s software driver could coexist with the ISA fax driver. So, we installed it on our RightFAX 5.0 server, which already contained ISA cards.

In addition to checking on these compatibility issues, we made sure we tested the PCI board’s main reason for existing: handling inbound and outbound faxes.

We installed the board into the fax server and booted it up. However, when it booted into Windows NT Server 4.0, we immediately noticed something strange. Everything on our monitor’s screen was shaded red. We knew we had a conflict somewhere, most likely the video card. We were using an old ATI Graphics XPRESSION video card — an ISA version.

We doubted we had an interrupt problem, since most video cards don’t need interrupts (some use IRQ2). Most of these cards are memorymapped. To figure out exactly where the conflict was, we logged into Windows NT and ran the Windows NT diagnostics program. We anticipated that any conflict with the video card would have something to do with the TR114-P4L’s requirement for 20 consecutive I/O ports. (We picked up this bit of information from the Brooktrout documentation.)

We soon learned that our ATI card occupied too many I/O ports. We decided to swap it out with a Diamond SpeedStar Pro, another ISA card. (We would have used a PCI video card, except we had only three PCI slots on our fax server. The first slot was taken by the network card; the second, by the SCSI controller; and the third, of course, by the Brooktrout TR114-P4L.) After we put in the Diamond card, we booted up, and the red shading on the screen disappeared.

Once we stopped seeing red, we modified a few settings in a configuration text file. We were able to muddle through using the documentation, but we’d have liked this editing process a lot more had it been automated. Next, we tested the TR114-P4L by booting from a bootable DOS disk and running a test utility included on the disk. The test, which worked perfectly, confirmed that we could access the PCI board.

Finally, we tried to get the board working with the RightFAX server. We had to download a service pack from RightFAX’s Web site, which had the additional driver for the new TR114 PCI fax board. We installed it and added the fax board. We we were ready to go.

All in all, it was fairly easy for us to set up our system, even though we had worried about getting the TR114 ISA cards to work with a TR114 PCI card. The only problem we had was the video conflict. Otherwise, installation was a snap.

DOCUMENTATION
The documentation was adequate. To be fair, we should point out that we received our board so soon after the product’s introduction that the documentation must have been preliminary. We expect the documentation will be much improved after the lengthy release notes are integrated with the main text. As it now stands, the text includes illustrations of the LEDs and corresponding explanations, as well as a good table of contents.

FEATURES
Channels

• One processor per channel (requires 2 MB RAM per channel).
• 2- or 4-channel loop start, DID.
• 2- or 4-channel European ISDN BRI telephony bus interface.
• 2-, 4-, or 8-channel MVIP, PEB, SCbus.
• Digit Capture
• Onboard DTMF generation and detection.
• Adaptive (SIT detection included).
• Pulse and DTMF.
• DID and DNIS digit capture. Speech Features
• ADPCM, 24 and 32 Kbps.
• PCM, 64 Kbps. Mode
• Transmission protocols: V.17, V.21, V.27, and V.29.
• Compression formats: T.4 (MH and MR) and T.6 (MMR).
• Bit Rate: 14.4 Kbps (auto stepdown to 12000, 9600, 7200, 4800, 2400 bps).
• Error correction mode (ECM).
• Binary file transfer (per T.434). Format
• Variable resolution (fine, normal).
• Image width: A4, A3, and B4 (width conversion on-thefly).
• Image length: unlimited.
• Format conversion on-the-fly (ASCI, PCX/DCX, TIFF Class F, MH, MR, MMR).

Other

• Self diagnostics.
• Downloadable firmware.
• Basic fax, enhanced fax, speech, forms overlay.
• Forms overlay (up to 4 forms per channel).

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We would like Brooktrout to include a utility in Windows NT and Windows 95 for auto-detecting and examining all the TR114 board’s resource settings (IRQs, DMAs, I/O ports), as well as for troubleshooting. Also, we would like to see a Windows NT- and Windows 95based test utility, instead of having to boot to DOS just to run the DOSbased test utility.

CONCLUSION
Brooktrout has produced another great fax board to add to its growing arsenal of award-winning fax products. Anyone looking to expand their existing fax server’s port density, or to put together a new fax server, should seriously consider this fax board. TMC Labs highly recommends this product for its ease of installation into systems with legacy Brooktrout boards, as well as its remarkable feature set. We’d like to add that we wholeheartedly awarded Brooktrout it’s CTI Product of the Year 1997 in the Fax Boards category.