how to install a io serial/printer port from boca (in this example it's the ioAT55-view picture)

what you need additional serial ports for? usually, desktop PC's only come with two serial ports. One you'll use for the mouse so you have one free serial port left. And that one is frequently taken by an external modem. And if you have other peripherals which need a serial port to connect to your PC (such as Pilot or a psion) you'll need to plug off your modem and replugg it in and can't use both at the same time. Therefor a serial card ($40)
but before buying one, make sure you have a PCI (the white one) or in most case an ISA (the dark one) slot available (inside your PC). mostly, serial cards are just for ISA (read on the package)

you won't need to physically install the card until step 4.
installing the serial interface card:

0.2 check (in control panel-system-device manager-Ports-expand) which COM ports are available (=not listed). so for instance if there is a com1 and com 2, com3 and com4 are still free

1. there wasn't any diskette with drivers for the ioat55, but just inserting the card into the ISA slot (after you've turned off your PC and opened it up) won't make win95/98 recognize.

2.to make win95/98 recognize that there is a new serial interface card installed, you'll have to dbl-click on 'add new hardware' in the control panel. Click 2 times on next and choose 'No, I want to select the hardware from a list'. Click next and choose 'ports (COM & LPT)' and select 'communications port' (standard types). click next, write down the details (specially irq setting) and shut down your PC.

3.on the serial card, set the jumper (the plastic little thing) on the IRQ which you wrote down and another jumper on a com which is still free (ie my com1 is taken by the external modem and com2 is used by the mouse, so I set the jumper on com3. Here is an example as shown in the ioat55 users guide (notice: serial A is the one we're working on, leave the other ports for the moment -ie take off all the jumpers on serial b and J4-the printer port, like this, the other 2 ports won't be recognized (we'll set them later)

4. now you can physically install the card into the ISA slot. Turn off your PC, pull the plug (just in case) and open up your PC, often requires screw driver, and push it delicately but firmly into the isa slot. Don't screw things back on because we'll have to pull it out later to set the jumpers for the other ports or in case something doesn't wok, it's always a drag putting things on and taking them off again, so just leave the screws off and turn on your PC.

5. when win95/98 boots onto it's GUI, you should see the usual window that displays "new hardware found" or something like that. congratz, you now have a new serial port installed. Now you can repeat the process again for serial b. the printer port installation is also the same except when you are in the add new hardware wizard (Ports), choose standard printer port and write down what comes on the next screen (probably: 0278 LPT2 or alike) -shut down the PC, take out the serial card and set the jumper (in my case it war LPT-0278 and LPTINT-IRQ5) and put it back in

if it doesn't work, try out different things, there is always more than one way to reach a aim