Arnet Smartport ISA Serial Card Smart Plus 4 Rev 2 w Cables Xenix Digi 1988

Arnet Smartport ISA Serial Card Smart Plus 4 Rev 2 w Cables Xenix Digi 1988

The Arnet Smartport Smart Plus 4 is a full-length ISA multi-port asynchronous serial expansion card produced by Arnet Corporation of Nashville, TN in 1988. It was designed to add eight asynchronous serial ports to an ISA-bus PC, enabling simultaneous connections to terminals, modems, printers, and other serial devices — a capability critical for Xenix and multi-user DOS environments of the era. The Smartport was a direct competitor to the Digi International (DigiBoard) multi-port serial line; in 1990, Digi acquired Arnet and continued producing Smartport cards under the Digi brand, making original Arnet-branded units like this one a rare find.

Specifications & What's Included

• Manufacturer: Arnet Corporation, Nashville, TN
• Model: Smartport Smart Plus 4, Rev 2
• Bus Interface: Full-length ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
• Port Type: Asynchronous serial (multi-port)
• Number of Serial Ports: 8
• Bracket Connector: DB25 (visible on bracket)
• Firmware ROM: SMARTPORT 1/17/87 REL 1.1.5 (labels visible on board)
• PCB marking: Made in USA
• Included: Original ribbon cable with IDC headers
• Included: 5.25" floppy — Smartport/Modular 88 Xenix Driver, SW-173-19 Ver 1.2, copyright 1988 Arnet Corp.
• Included: 5.25" floppy — Diagnostics & ADF disk, SW-173-07 Ver 3.1, copyright 1988 Arnet Corp.
• Original list price at introduction: $1,295 (1988)
• Note: Floppy disk readability is not guaranteed due to age

Applications

Multi-port serial ISA cards like the Arnet Smartport were widely deployed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to support multi-user operating environments such as SCO Xenix, SCO Unix, and multi-user MS-DOS. They allowed a single PC server to connect simultaneously to multiple ASCII terminals, modems, printers, and serial peripherals — a common architecture before networked client/server computing became dominant. Arnet's Smartport line was particularly associated with Xenix-based multi-user systems and small business computing environments of the era. Today, original Arnet-branded Smartport cards are collectible pieces of computing history, sought by vintage PC enthusiasts, museum collections, and researchers documenting the pre-Digi era of serial expansion technology.