/dev/ttySx problems

[stan mcintosh]

I am running Fedora 5 on an MSI AMD socket 754 mainboard, and I want to 
use Pikdev with a serial port microcontroller programmer.  The problem 
is that I cannot get the serial port to come alive.  Below are the 
rights properties, and I have added myself to the uucp and ls groups. 

[stan at localhost ~]$ ls -l /dev/ttyS*
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 64 Nov  7 14:18 /dev/ttyS0
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 65 Nov  7 14:18 /dev/ttyS1
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 66 Nov  7 14:18 /dev/ttyS2
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 67 Nov  7 14:18 /dev/ttyS3
[stan at localhost ~]$

Pikdev has a debugging function to allow the operator to turn specific 
pins on and off.  There is no response to the serial port, and I have 
tried all ports with all combinations of address/IRQ settings in the 
BIOS.  Turning parallel port pins on and off is a snap.

Anyone see what I have set up incorrectly?  (By the way, I did check the 
serial cable thoroughly for continuity, and the serial port is soldered 
in as part of the motherboard to leave me no opportunity to have 
forgotten to connect a cable.)

Thanks.

stan