Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!atari!apratt
From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Non busy-wait disk IO on the ST.
Message-ID: <1685@atari.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 89 19:06:50 GMT
References: <9023@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 19

sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Greg Anderson) writes:
>I would like to be able to initiate disk IO in a program, go away
>and do something else & then be informed later (via an interrupt)
>that the opperation completed.

You'll get no help from GEMDOS or the BIOS.  You can do it yourself,
but you'll have to learn all about the DMA chip and any DMA devices you
plan to talk to.  The circuitry is all there: the acknowledge from the
DMA device (which says the operation is complete) can cause an
interrupt if you want, and that's really all you need.  (Of course, you
have to deal with timeouts, etc...)

It's a lot of work, but there's nothing in hardware stopping you. It's
possible that MINIX and/or OS/9 and/or some flavors of UNIX on the ST
do this.  I don't know about that.  Anyway, good luck.

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt