Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!peregrine!ccicpg!paulm
From: paulm@ccicpg.UUCP (tmp Paul Moreau usenet acct)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Serial port Disk driver
Keywords: ST <--> UNIX
Message-ID: <42681@ccicpg.UUCP>
Date: 9 Oct 89 17:03:48 GMT
Organization: ICL North America (Business Systems), Irvine, CA.
Lines: 33


Hi:
I've been doing some drive changes on my ST latelly and been needing a backup
system.   I've tried turtle but I haven't loads of floppies that I can use
for this nor the time to sit in front of my computer all day switching 
diskettes.   What I do have is a couple of UNIX systems (one system V and one
BSD 4.2) with lots of disk space and 5 1/4 cartridge tape drives.   I then
started to consider using the UNIX system but had to get the information
to it some how.  I thought of using xmodem but it also required some
intervention.   I've been writing disk driver code for a while (my MAXTOR
380 meg ESDI drive) and all of a sudden it flashed on me to just convert
the actual I/O routines in the driver so that instead of going to the DMA
port, it went via the serial port.  I over came the non re-entrant BIOS
problem and wrote a handler that runs on the UNIX system.  I can create
a disk file on the unix system from 128K to 16meg, start the TSR driver
on the ST and Wella... I've got a drive 'P' on my st that I can just drag
files or disk ICONS to and start the copy and go away for a while.
If used with a disk caching program this drive can be quite fast.
Well I've been reading this forum for quite a while and have downloaded
a lot of great stuff.  If anybody is interrested in my code I will post
it PD on this net or (try) to mail it to whom-ever asks.
Currently I am working on another UNIX side utility to copy to and from
files from UNIX and the ST disk file.
----
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   |  ### ###     ###     |  A M E R I C A  |< An STC Company >|
   |  ### ####### ####### |    (was CCI)    | \==============/ |
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   |  UUCP:  ...ccicpg!dl2!paulm   |      Paul L. Moreau       |
   |    or   ...ccicpg!dl1!paulm   | Diagnostics Software Eng. |
   |    or   ...ccicpg!paulm       |    Irvine, California     |
   `==========================================================='