Xref: utzoo comp.unix.i386:1586 comp.unix.xenix:8858 comp.sources.wanted:9665
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tiamat!bahamut!jim
From: jim@bahamut.fsc.com (James O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386,comp.unix.xenix,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Fast parallel driver for Unix/Xenix AT?
Message-ID: <256@bahamut.fsc.com>
Date: 5 Dec 89 19:13:53 GMT
References: <256ADBB5.19093@ateng.com> <289@marvin.moncam.co.uk> <25747D15.4126@ateng.com>
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Filtration Sciences - Chattanooga,TN
Lines: 35

In article <25747D15.4126@ateng.com>, chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
> 
> When printing to an HP LaserJet II or a Printronix 600, the printer most
> definitely is _not_ the bottleneck.

Sorry, no real help, just more info.

I was also getting very slow throughput on our HP LaserJet II.  Then, due to
some hardware swapping, the LaserJet ended up connected to a parallel port
on a Hercules monochrome card, rather than a parallel port on a generic
ser/par I/O card.  Lo and behold, the LJ just screams now.

My theory here is that some I/O cards are just not built to use the interrupts
like they're supposed to, and hence don't always work under Xenix.

My proposed solution is different from Chip's though.  I don't want to see
new drivers for old boards, I'd like to see some bright, young engineer
come up with a new board.  My wish list:

- multiple parallel ports on one board.  you could use ribbon cable and the
  openings on most AT cases to mount the jacks.

- use 16-bit IO so the port interrupts could be set to the higher numbers.

- emulate the standard PC parallel ports, or use a shared interrupt scheme and
  let some bright, young software engineer write a device driver to take
  advantage of it

Parallel ports are just so easy to use when connecting printers, it's a pity
that getting two or three of them in a machine uses up so many interrupts
and card slots.
------------- 
James B. O'Connor			Work:	jim@tiamat.fsc.com
Filtration Sciences --			Play:   jim@bahamut.fsc.com
A division of Ahlstrom			UUCP:	uunet!tiamat!jim