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From: eric@egsner.cirr.com (Eric Schnoebelen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Hardware Flow Control on tty
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.055042.17194@egsner.cirr.com>
Date: 4 Jan 91 05:50:42 GMT
References: <119@limbic.ssdl.com> <1990Dec23.212620.7094@unixland.uucp> <129@limbic.ssdl.com>
Organization: Central Iowa (Model) Railroad, Dallas, Tx.
Lines: 27

In article <129@limbic.ssdl.com> gil@limbic.ssdl.com (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes:
- In article <1990Dec23.212620.7094@unixland.uucp> bill@unixland.uucp
-	 (Bill Heiser) writes:
- >reputed to support the NS16550 UART (although I've failed to get it 
- >to even work AT ALL with the WD version of that chip).  I have yet to
- >try the WD chips in the AST 4-port board I just installed.
- 
- Judy Scheltema and I have tried the WD 16550 chips in Steve Nuchia's 
- async board, and they fail there as well.  It seems that the only ones
- which work properly are the National chips.  Why?  I don't know.

        Why?  As I recall, it seems that Western Digital got copies of
the 16550 dies, before all the fixes to the FIFO's got in.  National
Semi is selling 16550A parts which have several fixes for problems with
the FIFO's when they are enabled.  When the FIFO is not enabled, there
is little difference between the '550 and the '450, so the WD part would
work fine in that situation.

        I have two of the WD parts that I have never gotten to work (as
well the shouldn't) and they are just sitting in my junk box.  All (but
one) of the NS parts have worked flawlessly, and the one that didn't, I
had aquired second hand, and hadn't been treated terribly well.

-- 
Eric Schnoebelen		eric@cirr.com		 schnoebe@convex.com
	Real Programmers never work 9 to 5.  If any real programmers
	    are around at 9am it's because they were up all night.