Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!mcrware!jejones From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) Newsgroups: comp.os.os9 Subject: Re: what are these files for? Keywords: os9, /SYS directory, serial port Message-ID: <5661@mcrware.UUCP> Date: 29 Mar 91 10:44:02 GMT References: Reply-To: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Iowa Lines: 36 In article roccella@pilot.njin.net (Matthew Roccella) writes: >In the SYS directory of my BASIC09 diskette, there are the >files: "stdpats" and "stdptrs." I don't know what these files are for. These files contain fill patterns and graphics for things such as the pointer that shows where the mouse is. What's a fill pattern? See pages 3-29 et seq. in the *OS-9 Windowing System* section of the manual. (If you've seen a paint program set up so that when you paint an area the color doesn't show up as solid, but is instead crosshatched or checkerboarded or something like that, you've seen the effect of a fill pattern.) How to use them? Merge them to a grfint/windint type window. > Also, I am trying to write a simple communications program. >However, I need to know how to access the built-in serial under OS-9. >If I am writing the program in BASIC09, do I just open a path to the >port and use the SYSCALL I$READ and I$WRITE to communicate with the >modem. I noticed that the /T1 driver does not support two-way >communication through the built-in serial port. The CoCo's built-in "serial" port is an infamous design shortcut which maybe sort of made sense in 1980 or so, when perhaps ACIA chips were more expensive than they are now and when the expected use of said port was for a printer (so that the traffic was all outbound) and under Color BASIC (no multitasking, so that the user couldn't do anything else while a PRINT statement was executing, and hence couldn't tell that the 6809 was grinding away in delay loops and busy wait loops emulating serial hardware that the designers didn't put in. It makes no sense now. However, some folks have tried to overcome the bit-banger port, and on various BBSs and pay systems (e.g. CIS, Delphi) one can find a file called BITBANG.AR, a device driver that tries to make the bit-banger port usable. I've not tried it myself, but folks say that it does work up to about 1200 baud; other folks have said they've had trouble with it. (Evidently at device initialization time it mungs the kernel.) If you really need to use the bit-banger, I'd suggest you investigate BITBANG.AR (but make a backup of your boot disk, because cobbler will propagate the kernel mung). James Jones