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From: root@zswamp.uucp (Geoffrey Welsh)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Latest Fossil Driver
Message-ID: <203.2855A6B8@zswamp.uucp>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 18:53:55 EDT
Organization: Izot's Swamp BBS (FidoNet), Kitchener, Ontario

In a letter to All, David Shapiro (bigd@dorsai ) wrote:

 >Also, can someone summarize the reasons that a fossil driver 
 >would be needed?

(1) The IBM PC BIOS drivers for the serial port are woefully inadequate;

(2) Wynn Wagner became frustrated with the Greenleaf communications library 
around the same time that Thom Henderson and Tom Jennings became frustrated 
with the comm libs they were using;

(3) It's nice to be able to write software for "MS-DOS plus a FOSSIL", so 
that it'll work on such nonstandard hardware as a DEC Rainbow.. provided that 
someone can be bothered to write a FOSSIL for it;

(4) Programs which communicate through a FOSSIL driver can actually share 
interrupts (programs which don't, as a rule, can't);

(5) You can update your BBS software without messing up your perfectly 
reliable serial driver, and you can upgrade your serial driver without 
messing up your perfectly reliable BBS software;

   (It just occurred to me that I could think up reasons as fast as I can 
type them up, so I'd best quit before I become truly obsessed and throw away 
what little of my life I still own the rights to)
 

--  
Geoffrey Welsh - Operator, Izot's Swamp BBS (FidoNet 1:221/171)
root@zswamp.uucp or ..uunet!watmath!xenitec!zswamp!root
602-66 Mooregate Crescent, Kitchener, ON, N2M 5E6 Canada (519)741-9553
"He who claims to know everything can't possibly know much" -me