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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!ut-sally!ut-ngp!mic
From: mic@ut-ngp.UUCP (Mic Kaczmarczik)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: More errors from console.device
Message-ID: <3611@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Jul-86 16:46:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.3611
Posted: Fri Jul  4 16:46:26 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Jul-86 01:08:16 EDT
References: <4021@decwrl.DEC.COM> <725@Navajo.ARPA>
Reply-To: mic@ngp.UUCP (Mic Kaczmarczik)
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 46

In article <725@Navajo.ARPA> rokicki@Navajo.UUCP writes:
>In article <4021@decwrl.DEC.COM>, ridder@warlok.dec.com writes:
>> Further mucking with the console.device seems to indicate that
>> a CMD_WRITE returns with io_Error set to the number of characters
>> queued for input!  This is very handy data to have, but why
>> return this in io_Error (for a WRITE)?  Isn't this just a bit
>> perpendicular to the purpose of io_Error?  Besides it isn't even
>> documented.  . . .
>
>Is this intentional, supported, etc.?  I am sick of terminal emulation
>programs which run at an effective 1200 baud on a 9600+ line; this
>would solve that problem.  So, two questions:
>
>	--  Can we count on this in programs we write?
>
>	--  If not, is there any other way to get this information (a
>non-blocking read of n characters which returns as many as are in the
>queue would do)?
>
>This is essential for reasonable use of the serial port . . .
>
>-tom

To answer your second question, yes, there is a way to find out
how many characters are available from the serial.device: the serial
device command SDCMD_QUERY returns the number of characters currently
available from the serial device, in the io_Actual field of the IO request.
Documentation is in page B-74 of my copy of the RKM (serial.device/Query).

When I put this in my (very hacked-up) copy of AmigaTerm, it made quite
a bit of difference!  (Setting the buffer size to 1024 also helps.)

Mic Kaczmarczik

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