Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hoser.berkeley.edu!bryce
From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Serial port expansion
Message-ID: <22453@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 8 Jan 88 14:35:15 GMT
References: <197@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <4918@well.UUCP> <38256@sun.uucp>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Organization: The Logic Foundation
Lines: 45

In article <38256@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes:
>In article <4918@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
>>
>>	Find the existing serial.device file in the DEVS: directory...
>
>This works fine for the first device, the next device you 'install' 
>blows away the new serial.device, yuck.

You didn't read Leo's posting close enough.  Each driver as it goes
in patches itself with the name of the one it renamed.  So you would
have a chain:

	serial.device	;New serial 2
	old2.serial	;New serial 1
	old1.serial	;The serial.device we know and love

See my response to his posting, AND READ the "drivers.doc" file from your
Autodocs "README" disk. 

Thanks for the idea Leo, I want to hear them all!  I don't happen to
like the suggestion much, but the input is welcome.  


>Other Comments?

Please!  Let's echo this stuff from here to BIX and back.  Throw
ALL the ideas out.  Let's get a GOOD standard.  As I said, I have
a "new_serial.device" that will go to a multiple port board that
is under development.
I'll still change my code to reflect whatever gets hashed out.

The problems I see are:

1> Does not match the "clean" autoconfig spec, as mentioned in "drivers.doc"
2> Problems with how NOT to load all of the drivers in, yet still know
   how many there are and what the names might be.

The non-problems are:

1> leaving the old serial.device in place.  This is easy.

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