Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!devon!!michael
From: michael@.UUCP (Michael)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Serial port expansion
Message-ID: <10047@.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jan 88 03:55:42 GMT
References: <197@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>
Reply-To: michael@.UUCP (Michael)
Organization: STB BBS, La, Ca, USA, 90402
Lines: 19

In article <197@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> beowulf!lunge!jesup@steinmetz.UUCP writes:
>	You said yourself you planned to have a name-mapper, that maps names
>to unit numbers.  If you have that, why not something that maps names to
>device/unit number pairs?  I think no user should EVER have to care about
>unit numbers, just about what piece of hardware they attached to which board.
>Terminal programs would default to opening 'modem', which of course the user
>could change.  This way, when the user got a new program that uses a modem,

Better: Have each program try to open something based on its name, i.e.
a-talk-plus would open "a-talk-modem", vt100-2.9 would open vt100-modem
(or something like that). The name server would be able to handle duplicates,
i.e. both of those could translate to serial.device, unit 0. Or it could
be "multiplex.device, unit 0" and "unit 1". Or so on. (Who needs more serial
ports with good software underneath? :-)).
				Michael
-- 
: Michael Gersten		ihnp4!hermix!ucla-an!remsit!stb!michael
:				uunet!scgvaxd!stb!michael
: "A hacker lives forever, but not so his free time"