Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!andy From: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: CLtd (Was: 2090 SCSI driver needed) Message-ID: <3449@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 10 Mar 88 02:33:43 GMT References: <1946@leo.UUCP> <5074@swan.ulowell.edu> <256@wsccs.UUCP> Reply-To: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) Distribution: comp Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 84 In article <256@wsccs.UUCP> terry@wsccs.UUCP (terry) writes: >> CLtd's support sucks rocks. If you have a technical question >> (anything more techincal than "how do I hook it up") they can't answer >> you. Sure, they'll get one of the technicians to call you. > > And he will tell you how to correctly tie your socks. I am still >waiting for a call on how I am supposed to open a serial port via the I know I'm going to regret asking this: but why do you expect a peripheral manufacturing company to help you write programs ? They make hard disks, and similar things. I mean, the guys at C-Ltd might be nice guys, but what reason do they have to help you write your programs ? Could this explain why they are not much help ? >"standard" interfaces and then hang (san you say "hibernate"?) until I >either get input from the console or the serial port, so as to not have to >poll, thereby taking CPU time. I am also waiting for a call back on how you >are supposed to have a program boost it's own priority, yet still work with >the 68010, et al, and NOT have to resort to supervisor state. This will let Well, you might try looking it up in the manuals, rather than bothering C-Ltd. Most people use Signals to Wait on several events on the Amiga. (See the Exec manual for details) The FindTask() call in combination with the SetTaskPri() call lets you change priorities around. I don't recommend this, unless you know what you are doing. >me, in combination with the other call, write terminal software that can talk >at a decent clip (anybody written an interrupt driven serial.device?) without >tripping over other processes. This is apparently what Sonix did to keep >it from losing a beat while doing disk I/O. Otherwise, I'll just have to grab >the machine... my comm software I'm doing is a port and is over 55,000 lines >of C code, and I'll be damned if I'll rewrite it in 68000 for GOD or anybody. A word of advice...the best programs that run on a machine notice what machine that they run on. For instance, most 68000 programs know to word align data. The worst programs are the quick ports. From what you describe you are doing the port for primarily your own amusement, so whether you rewrite or not is certainly up to you, rather than the supreme being. AmigaTerm, written entirely in C, works at 9200 BAUD *without* flow control (this is faster than a VT101) With flow control it works fine at 19.2KB. The main trick is 1) to get as many characters as the serial device has waiting for you at a time. There's a query command for this purpose. 2) print as many characters as you can at a time. 3) set the buffer on the serial.device based loosely on the baud rate. >losing characters. Commodore says they can go MIDI speeds and still multi-task >...this may be true, but the driver's passing stuff to me at about 2400 baud >or less, depending on system loading. Only if you use it poorly. > What about a DMA controller using FFS? The truth is, they can't >build one either. I only know of one out there, and it's ...well, sorta >pretending to do DMA. Can't they even use one of their 26 channels? You really need to check out the Amiga hardware manual, and the A500/A2000 Technical Manual before you continue about things like this. Really. The A2090 hard disk controller card does use DMA. Its a Zorro-2 card; there are several companies who make cages that let A1000 owners use Zorro-II cards. -- andy finkel {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.