Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bgsuvax!denbeste From: denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: GS Slots Message-ID: <1801@bgsuvax.UUCP> Date: 23 Mar 88 19:57:02 GMT References: <7932@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. Lines: 42 In article jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") writes: > Brainstorm a bit.... a GS would be nice with a few more slots, or atleast > Slot 3,4, and 5 open for use instead of bogged down with stuff that ought > to be on the motherboard From article <7932@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, by laba-4an@web4e.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden): > 90% of the stuff you listed IS on the motherboard. The trick is finding a > way to access it, retaining compatibility with older programs. If some > bizarre calling sequence were used instead, many older programs would not > function properly. > I do agree that there should be an easier way to switch between slots and > ports. Your question about the mouse being attached to the Desktop Bus > is interesting, but I have a feeling that the Apple engineers wired the I/O > straight to slot 4 anyway. I think that the only thing in the pseudo-slots is firmware. The mouse firmware calls the ADB routines to get the information and arranges it to look like the results of the old mouse cards. According to the IIgs hardware manual (via my sieve of a memory), the i/o locations of the ADB mouse hardware doesn't conflict with that of the real cards. If you want to write your own drivers, you could still use the mouse (and serial) ports without using the slot space. I suspect that this is not true for the 5.25 drives, however, since dos 3.3 and others directly access the i/o locations, so firmware emulation is not enough. I have not gotton arround to disassembling the pseudo cards, so I can't be sure exactly what is going on, but I believe that this is accurate. Interesting thought... if tell the control panel to use my own card in slot 4 will my ADB mouse still work in the finder? My GS is at home (not work), so I can't try this out. -- William C. DenBesten | denbeste@bgsu.edu Dept of Computer Science | CSNET denbeste%andy.bgsu.edu@relay.cs.net Bowling Green State University | UUCP ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!bgsuvax!denbeste Bowling Green, OH 43403-0214 |