Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: ports Keywords: serial parallel Message-ID: <1985@sugar.UUCP> Date: 14 May 88 13:02:32 GMT References: <3963@gryphon.CTS.COM> Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 153 You're still looking at my finger. Can't you see I'm pointing at the moon? In article <3963@gryphon.CTS.COM>, richard@gryphon.UUCP writes: > In article <1959@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >So for the first Xk of the dump, the computer thinks the printer is > >faster. After that, the computer has to slow down, And *I* still have to > >wait for it, no matter how long it takes. Wrong answer. The correct answer > >to the "my printer is too slow and it's holding up my computer" is a spooler. > Get bigger printer buffer. How very IBM of you. Throw more money at the wrong solution ot the problem. Read my lips. "SPOOLER". Got that? It doesn't take much. I tend to use CMD to get the stuff into a file and then run a copy in the background from a CLI, but there are *lots* of alternative ways of doing it. I guess it's like a printer buffer in that it's sticking the stuff in memory before it slows the machine down... *but* I've already paid for the 4 megs inside my Amiga. I might as well use them. > I print mostly graphics, and the printer is always waiting on the Amiga > to rasterize the image. Listings i do on a laser printer at 9600 baud > and I dont wait. How very nice for you. You make my point perfectly. You have your fast printer on a slow device, and your slow printer on a fast device. That sure makes a lot of sense. > >And you're not even dealing with the right question. Let's look at this > >exchange: > >A: You need a parallel port. > I never said you needed a parallel port. No, IBM, Commodore, Apple, and dozens of other companies said "you need a parallel port" by making it a standard part of the machine. Back in the CP/M days, most machines had two (or more) serial ports and I don't recall lacking for printers... > I said: "don't dictate your > views on the rest of us an tell us we should all have two serial > ports because you perceive there is no need for parallel ports." I'm not dictating my views. I don't have the power or atuthority to dictate. I'm attempting to convince you that my views have merit. Capiche? > Dont they make those little serial-->parallel and parallel-->serial > jobbers ? Very good point. Stick one on your parallel printer... > RIGHT! Speed is a non-issue. Being able to come across any peripheral > and being able to plug it in because you have both a SER and a PAR port > is an issue. The issue to me is the early standardisation on parallel printers by IBM has really screwed people over. They partitioned the set of slow peripherals into two disjoint parts for no good reason. > And the cables! ARRRG! Sometimes I think I'd like to go back in time > and slay the guy who invented RS-232C. Ever made up a parallel cable? > What, besides printers uses parallel ports ? Well, I have to agree > printers account for the large part of it, but I've used a speech > synthesizer and a hard disk drive over a parallel port. So you're using the parallel port as a very slow bus. The Amiga already has a much faster bus. Of course it's a royal pain to do cheap cards for, but I don't want to get started on "the Autoconfig that isn't". > >Talk.bizzarre is moderated now? > Brian Reid. You hav'nt been keeping up on these things ? AAARGH! > >> Now Peter, if you want more serial ports, great, knock yourself out > >> go buy a IBM-PC multiport card with 4 ot 8 ports on it, plug it > >> in and you'll be one happy puppy. > >Plug it in *where*? > In an AT slot. What AT slot? > Ie a 2000 or one of those silly card cages. An Amiga $2000 for a $50 card? > Yes, it's real money Nice you noticed. > but the 8 port card is not cheap either. How badly do you want it ? I just want one more serial port. Really. If this was an Apple-II or some other machine with a cheap bus I could put it together or get someone to for under a hundred dollars. > >Probably in the PC/AT clone running Microport UNIX that I'm going to > >buy instead of an Amiga 2000. > Knock yourself out. Good luck with Microport. Snicker. I'm using a Microport system right as we "speak". It's occasionally a pain, but it's a damn sight more reliable as a programmer's workshop than poor old raw-memory Amy. I just want one of my own. > >Hey, folks. Before you do Yet Another Memory Board Addon or Yet Another > >Hard Drive or Yet Another Genlock... how about a multiport serial card??? > 1) Nobody is builing much for anything but 2000's; putting a $1500 > multiport serial card on a $500 A500 seems a little strange; of you > have the money for the card, you have the money to blow on a 2000. > You can only extend a A500 so far. I'm not talking about a $1500 card. I'm talking about the moral equivalent of all those *cheap* multifunction cards for the PC with half a dozen assorted ports and a enough memory to bring you up to 640K. > 2) THATS WHY THE AT SLOTS ARE THERE ON THE A2000 ! So you can add any > peripheral you want. This is the prototype argument for the > At slots - the AT cards exist, you just plug 'em in. I don't see any slots in my 1000. > Yes I know you have an A1000, Nice of you to notice. > and I'm sure as hell not going to try to dictate what other peoples > computers should be like. You seem upset. You're getting upset about the wrong things. Don't get mad at me: I don't have any dictatorial powers. I'm trying to convinnce, not coerce. It's IBM and its kin that are responsible for the current situation. It's very therepeutic to rail at them for a while. All that happens when you do that to poor individuals is get them mad. Luckily I'm a nice guy and I don't yell back. Well, not much. The best solution would be a cheap geographically-addressed bus like the Apple-II bus for cheap peripherals. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.