Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga as workstation
Message-ID: <3830@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 88 21:20:45 GMT
References: <1903@sugar.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 42

in article <1903@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) says:

> In article <40824UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
>> Now, in a local environment, with an ethernet board in the Amiga, it
>> could (I guess) do this.  But being limited to one serial port is a problem.

> Yes, the one-serial-port situation is bogus. This is one place I think
> Autoconfig is a botch... a serial port is something that'd be a $50 card
> if it was as easy to add it to Amy as to an Apple II.

There's no big deal, hardware-wise, adding an additional serial port.  Auto-
config doesn't get into the way, and since such a card would very likely
be of fixed size (probably a 64K jobber), the autoconfig logic for such a
card would be simple.  Really.  Though if you're adding more than maybe one
or two additional ports, I'd add a smart controller to manage them all and
offload that intensive interrupt activity from the host CPU.

The software aspects of additional serial ports are another matter.  You
could just go directly to them, like you would on an Apple II or C64, but
that wouldn't be a very nice thing to try given that we're multitasking.
Most of the talk about additional serial ports has presumed that the serial
drivers would try to be an extension of the current serial.device or some
equally generic device addition would be available.  Since the built-in
devices as driven by the Port-Handler are kind of a kludge, this doesn't
just drop nicely into the OS like it should.  So there's additional
software complexity that must be considered to do it "right", but not any
real hardware problem.  You probably could build a serialx2 card for the
A2000 that retails in the $100 range, maybe even serialx4.

> Personally I'd be happy to give up my parallel port for another serial port.
> Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification.

The folks who make those parallel printer cables have been kicking back just 
enough money to all us CPU designers to keep these things around....

> -- 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*.
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The B2000 Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
		"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"