Xref: utzoo comp.unix.microport:2111 comp.unix.xenix:3988
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nuchat!steve
From: steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: 16550A's for $10   -- (and note to beta driver users)
Message-ID: <2668@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: 24 Nov 88 01:11:54 GMT
References: <202@twwells.uucp>
Distribution: na
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 24

From article <202@twwells.uucp>, by bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells):
> I have a question. How might I discover whether I'd benefit from
> having one of those chips? I have a vanilla Zenith 386. I looked on
> the I/O card; the only chip that I thought might be a serial chip has
> the part number NS16450N.

Yup, thats the predecessor.  From the 550's data sheet:

	The NS16550A is an improved version of
	the NS16450 Universal Asynchronous babble...

To *benefit* from it you have to enable the fifo's, which takes
either driver hacking or dropping the right stuff into I/O space
and hoping your software can deal with it.  What I hear is that
the software out there doesn't barf if you go around it and enable
the fifo's, but you get better performance with a driver that
knows about it.

PS: If any of the half dozen folks I've sent pre-release copies
	of my driver to read this, let me know how its going.
-- 
Steve Nuchia	    | [...] but the machine would probably be allowed no mercy.
uunet!nuchat!steve  | In other words then, if a machine is expected to be
(713) 334 6720	    | infallible, it cannot be intelligent.  - Alan Turing, 1947