Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!botter!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Help! Minix 1.3 & PS/2 Model 80
Message-ID: <1941@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 20 Jan 89 23:30:49 GMT
References: <1023@uvm-gen.UUCP> <1906@ast.cs.vu.nl> <1259@ditsyda.oz>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 31

In article <1259@ditsyda.oz> evans@ditsyda.oz (Bruce Evans) writes:
>So, the solution may be simply to remove all the EOI's in proc.c and put
>them in floppy.c. Similarly for *wini.c. The other drivers are probably
>OK. All except clock.c are low level and already do their own EOI's, and
>I think the clock interrupt turns off automatically.

First, a number of people seem to agree with the theoretical analysis that
by sending a sense command to the floppy disk controller, it will negate
its interrupt.  Could one of the people with a PS/2 give it a try and see
if we are on the right track.

Second, I think is is cleaner to have the EOI sent in a single place for
all device classes, rather than having every routine have to worry about it
on its own.  Some day some naive person will write a driver for a new device
and not realize that he has to deal with this.  I am perfectly happy to move
it anywhere else if someone can suggest a suitable place.  If it can't be
done, it can't be done, but it would be cleaner to do that sort of nasty
stuff just once, not all over the place.

John Nall made a comment a couple of days ago about world-wide debugging.
With Bruce's comments on the PS/2, we now have three continents working on
this problem.  When I was a kid, I always thought it was a pity that I hadn't
been born 50 years earlier, so I could have been a pioneer in, say,
amateur radio in the beginning.  Nevertheless, trying to solve an obscure
software problem with the help of a score of people on three continents
(anybody in Japan have any suggestions?) is probably in the same spirit.
I think most people on the net take for granted something that was quite
inconceivably only 20 years ago.  For instance, I never recall having read
any science fiction stories called "The Net."  Three cheers for USENET.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)