From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat May 31 05:17:32 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA21485 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 31 May 1997 05:17:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (root@agora.rdrop.com [199.2.210.241]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA21479 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 05:17:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by agora.rdrop.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA08025 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 05:17:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id VAA06778; Sat, 31 May 1997 21:45:01 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199705311215.VAA06778@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Inteface for external drivers. (ppa3) In-Reply-To: <19970531115024.CE15818@uriah.heep.sax.de> from J Wunsch at "May 31, 97 11:50:24 am" To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 21:45:00 +0930 (CST) Cc: rssh@cki.ipri.kiev.ua, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk J Wunsch stands accused of saying: > > As has been discussed before, the design of the various subdrivers for > the parallel port needs an overhaul. ISTR that Michael Smith > volunteered for this (but required to get a ZIP drive first). > Incidentally, Mike is also confident with the UserConfig code. ;-) You will be (may be?) happy to know that I have several reams (literally) of parallel port chip datasheets lying around here, and I am currently learning more than I ever wanted to know about parallel ports. (Does anyone have a soft copy of the ieee1284 spec, or even one of the late drafts? I can't get one short of buying the sod, and that's kinda hard from here 8( ) Right now, I am struggling with the design of a suitable interface that will (attempt to) hide the details of the hardware involved whilst accepting that the modes of communication with parallel-port peripherals generally varies with the configured mode of the port. This is complicated with the fact that whilst most of the "multi-I/O" chips are soft-configurable, their configurations can be locked, and this locking is usually perfoemed by the BIOS, and can only be unlocked by a hardware reset. It's enough to make you sick. Very sick. (I have the Zip, thanks to Jordan. The driver works "OK", but not well enough that I want to commit it yet. There are copyright problems too.) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[