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From: Gary Kline <kline@tera.com>
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Subject: Re: embed
In-Reply-To: <199612192029.NAA09438@xmission.xmission.com> from Softweyr LLC at "Dec 19, 96 01:29:21 pm"
To: softweyr@xmission.com (Softweyr LLC)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 15:04:59 -0800 (PST)
Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
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According to Softweyr LLC:
> 
> > i also hear that writing device drivers can be a real pain in the butt for
> > UNIX (A2D cards, etc) ?  any comments ?
> 
> Writing device drivers for UNIX is certainly no more painful than
> writing device drivers for any other OS.  You at least have a kernel
> debugger in FreeBSD and *rarely* ;^) have to resort to logic analyzers,
> o-scopes, etc.  Don't let the DOS-heads in the world frighten you about
> working inside UNIX; at least you have the source to the system, and to
> other drivers.
> 
> 

	I'll stick in my two-bits here since I wrote several
	drivers years ago.  It is no more difficult than any
	other area of hacking: X-Window or kernel intrinsics
	or whatever.

	You buy a few good books and start at it.  My first
	tty driver took a couple months to complete and polish.
	Second one took only 10 days.  Dennis Ritchie's 
	STREAMS was another learning curve, but in the end
	is a big win.  

	The last driver was for my DeskJet I wrote to learn 
	C++ and it was limping along in a few days.

	I agree that you shouldn't listen to any DOS-dweebs;
	the ones who consider DOS to be the best thing  that
	God ever invented.  Bottom line is that if hacking
	Unix requires more thought it is because Unix is
	strikingly more powerful.  

	gary kline