gabriel rosenkoetter on Thu, 25 Apr 2002 10:59:35 -0400


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Re: [PLUG] PLUG Wireless/ Co-op?


On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 08:11:41AM -0400, Noah Silva wrote:
> It depends which sparc models.  The IPC, IPX, and I think JavaStation
> Prototype have NO serial buffer.  Every byte in the port triggers an
> interrupt and the processor has to grab the byte.  No DMA, no UART chip,
> etc.  They did it the super-cheap way, knowing that the serial ports
> were mainly used for:
> a.) Console
> b.) Modem (and at the time modems weren't 56k yet).

Eww. Then I was hallucinating that memory, because that's nothing
like the comparatively plush serial accomodations in Apple's
hardware.

> I had the same problems with Solaris btw.

Fair enough.

> The 68k Macs I have had (Centris 610, powerbook 550C) didn't have
> problems with the serial ports. The newer sparc machines don't either.  

By "newer sparcs" I presume you mean sun4u machines? (The stuff
above is all sun4c... there are some "newer" sun4cs than the IPC and
IPX, I think, but I'm not sure.)

Ever played with serial on the sun4m machines? (NOT sparcs, but
m68ks.) I'm inclined to think that's where the hallucination came
from, but I'm not sure.

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

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