[comp.sys.apple] Appletalk and Serial Ports

jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") (03/02/90)

To Apple DTS and anyone else....

What is it with the //GS and Appletalk? I am chagrined to discover
that I cannot use my serial port if I also use Appletalk!

I haven't discovered what the firmware is going to do, i.e. just
turning on the Appletalk firmware in the control panel, but if
Appleshare drivers are installed and running on the system, the
machine is bombarded with interrupts that, among other things like
hinder performance, raise hell with communications through the modem
port!

Is this problem being addressed? Does the ROM-03 machine fix this?
Will the ROM-04? On a more technical nature, what is going on and how
may it be dynamically disabled? 


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dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) (03/03/90)

In article <0ZvSrYi00VRhM4YlZO@andrew.cmu.edu> jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") writes:
>What is it with the //GS and Appletalk? I am chagrined to discover
>that I cannot use my serial port if I also use Appletalk!
>
>I haven't discovered what the firmware is going to do, i.e. just
>turning on the Appletalk firmware in the control panel, but if
>Appleshare drivers are installed and running on the system, the
>machine is bombarded with interrupts that, among other things like
>hinder performance, raise hell with communications through the modem
>port!

It works for me--don't know what the problem is for you.  I've successfully
done 9600-baud communication through one serial port, while using the
other one for AppleTalk.  I didn't notice any dropped characters.  The
com program was using interrupts, intercepting the serial interrupt
vector.
-- 
David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc.      |   DAL Systems
Apple II Developer Technical Support      |   P.O. Box 875
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My opinions are my own, not Apple's.

toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) (03/03/90)

jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") writes:

>What is it with the //GS and Appletalk? I am chagrined to discover
>that I cannot use my serial port if I also use Appletalk!

Ahem. You have to plug Appletalk into one of your serial ports. Therefore
you can't use ONE of your serial ports if Appletalk is enabled.

You can still use the other one with no problems.

You can't only set slot 7 to built-in appletalk because the computer
needs to know which serial port (they are essentially identical) to use, and
if both are set to serial port then which one should be used?

Set slot 1 or 2 (whicever you aren't using for the serial port) to Your Card
and plug the AppleTalk thingie into the corresponding port. The control panel
should have given you a message to do that.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu

wombat@claris.com (Scott Lindsey) (03/06/90)

In article <1990Mar2.211407.8936@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:

> jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") writes:

> >What is it with the //GS and Appletalk? I am chagrined to discover
> >that I cannot use my serial port if I also use Appletalk!

> Ahem. You have to plug Appletalk into one of your serial ports. Therefore
> you can't use ONE of your serial ports if Appletalk is enabled.

> You can still use the other one with no problems.

C'mon, read the entire message before replying.  Jeremy also said:

>I haven't discovered what the firmware is going to do, i.e. just
>turning on the Appletalk firmware in the control panel, but if
>Appleshare drivers are installed and running on the system, the
>machine is bombarded with interrupts that, among other things like
>hinder performance, raise hell with communications through the modem
>port!

He's not talking about where to plug things in and how to set up the slots;
he's talking about problems that arise when the machine is configured for
a serial port and AppleTalk and is attempting to use both.

Dave Lyons wrote that he hadn't had any problems with it, using software that
intercepted the serial interrupt vector.  I'll have to look at how AWGS uses
the serial port (since I had almost nothing to do with the Comm module), but
this is a problem we experienced and is the reason for the "Warning: AppleTalk
enabled - Data loss likely" message that Comm displays.  (Note: Comm only
checks slot 7 for AppleTalk, so if you have a ROM 03 machine with AppleTalk
set to slots 1 or 2, you may not see this message.  It's also possible that
this interference may not happen on a ROM 03... I haven't been able to check.)
I seem to recall that data loss at 1200bps was tolerable, but was somewhat
annoying at 2400 and above.




Scott Lindsey     | I dig iguana in their outer space duds
Claris Corp.      |    saying, "Aren't you glad we only eat bugs?"
ames!claris!wombat| DISCLAIMER: These are not the opinions of Claris, Apple,
wombat@claris.com |    StyleWare, the author, or anyone else living or Dead.