UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (04/28/88)
Part of my definition of Workstation is that it be easy to login to
several remote machines simultaneously, and move info to and fro. This
is important to me because, in my work environment, I have to do this a lot.
Also, I see colleagues with less computer chutzpah who are less
productive because they cannot do this. (That is, in this heterogenous
environment, you have to know about 5 communications packages and
command languages to move stuff around.)
Now, in a local environment, with an ethernet board in the Amiga, it
could (I guess) do this. But being limited to one serial port is a problem.
leepeter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (04/30/88)
In article <40824UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: > Now, in a local environment, with an ethernet board in the Amiga, it > could (I guess) do this. But being limited to one serial port is a problem. Yes, the one-serial-port situation is bogus. This is one place I think Autoconfig is a botch... a serial port is something that'd be a $50 card if it was as easy to add it to Amy as to an Apple II. Personally I'd be happy to give up my parallel port for another serial port. Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (05/05/88)
In article <1903@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: |Personally I'd be happy to give up my parallel port for another serial port. |Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification. What, huh?? I've never seen anything shove bits as fast over a serial line as you can over a parallel line. Try comparing the time to download fonts to LaserJet II on parallel vs. serial (even at 19.2Kbaud) sometime, and see if you don't want to keep your parallel port around when you get a laser printer. -- --Brian. (Brian T. Schellenberger) ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts . . . now at 2400 baud, so maybe I'll stop bothering to flame long includes.
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (05/06/88)
:What, huh?? I've never seen anything shove bits as fast over a serial line :as you can over a parallel line. Try comparing the time to download fonts :to LaserJet II on parallel vs. serial (even at 19.2Kbaud) sometime, and see :if you don't want to keep your parallel port around when you get a laser :printer. Ahh hah haa ha.... Man, you haven't seen serial lines. There are a couple reasons people use serial rather than parallel. When I design *any* custom communications hardware, I always use serial. (1) You can do it with a twisted pair, and only two drivers on either end. Or at worst three wires (full duplex operation). With full duplex I usually run data communication synchronously. (2) You can run the things *fast* ... So fast, in fact, that in many cases one doesn't even need to check the TxRegister Empty bit... the bits gets shifted out faster than you can write the port. It isn't my fault idiot manufacturers are still running their serial ports at 19.2KB. -Matt
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/06/88)
In article <492@sas.UUCP>, bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) writes: > In article <1903@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > |Personally I'd be happy to give up my parallel port for another serial port. > |Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification. > What, huh?? I've never seen anything shove bits as fast over a serial line > as you can over a parallel line. And for most printers this extra bandwidth is completely wasted: they can't even keep up with 1200 baud. > Try comparing the time to download fonts > to LaserJet II on parallel vs. serial (even at 19.2Kbaud) sometime, and see > if you don't want to keep your parallel port around when you get a laser > printer. If I could afford a laser printer I think I could afford a parallel port card. I mean, what's another couple of hundred bucks out of a couple of grand? In the meantime I can't: 1) Put two modems on my Amiga. 2) Put a modem and a terminal on my Amiga. 3) Put a cheap EPROM burner and a modem on my Amiga. 4) Put a Midi port and a modem on my Amiga. ... and any combination thereof. Proposition 1: the more ports your computer has, the better. Proposition 2: the more versatile the ports on your computer, the better. Claim: Serial ports are more versatile than parallel ports, because there is a greater variety of serial devices out there. Side issue: If there were multiple serial ports, the whole "serial device debate" would be a non-issue. Personally, I think it is anyway. We already have a perfectly good namespace for devices. Conclusion: For me, at least, serial ports are better than parallel ports. Totally unjustified flame: I have 4 serial ports on my Atari 800, via my 850. I have 4 joystick ports on it as well. Why does the Amiga have less? -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.
elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) (05/09/88)
in article <8805051951.AA26195@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) says: > :What, huh?? I've never seen anything shove bits as fast over a serial line > :as you can over a parallel line. Try comparing the time to download fonts > :to LaserJet II on parallel vs. serial (even at 19.2Kbaud) sometime, and see > :if you don't want to keep your parallel port around when you get a laser > :printer. > Ahh hah haa ha.... Man, you haven't seen serial lines. There are > a couple reasons people use serial rather than parallel. When I > design *any* custom communications hardware, I always use serial. > > (1) You can do it with a twisted pair, and only two drivers on either > end. Or at worst three wires (full duplex operation). With > full duplex I usually run data communication synchronously. > (2) You can run the things *fast* ... So fast, in fact, that in > many cases one doesn't even need to check the TxRegister Empty > bit... the bits gets shifted out faster than you can write the > port. > > It isn't my fault idiot manufacturers are still running their > serial ports at 19.2KB. As an aside, I've seen an Amiga shift data out its serial port at 320Kbaud. Wasn't much machine left over for users, though :-). I suspect that the main reason that "idiot manufacturers" still run their serial ports at 19.2Kbaud is because most commercially available (= CHEAP) UARTs are only capable of 19.2Kbaud. For example, the 6551, which is cheap, has low chip count (add a crystal, bus buffers, and ready to go), and is easily interfaced with 68xx/65xx/68K-based machines. I suspect there's an aweful lot of 6502's out there (e.g. I recently discovered that the TVI 910 was 6502-based, when I patched a bug in their firmware for a local university). Higher bitrates seem to require either more expensive chips, or custom chips like in the Amiga.... and, of course, there's always the ULTIMATE in bitrates, fiber-optic Ethernets at 5 megabaud and up. But for a low-cost interface for modems and printers, I suspect that 19.2kbaud is going to hang on for quite a while (at least until 38kbaud equipment becomes more common). -- Eric Lee Green {cuae2,ihnp4}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 "Is a dream a lie that don't come true, or is it something worse?"
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (05/10/88)
:I suspect that the main reason that "idiot manufacturers" still run their :serial ports at 19.2Kbaud is because most commercially available (= CHEAP) :UARTs are only capable of 19.2Kbaud. For example, the 6551, which is cheap, :has low chip count (add a crystal, bus buffers, and ready to go), and is :easily interfaced with 68xx/65xx/68K-based machines. I suspect there's an :aweful lot of 6502's out there (e.g. I recently discovered that the TVI 910 :was 6502-based, when I patched a bug in their firmware for a local :university). Actually, you can run most UARTS at >19.2KBaud. I currently have a small home-built computer consisting of a 6502 running at @2Mhz+, several other IO chips but most noteably two 6551A's running at 76.8KBaud. It is just a matter of giving the thing a faster crystal. I would be surprised if you could run x1 UARTS (that require a clock in for synching but do not require a 16x clock for sampling) at 1MBit easy. Note: read, non-custom and low cost parts here. -Matt
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (05/10/88)
:just a matter of giving the thing a faster crystal. I would be surprised :if you could run x1 UARTS (that require a clock in for synching but do not :require a 16x clock for sampling) at 1MBit easy. Note: read, non-custom :and low cost parts here. : : -Matt Sorry, I meant "I would NOT be surprised..." -Matt
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (05/20/88)
in article <1903@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) says: > In article <40824UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >> Now, in a local environment, with an ethernet board in the Amiga, it >> could (I guess) do this. But being limited to one serial port is a problem. > Yes, the one-serial-port situation is bogus. This is one place I think > Autoconfig is a botch... a serial port is something that'd be a $50 card > if it was as easy to add it to Amy as to an Apple II. There's no big deal, hardware-wise, adding an additional serial port. Auto- config doesn't get into the way, and since such a card would very likely be of fixed size (probably a 64K jobber), the autoconfig logic for such a card would be simple. Really. Though if you're adding more than maybe one or two additional ports, I'd add a smart controller to manage them all and offload that intensive interrupt activity from the host CPU. The software aspects of additional serial ports are another matter. You could just go directly to them, like you would on an Apple II or C64, but that wouldn't be a very nice thing to try given that we're multitasking. Most of the talk about additional serial ports has presumed that the serial drivers would try to be an extension of the current serial.device or some equally generic device addition would be available. Since the built-in devices as driven by the Port-Handler are kind of a kludge, this doesn't just drop nicely into the OS like it should. So there's additional software complexity that must be considered to do it "right", but not any real hardware problem. You probably could build a serialx2 card for the A2000 that retails in the $100 range, maybe even serialx4. > Personally I'd be happy to give up my parallel port for another serial port. > Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification. The folks who make those parallel printer cables have been kicking back just enough money to all us CPU designers to keep these things around.... > -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter > -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter > -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*. -- Dave Haynie "The B2000 Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/22/88)
In article <3830@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: > > Parallel printers are a historical dreg that has no technical justification. > The folks who make those parallel printer cables have been kicking back just > enough money to all us CPU designers to keep these things around.... So *that's* why they're so expensive! -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.