kevinr@sequent.UUCP (Kevin W. Rudd) (03/27/90)
I am seriously considering scrapping the dual machine set-up I have and getting a single 386 to run both my unix and DOS applications. The one application that is a must for me to be able to run under some sort of DOS emulation is my watson voice mail card/software. What I would like to know is if the DOS emulation programs out there will allow a DOS program access to odd hardware. The watson uses standard com I/O port addresses and interrupts (either configured as com1 or com2). Has anyone had any experience with either running strange boards under a DOS emulator, or specifically with voice mail boards under unix? TIA -- Kevin W. Rudd Sequent Computer Systems ...uunet!sequent!kevinr
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (03/27/90)
I don't know about VP/ix, but programs that need direct access to the
serial port work under Merge/386. But there's a problem: System V/386 is
not a real-time operating system, and communicating with a high-speed
serial port is a real-time task. We used this combination in one system,
and the number of dropped characters at 9600 baud was unacceptable. You
can get away with taking over the interrupts under DOS because DOS doesn't
have enough of an O/S to get in the way, but under UNIX the only way to
do this is to write a UNIX device driver... which is the only sort of real
time task a conventional UNIX system supports.
--
_--_|\ `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
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vnvk@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Norman Kohn) (03/28/90)
In article <31959@sequent.UUCP> kevinr@sequent.UUCP (Kevin W. Rudd) writes: > > I am seriously considering scrapping the dual machine set-up I have and >getting a single 386 to run both my unix and DOS applications. The one >application that is a must for me to be able to run under some sort of DOS >emulation is my watson voice mail card/software. What I would like to know is >if the DOS emulation programs out there will allow a DOS program access to odd >hardware. The watson uses standard com I/O port addresses and interrupts >(either configured as com1 or com2). An interesting question. While I haven't tried it, I'd expect it to run... but would have concerns about the ability to handle voice properly. How big are Watson's buffers? If Watson is swapped out to disk, can he handle an incoming call? I've assumed here that vpix will swap out. unix is not intrinsically real-time and may not be able to meet the needs of watson. If you try it, please post your experience. -- Norman Kohn | ...ddsw1!nvk Chicago, Il. | days/ans svc: (312) 650-6840 | eves: (312) 373-0564