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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!sdd.hp.com!wupost!gumby!yale!yale.edu!ira.uka.de!math.fu-berlin.de!zrz.tu-berlin.de!gmdtub!bigfoot!tmh From: tmh@doppel.first.gmd.de (Thomas Hoberg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 386BSD 0.1 lpt.c - anyone got it to work? Message-ID: <TMH.92Jul31232556@doppel.first.gmd.de> Date: 31 Jul 92 21:25:56 GMT References: <1992Jul31.114916.22038@bradford.ac.uk> Sender: news@bigfoot.first.gmd.de Organization: GMD-FIRST, Berlin Lines: 39 In-reply-to: T.D.G.Sandford@bradford.ac.uk's message of 31 Jul 92 11:49:16 GMT In article <1992Jul31.114916.22038@bradford.ac.uk> T.D.G.Sandford@bradford.ac.uk (TDG SANDFORD) writes: Has anyone managed to get the lpt.c (parallel printer driver) supplied in the 0.1 kernel sources to work? I've managed to get it to compile :-) but it won't even find my lpt1: port at 0x378. BTW several modifications to source and to kernel configuration files are required even to get that far!! Eric J. Haug posted a patch to this newsgroup some time ago. I never tried working with the orignial version but applied the patch and followed the included instructions. It works, to a degree. The main problem is, that I got one of the bad parallel ports, the kind that doesn't latch certain signals, which causes lost interrupts etc. DOS couldn't care less because it doesn't use them, however Unices would, since polling impacts on multi-tasking performance. Most Unix vendors simply had hack the LPT driver so it would do a certain amount of polling to overcome the limits of defective hardare. ISC for example has a configurable driver where you can specify an interval as to how often the driver should poll for lost interrupts. Somebody posted a polling driver for V.3 years ago. It should be possible to sort of merge that one into the 386BSD driver, but I have no previous experience in hacking Unix drivers so I don't feel quite adequate to the task. In my case the solution is rather simple: I have a HP DeskJet with a parallel AND a serial interface... The serial interface is slower of cause, but 386BSD's parallel currently gives me around 100 characters per hour (and looses most of the characters). BTW I find that the parallel interface is currently only detected on boot, if the printer is switched on and ready. --- Thomas M. Hoberg | Internet: tmh@first.gmd.de 1000 Berlin 41 | tmh@cs.tu-berlin.de Wielandstr. 4 | Germany | BITNET: tmh@tub.bitnet +49-30-851-50-21 |