[ColorForth] USB and other serial bit boffing

[Dirk Harms-Merbitz <dirk@xxxxxxxxx>]

I can't think of a usefull computer that is not network connected.

If we can assume a network then storage over network is a simple solution.


On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 11:57:21PM -0500, Arthur W. Green wrote:
> Mr. Plichota wrote:
> > 1) The PC87 and PC98 roadmaps are mandating the total discontinuation of 
> > "legacy" serial and parallel ports (and floppy disks). Although motherboards 
> > still are available which provide them, laptops usually do not anymore. 
> If colorForth persists on the PC, are there any propositions for the time when
> floppy disks have simply been "outmoded"?
> 
> I am beginning to wonder about ZIP disks, which are *very slow* and CPU
> intensive for what they are. I am personally appauled with them, but I can't
> think of too many alternatives.
> 
> I am aware that someone did build a homebrew 68K-based Forth system using an
> ancient SCSI ZIP drive. I will have to see if I can cough up the page if anyone
> hasn't already seen it.
> 
> > The 
> > PC is moving further away from a simple hacker-friendly (well, kind of) 
> > machine and squarely into the big bu$ine$$ trap and is now totally useless 
> > for hackers, scientists, and engineers to casually cobble up a simple 
> > interface to another piece of hardware sitting on the lab bench. Treasure 
> > your old machines: they are literally irreplacable.
> > 
> I am beginning to notice, and perhaps even wonder about alternatives for my own
> "second generation" machine, if colorForth persists on the PC.
> 
> > 2) The wait states used to slow down accesses to the parallel port (if it 
> > exists!) limit the bitrates you can achieve severely no matter how fast your 
> > CPU is and there will be timing jitter due to interrupt and DMA activity. I 
> > would not count on a standard USB peripheral's ability to adapt to 
> > non-standard bitrates (standard = 1.2 and 12 M bits/sec) and a whole lot of 
> > jitter.
> I also figured this. That's why I was hoping in a twisted way to see if USB
> couldn't be used in a limited fashion. I have lost most of my hope for that...
> 
> > 
> > The only relatively simple idea I have right now that may rescue the notion 
> > of casual invention on the PC is to develop a PCI card that provides 
> > equivalent and hopefully better I/O than the past and limit the software 
> > hurdle to mastering the art of PCI bus interfacing. Note that this does not 
> > solve the problems involved with dealing with the gazillion different 
> > motherboard chipsets, video cards, floppy disk controllers, etc., etc.
> > 
> This is a good idea. I rather like it, but I already plan for [in a worst case
> scenario] two rather intensive PCI cards to be used under colorForth as well. I
> could be looking at the potential problem of an unacceptable amount of delay for
> "real-time" stuff simply because of PCI bus clogging.
> 
> > I have been experimenting with flat protected mode x86 code quite a bit 
> > lately, and have been smacked in the face by the hardware incompatibilties 
> > encountered when testing it on the various x86 PCs at my disposal. VGA color 
> > text mode 3 (inherited at disk boot time), and LBA ATA (aka IDE) interfacing 
> > (simpler and more uniform than floppy disk!) are one of the few constants I 
> > have learned to trust, and those are hints to any colorForth codesmiths that 
> > have the desire to release a generic normal character set version that anyone 
> > can run without hardware compatibilty problems. Of course, one needs a spare 
> > hard drive to play with, perhaps a tiny, orphaned 200 MB unit ;)
> > 
> Thanks for the heads up!
> 
> > I can contibute the DOS utility I have written (in NASM) to overwrite an LBA 
> > hard disk from the MBR onwards with a binary file if anyone wants it. It is 
> > hardcoded to use a fixed filename and runs off of a standard DOS 6.2 or Win95 
> > system-formatted floppy. It can be easily modified by anyone with NASM.
> > 
> I would be interested in the source for that, too. If it isn't completely out of
> line, why don't you post in plain-text on this list?
> 
> Thanks for your time.
> 
> Best regards,
> -- Art
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