🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Apr.12.13.47.28.1990.7927@pilot.njin.net> limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) writes:
[...]
>basically the serial.device in pre-1.3 AmigaDOS wasn't so hot, and 1.3
>only has a couple improvements.
[...]
>Obviously the Amiga
>can handle it.  It just takes good software.
>(I say that because the ASDG serial board doesn't have its own CPU and
>they get great results

It isn't quite that simple.  The ASDG serial board has a several byte
buffer, so they do have a real hardware advantage over the stock Amiga
serial port.  With the standard serial port, you have to get each
byte.  If your receiver buffer full interrupt handler isn't fast enough,
or you get locked out for awhile (e.g., by the input.device Disable()ing
excessively), then the data is gone.  With the ASDG board (and the
Checkpoint board, I believe--dunno about any of the others) the
interrupt routine has a lot more time to do it's work before the 
hardware buffer gets overrun.  So it should always be possible to run
the ASDG board faster than the Amiga serial port, assuming equally
good software.

-Dan Riley (riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley)
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University