🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun18.201125.6198@cs.cmu.edu> jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick) writes:

 > We'd really like the extra speed if possible.  Is the PC going to be
 > able to keep up with 19200 bps?  How about 9600 bps?

I think the original IBM-PC would be hard pressed to keep up with even
9,600 baud modems, much less a 19,200 connection.  It may be just barely
possible for this to work if you have (a) a communication program which
doesn't impose too much overhead -- obviously comm programs which run
under Windows are out, but character-based comm programs vary widely in
the CPU time they "waste" in doing other processing; I would try
{commo}, which is a very un-memory-intensive, un-CPU-intensive shareware
comm program; (b) a serial port which knows how to buffer incoming
characters (FIFO = First In, First Out).  There's a serial port chip
called 16xxxA, which can buffer a few characters.  I don't know the
details about the new Hayes smart serial ports, but they almost
certainly also implement buffering, too.

If you want to upgrade to better CPU, I would imagine a 12Mhz 80286
should do the job... probably better if you still consider (a) & (b).

--
Above text where applicable is (c) Copyleft 1991, all rights deserved by:
UNIX:/etc/ping instantiated (Ping Huang) [INTERNET: pshuang@athena.mit.edu]