> I don't think there have to be tradeoffs like this.  An I/O driver is a
> system specific thing and as such, can be optimized for every platform
> (if we want).  The higher level things are not like this, but I believe
> the com problems are at a very low level.

As soon as you have a port-specific driver where you could have
a machine-independent one, you immediately lose all of the benefits of
having it machine-independent.  Namely, the bug fixes and improvements
to one version no longer apply to the others, and there are fewer
people using & working on either so improvements come less quickly.

This is a lose, and I see _no_ reason why the 'com' driver can't be
made to work better in a nice machine-independent way.


cgd