Subject: Re: CG6 and serial port support questions
To: David Gilbert <dgilbert@jaywon.pci.on.ca>
From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
List: port-sun3
Date: 03/05/1996 18:46:18
On Tue, 5 Mar 1996 20:56:44 -0500 (EST) 
 David Gilbert <dgilbert@jaywon.pci.on.ca> wrote:

 > Rick> When Sun switched from 68k to sparc, the decided that ring
 > Rick> buffers were a good thing as compared to clists.  Thus, a Sun
 > Rick> 3/60 had better serial throughput than a sparc 1+.
 > 
 > Rick> To this day, the serial driver in Solaris sucks.
 > 
 > 	Does this mean that it's all a software issue?  I know that
 > the NetBSD uses ring buffers.  Would it be possible to rewrite it in
 > terms of a faster or more efficient structure?

Umm ... ring buffers aren't inefficient .. however, there is a change to 
the tty code that would vastly improve them...the change is simple 
(basically, killing the "tty hog" stuff, since they're not required by 
ring buffers ... a dinosaur from clists) ...

Another thing that would be nice is a multi-character read hook in the 
line discipline ... this one is a weensy bit harder...

 > 	It seems from this discussion, that when I get my 3/260 (in a
 > little while), it will make a better uucp host that my 4/260, as it
 > currently stands.

Why?  NetBSD/sun3 uses the same tty code as NetBSD/sparc...If I 
understand the SunOS change, it was something that happened around or 
after 4.1.1...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
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