On Fri, 12 Nov 1999 12:22:05 -0500 Ram Meenakshisundaram
<rmeenaks_at_olf.com> wrote:
> I was just looking over Sundance's Serial TRAM and it doesnt even use a
> transputer. It just uses C011s to handle the links.
That was one of the designes that we looked at...
> Wouldnt that be easier???
It depends... Wasn't that the one with the Z80 on it? And
some firmware in ROM?
> There would be no need to get any spare transputers (and
> they are hard to source these days). The SMT220 seems to
> be a very easy design.
It's also a very inflexible one in that, without a
transputer, you can't download code to it and implement any
intelligence in the serial TRAM. The big advantage of a
transputer directly connected to a UART is that you can
load it with code to do buffering, timeouts, time-stamping,
protocol conversion -- anything you want in fact!
> As John said, it would be really neat if it can handle
> modems, etc like a true PC-based serial port...
Modem control lines were essential in our application (not
for a modem, but for RS-485 support). But I wouldn't call
the PC's serial port "true", either...
--
John Honniball
Email: John.Honniball_at_uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England
Received on Fri Nov 12 1999 - 11:43:05 GMT