RX01 Bootstrap Loader

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Sun Feb 13 10:10:52 2000

>Megan wrote:

> >Also, I looked at the SYSMAC.SML file and note that there is no .DrVTB
> >macro present (also no .DrSet macro although the information is hard
> >coded into the various device drivers, and obviously the SET commands do
> >work). Does this mean, in your opinion (maybe you or someone else
> >remembers that far back - 22 years ago) that an LS.MAC device driver
> >can't operate in V3.0B since RT-11 is not yet smart enough to use dual
> >CSR/VECTOR hardware that requires two .DrAst entries? I notice that V4.0
> >of RT-11 finally has the LS.SYS device driver, but there is none present
> >in V3.0B of RT-11, only the LP.SYS device driver.
> The .DRxxx set of macros were not added to RT until about the V4.0
> timeframe. If you were to take an LS.MAC from a later release and
> modify it in such a way that it did not use .DRxxx macros, and used
> what data structures were available in V3B, it certainly would work.

Jerome Fine replies:

I do not wish to contradict you, but I did "EDIT" the V3.0 SYSMAC.SML
file and found: .DrBeg .DrAst .DrFin .DrEnd
>From what I can understand, that means that the essential macros were
already available. While .DrSet would have been helpful, I can see in
block zero of LPX.SYS that there is a full set (pardon the pun) of SET
options and the LP.MAC file just has them hard coded in place.

The key question I am wondering about is IF the ISR interaction between
the operating system and the device driver that is present in V4.0 of
RT-11 when the LSX.SYS device driver is LOADed and both pair
of CSR/VECTOR are activated (so that XON/XOFF can be allowed
for a serial printer) is also present in V3.0 of RT-11? I do not want to
assume that just because V4.0 allowed two CSR/VECTOR pairs to
be active and a device driver such as LSX.SYS to have two .DrAst
entry points that V3.0 of RT-11 also allows the same thing.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Sun Feb 13 2000 - 10:10:52 GMT