[Coco] drivewire serial port progress

[Roger Taylor]

At 10:49 AM 11/30/2009, you wrote:
>I agree it's ambiguous, but I think he was trying to say you can do
>whatever you want on your own machine ("you own programs") but you
>can't use his code in something that you distribute to others ("for
>public release").
>
>Legally, I don't know if his license would hold any water anyway, but
>I like to follow the spirit of these things rather than the letter.
>
>The code is not very complex, and Mr. Olsen's implementation is very
>basic.  The virtual modem I'm just now finishing up for DriveWire is
>much nicer (supports more commands, more efficient, etc).  Porting
>this to the Windows version will be easier than adapting Internet
>Modem anyway :)
>
>-Aaron

Another thing you can do if you're building upon the simple DriveWire 
concept is to fix that dern server app for Windows.  It has given me 
the blue screen of death so many times that I get nervous every time 
I use it.  It usually happens when I turn the CoCo on or off while 
the server app is running.  If I kill the app first, no problem.  It 
doesn't happen all the time, but it usually happens when you least 
expect it.  Luckily, the Rainbow IDE saves your project every time 
you click the Go/Build button, so I haven't lost any work that I know of.

The laptop uses a USB to Serial dongle if that helps any.  I get some 
kind of IRQ error.  Why the system can't just keep running instead of 
killing everything I have open is way beyond me.  The software 
clearly isn't using the .NET framework or it would run smooth like my 
own server does and never crash.  :)

Now you ask, why do I use DriveWire when I have my own bitbanger 
drive system?  Because I can't get my 16K ROM to work in the Super 
Controller!  It just won't work.  It's like only the lower 8K is 
seen.  There's a jumper on the board that I have no clue about and it 
didn't seem to help any.  As soon as CoCoNet boots up and is scanning 
the ports for available devices (you can see this on the text 
screen), the first call to the upper bank causes a crash.  Yes, I'm 
doing it the right way.  The ROM works in any socket-based pak I've 
got but the Super Controller.

-- 
~ Roger Taylor