[Coco] DW4 beta 1.4

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Saturday 13 March 2010, Jason Law wrote:
>>I've had a bit of a look at it, so it's all Nitros9 yeah?
>>
>>Unfortunately I'm not an OS-9/Nitros9 user, but I'm sure there's plenty who
>>are :)
>>
>>I double-clicked the DriveWire.jar file as mention in the readme, but
>>nothing happened.
>>
>>So I checked which progam is asscoiated with .jar and it's Java(TM)
>> Platform (SE) Binary.
>>
>>It might sound like a numbnuts question, but for us less Java oriented
>> folk, is there something we need to donwload to run it?
>>
>>Also, will you still be updating DriveWire3 for DECB users?
>>
>>If DriveWire 3 could include ftp access, that'd be great!!! :D
>>
>>I sent Boisy an email regarding this, understanably he's busy.
>>
>>Sure sounds like a great product :)
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com
>>[mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Wolfe
>>Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:24 PM
>>To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
>>Subject: [Coco] DW4 beta 1.4
>>
>>
>>I've uploaded a new version of the DriveWire 4 beta at
>>http://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/beta
>>
>>This version vastly improves disk image handling and introduces the Remote
>>File Manager for OS-9, which I think is a really neat feature (but one that
>>still needs a *lot* of work :)
>>
>>Details and documentation for the new stuff can be found on our wiki:
>>
>>http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/drivewireserver/index.php?title=Using
>>_ DriveWire
>
> One minor niggle, Aaron.  Those of us who used the prolific adapter, pl2303,
> found that for UPS monitoring, and for low traffic stuff like using it to
> talk to a cm11a (an x10 controller) from heyu, found that our logs were being
> spammed by loss of connection messages and/or false system shutdowns.  It
> seems to throw away the first byte of an infrequent data packet, causing loss
> of data sync and it can take many packets in the case of a slowly streaming
> UPS, to get back in sync.  The fdti devices cure that.  It is so common that
> when someone on either mailing list reports a comm problem, our first
> question is "are you using a prolific adapter?"  90+% are.
>
> I wasn't aware of a latency problem though, and for me, it hasn't been a
> noticeable problem as 9600 baud has been as high as I've ran them.  However,
> they are speed sensitive, and I had to incorporate a 'tuneport /p -s=30" into
> my startup scripts on the coco3/6309/nitros9-3.2.9 system in order to get it
> within 3 or 4% of correct before the fdti would pass the data reliably.  The
> default is 13, and nearly 17kilobaud when xmode /p bau=6 in in effect.
>

The speed problems with FTDI controllers and the fix are well
documented by FTDI themselves:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Documents/AppNotes/AN232B-04_DataLatencyFlow.pdf

The fix suggested within seems to resolve the issue completely for me.

My experience with Prolific adapters is limited to the one I own.  It
is a pl2303 and actually works very well with DriveWire 3 and 4...
except that it will cause my Windows 7 system to blue screen after
several hours of operation.  Seems to be a driver issue because the
adapter works without any issue on linux and OS X systems.  In fact
it's been running the coco web server 24/7 for over a week now (linux
server).

I have heard the horror stories about Prolific adapters.  Maybe DW
keeps it busy enough to stay in sync.  Or maybe I just have the only
one that works :)



>>As always, feedback and bug reports are most welcome.
>>-Aaron
>>
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>
>
> --
> Cheers, Gene
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
>
> Do one thing and do it well.
>
>        - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power.
>
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