On Sunday 02 July 2017 13:50:06 Jon Elson wrote:

> On 07/01/2017 11:00 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > I definitely don't want to get involved in BIOS updates on
> > somebody else's computer, but you may well be right!
> > Anyway, instead of the PCIe card, I tried a VERY old PCI
> > card, and it works perfectly.  So, it looks like some crazy
> > interaction between the BIOS and the NetMos 9900 chip on the
> > PCIe parport card.
>
> The NEtMos 9805 chip is admittedly pathological, even in the
> manufacturer's data sheet.
> later PCI chips apparently fixed those bugs.  I tried 3
> different PCIe parport cards in that HP machine, none of
> them worked.  I tried another PCI card, which enumerates as
> a serial/parallel card in several other systems, the HP
> discovered the card, said it was serial only, and was not
> able to enumerate it (the lspci -v listing showed no
> addresses associated with the card).  So, I think the BIOS
> in that machine really DOES have problems.
>
> > Glad you got it fixed Jon, and now of course you are THE
> > magician to that machines owner. :) I rather enjoy those
> > sorts of feelings myself. :)
>
> Yeah, I really DON'T like all this magic!  If I had known,
> in 2001 when I started the PPMC project, that the biggest
> hassle in the whole thing was going to be the vagaries of
> different parallel port chips/cards, I would have backed
> away from it.  I've gone through all sorts of hell with
> various motherboard, chip and card problems. The EPP cycle
> requires the CPU to go to a wait state until the cycle
> completes.  I had one that probably had a defect in the
> motherboard, where the CPU would not wait for the handshake,
> and just roared ahead.  No way I could fix that kind of
> bug.  It settled down for  a while with PCI cards, but then
> I ran into this issue with the PCIe cards recently.  I was
> not using the right software sequence to control the port.
> But, the REAL issue is, there is no definitive document that
> tells how to operate an EPP port!  Everybody invents his own
> code, and tries it on a few cards, and hopes that it is
> right.  UGH!!!
>
> Jon

I've done some googlesnooping on that very faint trail myself, a fair 
amount of time back though, and came up just as empty.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

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