Personally, I have no problem with only 10% of available cards being suitable for EMC, as long as it is clear to users what cards NOT to buy and what cards to buy.
I will be hopefully getting the Lava card today and I will report my success, or lack thereof, as soon as I know something. Probably by the end of the weekend, as I am bone tired. Igor On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 3:13 PM, gene heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> wrote: > On Friday, January 28, 2011 03:10:50 pm Kirk Wallace did opine: > > > On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 11:18 -0600, Jon Elson wrote: > > > Mark Wendt wrote: > > > > Really makes one wonder how any of this stuff works at all. You > > > > gotta love it. A standard with no real standards... ;-) > > > > > > Yes, completely appalling, and I have to keep hopping to make my > > > boards work with a wide variety of par port chips. What a nightmare! > > > I think I finally have all of my boards set up so that if they don't > > > work with any particular parallel port, I can pretty honestly say > > > "It's not MY fault!" It is totally amazing to me that these chips > > > can't even follow the LOOSE standard laid out in those docs, which > > > just kind of show this signal comes before that one. > > > > > > Jon > > > > I'm beginning to think that maybe the most popular chip, maybe Moschip > > 9815, should be considered the standard, then make it work on that. The > > Lava and Siig cards may be better, but the Moschips are easy to find and > > cheap. > > Based on the estimate that at least 95% of these aftermarket cards are > based on this MosChip 9815, could an insmod-able kernel driver could be > written that would make it work? > > If this could be done, it sure seems like as close as we can get to a one > size (nearly) fits all scenario. I think that of course would have to be > subject to how many motherboard's 0X378 ports would be broken. Possibly > with some mechanism to insmod the correct, MosChip 9815 compatible driver > if it is going to be used. I just looked at the linux drivers, and while > they detect this netmos 9815 chipset, the quirks handling seems more > generic, mostly via lookup tables. An lspci -nnvv of my card: > > 00:0a.0 Communication controller [0780]: NetMos Technology PCI 9815 Multi- > I/O Controller [9710:9815] (rev 01) > Subsystem: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic Device [1000:0020] > Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- > Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- > Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- > <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- > Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11 > Region 0: I/O ports at a000 [size=8] > Region 1: I/O ports at a400 [size=8] > Region 2: I/O ports at a800 [size=8] > Region 3: I/O ports at ac00 [size=8] > Region 4: I/O ports at b000 [size=8] > Region 5: I/O ports at b400 [size=16] > Kernel driver in use: parport_pc > Kernel modules: parport_pc > > But this, to my untrained eye, gives me no clues as to the available > support modes. From my presently running 2.6.37 kernel tree on this box, > > TODO-parport: > === > Things to be done. > > 0. Fix the bugs (see BUGS-parport). > > 1. Proper documentation. > > 2. A better lp.c: > > a) ECP support would be nice. This can only work if both the port and > the printer support it. > > b) Handle status readback automatically. IEEE1284 printers can post > status > bits when they have something to say. We should read out and deal > with (maybe just log) whatever the printer wants to tell the world. > > 3. Support more hardware (eg m68k, Sun bpp). > > 4. A better PLIP (make use of bidirectional/ECP/EPP ports). > > See <URL:http://people.redhat.com/twaugh/parport/>. > === > BUGS-Parport: > Currently known (or at least suspected) bugs in parport: > > o lp doesn't allow you to read status while printing is in progress (is > this still true?). > > o parport_pc_ecp_read_block_pio() is broken. parport will revert to the > software-driven mode in ieee1284_ops.c > > See <URL:http://people.redhat.com/twaugh/parport/>. > === > So apparently Tim Waugh is aware there are problems. But I am not the one > to give him a nudge as we've had very strong words in the past over > fedora's non-inclusion of gutenprint into fedora, 5 years after gimp-print > had been declared obsolete and unsupported. Just one of the reasons I no > longer run fedora here on this box, now its pclos, and generally pretty > upto date and sweet running. My kde is now at 4.5.6 for instance, and > since 4.6 was released yesterday, I expect that to show up in the pclos > repos in another week. > > > BTW, the attached has been fun to look at parallel port registers. > > (Caution, can cause harm to your PC if you plug in the wrong address) > > Saved. Thanks. > > -- > 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) > <http://tinyurl.com/ddg5bz> > Anoint, v.: > To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently > slippery. > -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! > Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better > price-free! > Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires > February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
