#: 8214 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    16-Nov-90  06:37:47
Sb: #7884-#Atari-ST file transfer
Fm: MOTD Editor..Bill Brady 70126,267
To: Kevin Darling (UG Pres) 76703,4227 (X)

Before I gave up on the ST, I spent many hours troubleshooting the serial port.
It uses a MF chip. 68901 if memory serves. The chip includes all of the
interval timers and interupt decoding. The chip has several caveats for use.
For example, you can't change it's config if there is data in the read buffer.
The driver in the ST ROM apparently breaks some of these rules. We Atari
developers reported the problem to Atari many times. They never fixed it. TOS
comm programs get around it by using low level calls... they take over the
chip. This is not kosher for OSK, and in a MT/MU OS you wouldn't want to diddle
with the guts of CPU timing and interrupt processing just to reconfigure a
serial port.

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