[MiNT] PLIP-driver

[Torsten Lang <Torsten.Lang@bsk-germany.com>]

Hi there,
concerning the renaming ideas of Martin-Eric:

I already renamed driver names since there had been a good reason for (the 
actual implementation does not allow to find out about the hardware which 
indeed may be (and was) necessary for an administration tool) and had quite 
controversary discussions about that.

I personally dislike the idea for the following reason: It WILL confuse users 
who already know and use PLIP if you rename the old stuff and put some new 
under the SAME name! It's even more confusing having a plip.xif from an old 
package talking to an aplip.xif of a new package but not talking (or even 
destroying the VERY sensitive printer port) when trying to connect to a 
plip.xif of a new network package.

So if you want to write new drivers simply give them new names and document 
what you've done - that's ok for all. BTW, The Linux PLIP uses 4 bit data 
transmission plus some handshake lines which is impossible with the original 
Atari hardware. So since you will also have to write a new PLIP driver for 
Linux (and Amiga and any other interesting platform if you want to have a 
"compatible" protocol) simply give it a new name and all will be happy. It may 
even worth a thought of porting the actual MiNT-Net PLIP to Linux. AFAIK the 
Atari PLIP also allows multiple machines to connect together (at least I think 
to remember Kay telling me so) which is quite interesting. But I never 
evperimented with that since the Yamaha sound chip is very sensitive and ports 
are easily and quickly destroyed when collisions occur!

BTW, have you already asked the Linux community for renaming their PLIP to to 
LPLIP to avoid confusion???

I'm not adhering to Linux (the interface names are more like the Solaris scheme 
yet) so I see no necessarity to be "compatible" in the way that every driver 
name, every file name and so on tastes like Linux.

Regards,
     Torsten
--
BSK Datentechnik GmbH
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Tel: +49 / (0)6408 / 9053-0
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Torsten Lang
Tel: +49 / (0)6408 / 9053-54
EMail: Torsten.Lang@bsk-germany.com