Re: [MiNT] Bios question

[Frank Naumann <fnaumann@mail.CS.Uni-Magdeburg.De>]

Hello!

> So does MiNT sit on top of BIOS/XBIOS, or are there direct hardware acesses
> for performance, or whatever? Does it use just traps?

Yes, it sit on top of BIOS/XBIOS. But as BIOS/XBIOS are never designed to
be used in an multitaskingenvironment there are some performance
limitations (BIOS/XBIOS normally block, only one character can be
transfered per call).

Also the BIOS/XBIOS lacks several important features that are strictly
necessary for full working tty devices. For that reason there are several
hacks inside the bios access stuff that go directly to the hardware
(especially getting information about serial line state; polling the line
state to detect carrier lost and so on).

It's much more better to leave the BIOS/XBIOS stuff as it is and write
instead full featured device drivers that replace the bios device drivers.


Tschuess
   ...Frank

--
ATARI FALCON 040 // MILAN 060
-----------------------------------------
http://www.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~fnaumann/
e-Mail: fnaumann@freemint.de