Re: Hi-speed serial interfacing from A2

[spectrumdaddy@nospam.com (Ewen)]

Steven,

> What is the overall picture in terms of max serial rate for the various
> machines - slot-based card, //c, IIGS?

In general, it is not the speed of the serial port that is the limit,
but the speed of processing the data on an Apple II or IIgs. For sending
data, it will depend on how fast the code that is used can retrieve it
from disk and send it out. For receiving data, most comms software will
used an interrupt driven buffer to capture the data, and then save it
out as and when it can.

Spectrum relies on the hardware handshake of the serial connection to
conrol the incoming flow, and in the case of interfaces such as the
Uthernet card, relies on the onboard buffer on that card to smooth
things out.

The accelerated speed of the computer can help in processing the data,
but not necessarily makes much difference to the serial port itself.

Cheers - Ewen