Re: Vulcan GS/OS Driver

["William Garber" <willy46pa@garberstreet.com>]

"Rusty" <rdekema@gmail.com> wrote in message 1181309526.133829.282910@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com">news:1181309526.133829.282910@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
: > > At a minimum it probably supports multi-sector transfers on a single IO
: > > call. IIRC, the P8 compatible ROM-based drivers were typically
: > > sector-at-a-time.
: >
: > IIRC, the Vulcan drive(s) were all geometrically addressed, rather than
: > logically, so the driver had to do some divides to convert the block
: > addresses to CHS.  A 65816 could do that much faster in 16-bit mode
: > than in 8-bit mode.  This would also be a prime target for consecutive
: > block optimizations.
: >
: > I don't recall how the data registers of the card are laid out, but if
: > they were consecutive addresses, then a 16-bit load could have speeded
: > the data move loop as well.  In 8-bit mode, the move "loops" were
: > significantly unrolled for speed.
: >
: > Being able to allocate system RAM for caching and for the partition
: > table, instead of using the bank-switched on-card SRAM, would also
: > have allowed some speedups in 65816 mode.
: >
: > I wonder if Bob S-C did the GSOS driver as well as the firmware?
: >
: > > Directory caching is a possibility as well.
: >
: > Caching of any kind would be a big win--index blocks come to mind.
:
:
: This all makes a lot of sense; thanks for the info. Another member of
: this group has offered to send me the driver in the mail on a floppy
: disk. I wonder, would it be considered improprietous to host the file
: on the web once I receive it? I would imagine that the intellectual
: property involved is protected by copyright, although I don't really
: imagine the distribution of their driver could do any harm to whatever
: is left of Applied Engineering...
:
: Rusty

I foresee no problem with AE allowing it to be distributed
web-wide. So, feel free to upload it to my server, as well,
if you like.

William Garber
Email Address - willy46pa@garberstreet.com
Alt. Email - willy46pa@comcast.net
Web address - http://www.garberstreet.com