Ken Hornstein wrote:

> Hmmmm .... I haven't really thought that far yet.  My other concern is
> that the National chip that the Shark uses is also used by i386 PCs
> (and I happen to own one of those as well) so keeping this generic
> as possible is a win.
>

Agreed.  With the exception noted on determining which UART is which, the code
does not make any SHARK-specific H/W assumptions that I'm aware of (other than
that there's a consumer IR interface hanging on the primary USI).

>
> Well, IrDA _does_ want to do things like set baud rates, etc etc, but
> not flow control.
>

Depending on how much you need to change... I'll init the chip to IRDA mode at
115,200 BPS, which is usually what you want.  How much do you need to change
after this?

>
> My thinking was that it might make the most sense is to extend the
> current com driver with ioctl's to know about the extra IR stuff.
> I'll confess this was all motivated by IrDA, and I know the consumer
> stuff generally has a different interfaces, so it may not make sense,
> but I would still advise to at least try to do that as much as possible.

Thanks to the fact that I've turned the COM port into three distinct devices,
this would really be quite tough, and might not work too well, since most of
what the COM driver does is to manage handshaking, and to manage the TTY
driver...  Further, this would be opposed to the home control goals of having
tight control of timing for talking to funky devices...

> I'm in a sort-of weird category to begin with, so it may not make sense
> to even allow for me in your code.  I have a dumb question, though ...
> it sounds like you had to make hardware changes to the Shark.  Was the
> onboard stuff not enough?  Or am I misunderstanding you?

For those on the lunatic fringe, I'm supporting mods to the SHARK (that's why
the code supports the AV4 and AV5 devices, which without mods to the SHARK are
just pins on the Super I/O chip).  However, devices AV0, AV1, AV2, and AV3 may
be used on any SHARK without H/W modifications or additions).

Actually, based on the application, I suspect that more than a few folks might
want to tackle a very simple H/W mod: remoting the IR transmit LEDs so that
they may be placed in front of the A/V equipment you're controlling.  I plan on
documenting how to do this for folks that want to (and this is one heck of a
lot easier than going after the handshake lines on the internal UART!).

I'm happy to report that my initial glimpse at the code suggests that the IRDA
support should only a matter of one simple data table, and just two, one-line
conditional statements!  While more investigation is needed, this will probably
be all that is required. (I'll email you more info).

Cheers!
MarkF