> 
> May I humbly suggest an examination of dmr's streams from 8th Edition UNIX
> (not to be confused with the USG/USL STREAMS crapola that they claimed was
> their networking API). Simple drivers, stackable modules, perfect for
> anything that wants to play with a stream of data, e.g. PPP, HDLC, UUCP,
> PTY, the various TTY line disciplines (the complexity of line disciplines
> was the impetus for streams in the first place...).

The one complication is that the hdlc stuff I'm talking about is
bit-synchronous. So you actually end up sending packets, not just
collections of bytes which make up what the network layer thinks is a
packet. I.E. this hdlc stuff has definite framing. The hardware needs to
be in a mode which is electronically incompatable with asynchronous
tty data (it's kinda like running a point-to-point Token Ring interface
at 57600 baud). That's why I want a seperate driver (somehow).

> This is a rather more radical change than Bill had in mind, but I think,
> carefully done, it would have benefits far beyond this particular problem.

Indeed.

Take care,

Bill