IEEE488 (lack of) future in FreeBSD

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <20080109214224.GA1966 at localhost.my.domain>, Alexey Shuvaev writes:

>Well, it seems that I am that lost soul who has NI PCIIA isa card
>in the experimental setup a few meters away from the office computer.

Whee!  I have a user!  :-)


>If I understand things correctly, the libgpib + pcii driver
>stays in the CVS repository forever? At least with RELENG_7_0 tag?
>If so then this mail is not an objection to remove these bits at all,
>only FWIW.

Yes, if there is no significant userbase, it will stay in RELENG_7,
but will not be in RELENG_8.

My worry is that since I don't use the GPIB cards anymore, the code
will be (already is) pretty unmaintained, and thus likely to rot
away.

If it transpires people are actually using it, things are different,
but it needs to be users, not just people who thought about playing
with it.

>So if the adapters from Prologix appear to the system as serial ports,
>are they a stripped down imlementation of GPIB?
>One external experimental device = one adapter?

It can do a full bus, you select the different devices using "magic"
commands.


-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.