On Sunday 26 February 2017 12:37:02 Jon Elson wrote:

> On 02/25/2017 01:29 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
> > Over the years, it has been seen that certain parallel port
> > chips did not work properly with my hal_ppmc driver.
>
> Hmmm, I was hoping to get more discussion of this.  It
> concerns a MAJOR overhaul of my hal_ppmc driver.
>
> I can see 3 ways to deal with the problem:
>
> 1.  Make it automatic, it tries with the "manual" port
> direction change off, if no boards can be sensed, turn the
> direction change on, and try again.
>
> 2.  Make it a command line option.
>
> 3.  Make two versions, hal_ppmc and hal_ppmc_old.  Chack
> after a year and see if anyone is actually using
> hal_ppmc_old, and if not, remove it from LinuxCNC.
>
> I kind of like option 3, as it will have a lot cleaner code,
> and also, if it turns out to be a big mistake, we just
> remove the new version instead.
>
> One additional concern would be the multi-port option of
> hal_ppmc. As far as I know, NO ONE has EVER used this
> feature, but it does allow you to have up to 3 parallel
> ports in use on the same system. How do you handle it if one
> requires the manual direction change, and one doesn't?  Ugh,
> I really don't want to spend days hacking on code that will
> never be used.
>
> Sorry my original message was so long, I wanted to set the
> stage for the question.
>
> Any comments?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon

Parport cards aren't THAT expensive if someone gets caught out by option 
3. And if that warning that the old one will be expunged on such and 
such a date, is right in the manpage for it, and at that point it gets 
renamed to -old, the only fix would be in the users halfiles loadrt 
line. So the problem is a bit vaporous if they can do the edit needed.

Option 3 has it covered IMO Jon.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

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