>recently I got a cheap (19.90CHF) CF<->PCMCIA adapter and tried it to use my
>64MB Hama CF card in one of my german MP2100. Worked fine, except speed.
>Duplication of about 10 notes took approx. 3min :-(
This is particularly slow (I mean if you used the non debug version).
I've been sent various speed reports, and apparently, there is a big
difference between the various cards. I suspect a bug somewhere in
the driver (which could actually explain the global poor speed
although usable of ATA Support even with fast cards). I probably have
to study the ATA specifications again.
But I think that before working on speed I have to fix the remaining
naughty bugs.
Here is a little summary on the bugs:
a/ when put into sleep in certain circumstances, the Newton restarts.
Unfortunately, I can't reproduce it. However, I've printed the C++
code of ATA Support (419 A4 pages in Courier 8) and studying it
showed me that there might be a timing problem in the driver with the
suspend/resume methods. Maybe this is it, but anyway, fixing this
problem means that I'll implement an auto-poweroff feature (go to
sleep after x minutes of inactivity), I hope I'll have this done by
the end of the week.
b/ installing NetHopper (and maybe other software) to the ATA card
while it's the default store locks the Newton somewhere in the
unflattenation of the package. This is a weird bug that I can
reproduce, but working on it cannot be done anytime as I need not one
but two macs (one to run Hammer and one to run Newton Package
Installer), so I have to borrow my Mom's iBook :)
c/ the auto mount button doesn't behave as expected (I just fixed it)
d/ there is a bug in the log version on NewtonOS 2.0 hence the -10059
(this is quite an old bug). I fixed it.
e/ there seems to be a conflict with SBM's Secret Card. I'll look
into this soon (BTW, don't ever use SBM's utility to unmount the
cards with ATA Support, it supposes that there is an equality one
card = one store which of course doesn't apply to ATA cards and in
fact even not with linear cards as there are some bits of code in the
ROM which allows up to 4 stores on a linear card - yes, hence the
fact that you can have up to 4 active stores on one ATA card).
f/ there is a bug in the installer, it doesn't catch the "we're
tapped out" exception (well, it catches it but it considers it as an
unknown error and says unknown error 6). This seems to happen when
internal store's available memory was too optimistically computed -
I've been looking at ATA Store's Used total, in comparison, it's
particularly pessimistic :-/
There is this 3Com driver conflict although I think it might be
linked with bug (b). I haven't installed the 3Com driver patch yet on
my Newton (I'm using the Farallon card which was given by Tim Hoyt).
Additionally, users reported problems with various cards. I wonder
where these problems come from, although it may also be conflicts
with third party software which I haven't identified yet. Apparently,
there is also a conflict with some cards but these are probably not
unsolvable as the identification process seems to work properly. The
problem seems to be when it comes to partition the card. I'm going to
add more debug code here and there to solve these problems with their
owners. If you experienced such a problem and you didn't contact me
yet, please do it, without your help I won't be able to fix the bugs.
I've started to write the documentation. What I actually plan is to
make the final release as soon as I'll have fixed all the bugs which
I experience myself. It doesn't mean that I won't try to fix the
other bugs, but for that I need your help.
Also, I'm thinking about buying an ATA card for storage (I realize
that I can't use the current CF card for permanent storage because I
erase it twice per day to restart from a clean point). Since I would
like to work on DMA (BTW, what I wrote here and on my web page is
wrong, Newton OS 2.1 devices definitely do DMA). Anyone has a
DMA-enabled card? I mean, which card infos, in the card info slip,
specifies DMA: yes?
Paul
-- Home page: http://www.kallisys.com/ Newton-powered WebServer: http://newt.dyndns.org:8080/-- This is the Newtontalk mailinglist - http://www.newtontalk.net To unsubscribe or manage: visit the above link or mailto:newtontalk-request_at_newtontalk.net?Subject=unsubscribe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Wed Oct 03 2001 - 12:02:19 EDT