David Campbell (campbell@gear.torque.net)
Sat, 16 May 1998 08:14:32 +0000
> Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 17:16:13 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Claudio Leite <claudio@tux.org>
> To: linux-parport@torque.net
> Subject: [PARPORT] The "pg" driver for paride
> Hi,
>
> I just heard about paride today, and was wondering what is the
> status of the pg driver? I installed 0.94 but still there isn't any
> support for parport cd recorders (hp 7110e). When will the driver be
> available?
When the following happens:
a) Hardware donation of applicable device
b) Manufacturer supplies techinical info
c) Someone supplies a couple of hundred blank CD-R disks
POINT A)
Unless a developer has physical access to the device it is near
impossible to write a driver (I crashed my Linux box several dozen times
trying to fix various problems). If you look at Grant's list of supported
devices there must be several thousand dollars of gear hanging off the
back of his machine. Grant doesn't have bottomless pockets.
POINT B)
Much of the critical information is "proprietry" and manufacturers will
not normally release this without a non-disclosure agreement (which
prevents making the driver source code available). If you can get this
information out of HP, congratulations, you have the most important bit of
information required.
My experience has been you need to get through to the developers - the
rest of the people seem to put up brick walls preventing you from getting
to the critical information. Keep pounding!!
Personally I have some bruised fists after hammering my share of brick
walls. If enough different people keep harassing them, then the
manufacturers tend to give in. (it is easier to say "yes" once compared to
"no" several hundred times).
POINT C)
CD-R devices are different from normal disks, you only get one shot at
writing them. It may take several dozen attempts to get the driver "just
right". Some CD-R devices have a "test mode" which emulates a CD-R burn,
if this is known, then the required number of test burns can be reduced.
(How much are blank CD-Rs these days? Even US$1.00 each by 100 still adds
up).
David Campbell
=======================================================
campbell@torque.net
"All parallel ports are equal - Some are more equal than others"
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