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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!uunet!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!ieunet!ieunet!dec4ie.ieunet.ie!jkh From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard) Subject: Re: what is sio? In-Reply-To: jbw@bbin.uucp's message of 15 Jul 93 00: 05:58 GMT Message-ID: <JKH.93Jul15082332@whisker.lotus.ie> Sender: usenet@ieunet.ie (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: whisker.lotus.ie Organization: Lotus Development Ireland References: <RAM.93Jul10194417@xor.epi.wisc.edu> <1993Jul12.075521.13223@cnplss5.cnps.philips.nl> <CA6Iy2.Bsu@bbin.uucp> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:23:32 GMT Lines: 15 >What does it mean for the serial driver to be bidirectional? I would have >thought they all would be able to send and recieve data so it must mean >something else? It means you can dial both in and out on the same line (think about it - if a getty is always sitting on a normal "unidirectional" port, you can never open it for outgoing read/write. Likewise, if you always use it for going out with tip or kermit, then the lack of a getty will mean that no one can log in on it. The bidir hacks allow this by putting the getty to sleep when it's not needed (that's the simplest way to look at it, anyway). Jordan -- Jordan Hubbard jkh@violet.berkeley.edu, jkh@al.org, jkh@whisker.lotus.ie