ONEFOSsil Documentation: ONEFOS.TXT - What is ONEFOSsil?

Section 1: What is ONEFOSsil?

ONEFOSsil is a high speed serial communications driver for 8250 series UARTs. The 8250 series includes all compatible UARTs, such as the 8250A, 8250B, 16450, 16550, 16550A, and the 82510 in 16450 compatibility mode. Other UARTs are sure to exist that may be compatible.

ONEFOSsil provides services for FOSSIL compliant software. ONEFOSsil supports most of the FOSSIL 5 specification and the Extended X00 FOSSIL specification. ONEFOSsil will probably work with any program that is designed to use a FOSSIL driver. Some differences do exist between ONEFOSsil and a full FOSSIL 5 driver, and the technical document, ONEREF.TXT, describes these differences. Very few of these differences should cause problems.

ONEFOSsil is special (it can't be called unique) in that it only supports one FOSSIL port at a time. This provides the best solution for multitasking environments such as DESQview or Windows where only one port is needed in each task. Just because ONEFOSsil is a single port driver, that does not stop it from being useful for multiport or multiline systems. ONEFOSsil can even handle multiple ports that share the same IRQ (read Compatibility Notes - Shared IRQ's.)

Some people ask why there is a need for another FOSSIL driver. Other people are finally relieved to see new FOSSIL drivers. Its been nearly two years since the last update of any FOSSIL driver. Most drivers are much older than that yet. Many of the current drivers are loaded with bugs, and the versions that are bug free are lacking needed features. Most drivers are not even supported by their authors anymore.

ONEFOSsil was wrote to fill this gap completely. ONEFOSsil not only provides an alternative, but a better solution. The author stands behind ONEFOSsil, promotes it and FOSSIL compliant software, and is willing to take the heat. In a time where more and more software is becoming less and less DOS based, it is hard for anyone to provide and support such a product as ONEFOSsil. It is only for this reason that ONEFOSsil has been produced as a shareware product. By supporting the author, you show the author your support of his work in supporting the product.

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This time-stamp last updated on Sunday, April 13, 1997 at 17:56 CDT (UTC -0500).

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