Re: GEOS device driver questions

diel@intbuso.boeblingen.netsurf.de
Wed, 11 Dec 96 10:03:23 -0500

Nathan, thank you very much.
This helped me, but it led also to further questions.

I developed a new PCMCIA driver which I tested already under DOS and which
I now want to port to OMNIGO/GEOS.

>Which driver do you want to specify? I believe it's name will be the same
>as that shown in Swat when the system is booting.

My driver does not show up in SWAT when the system is booting. Maybe
that's my first problem (?).

>It is the "permanent"
>name of the driver, usually eight characters or less. For PCMCIA it would
>be "pcmcia".

When I tried it with name = "pcmcia" , the application generation by the
SDK worked fine, but at run-time I got the message
"Couldn't launch the app"
When I used the name which I gave as the permanent name in the .gp file
(it is "smcard", or "smcardec" ), PMAKE or probably GLUE says
"cannot locate library smcard" (or cannot locate library
smcardec)

Questions:
1. What is the right way to specify my drivers name ?
The answer to this question probably should also explain how I have
to introduce my driver to the GEOS. Right now I just
- declared it in the .gp file as a driver
- transfer it to the target machine in the directory
\SYSTEM\PCMCIA\
2. When do I have to specify such a dependency on a driver, anyway ?
Does, for example GeodeUseDriver require this .gp parameter ?

>GeodeUseDriver takes care of all initialization in the driver. Simply
>call the function and you're ready to start using the driver. Be sure to
>call GeodeFreeDriver when you're done with it.

When I invoked GeodeUseDriver( filename, 0, 0, err ) GEOS returned the
error code 11
GLE_LIBRARY_PROTOCOL_ERROR,
Do you have an idea what the problem might be ?

>GEOS calls a driver when it is needed. If it isn't needed during bootup,
>it isn't called up.

Is there a way to tell GEOS that I would like to have the driver loaded
during bootup ?

>I might be misunderstanding your question, but here's an answer: The last
>thing displayed in Swat when it is finished booting GEOS differs from one
>machine to the next. On the Zoomer, two lines about zmanager are the last
>things printed. When booting GEOS2X two lines about debug are the last
>lines printed. On the OmniGo, the last line printed is about the pcmcia
>geode exiting. For which platform are you writing a PCMCIA driver?

I'm writing the driver for GEOS-OMNIGO.
I was curious about this "reused patient pcmcia" message, because I
thought it might be something interesting to me as a writer of a pcmcia
device driver.

Thanks again and regards, Hans Diel

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diel@intbuso.boeblingen.netsurf.de
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