[nos-bbs] PK232 to poll or not to poll (revisited) ...

[Maiko Langelaar (ve4klm)]

Some time back Bob had mentioned :

> As one of the folks who worked at a customer support tech at AEA, the best
> input I can give you is that all the programs that really worked well with
> AEA host mode performed active pollling.

active polling can mean many things. While trying to develop the hostmode
driver for the PK232, I have had nothing but lousy results with HPOLL ON,
so I'm going to go back and start from scratch with HPOLL OFF, which is
what I wanted to do in the first place. Of course one still has to poll
for stuff like opmode (channel busy, etc), but if the tnc has data, it
will send it now without any poll asking it to do so.

Now - guess what ? Airmail does exactly that and it works.

How do I know this ? I got frustrated, found a GREAT tool :

    Advanced Serial Port Monitor
    * company called AGG software

This is an EXCELLENT product !!!! Shows me EVERYTHING exchanged between 
AirMail and the PK232. I set up my KAM on JNOS, put the PK232 on Airmail, 
and exchanged msgs both directions without any problem. The author of 
Airmail obviously has alot of experience in this stuff, and it works. I
have to wonder if Jim (the author) ran into similar problems while doing
his hostmode implementation. Who knows ...

Anyways, back to the drawing board. This new info is of great help.

Maiko Langelaar / VE4KLM