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Date:      Fri, 20 Oct 1995 15:51:08 +0930 (CST)
From:      Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
To:        davidg@Root.COM
Cc:        root@spiffy.cybernet.com, hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: Bragging rights..
Message-ID:  <199510200621.PAA17640@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
In-Reply-To: <199510192337.QAA00227@corbin.Root.COM> from "David Greenman" at Oct 19, 95 04:37:01 pm

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David Greenman stands accused of saying:
> >As a slightly interested party, I'd like to ask:
> >
> >As mentioned recently on -hackers, isn't it possilbe to up the rate of the serial
> >chip simply by doubling (or quadding) the rate of the xtal driving the chip?
> >Many (most?) 16550 chips should be able to handle a Fmax higher than they are being
> >driven, and with 16 byte FIFOS (set to trigger at 14 bytes), the interrupt overhead
> >would not necessarily be increased.
> >
> >Is the same xtal trick applicable to sync serial, to get 32 KBytes/second @256000
> >bits/sec (as opposed to 28.8 KBytes/sec async serial @230400 bits/sec)?
> 
>    Apparantly, *some* 16550 UARTs will do this, but as far as I know, this
> would be overclocking most versions out there and might result in the part
> overheating (or simply not working at 230K baud).

The PC16550D (The "reference" part for 16550's) is specified to a 24MHz input
clock.  The standard clock reference for this part in a PC is 1.8MHz.
Decent serial card vendors (eg. Quatech) offer jumper-selectable clock
dividers to allow you to pick your desired clock rate.

I would have a hard time believing that a modern CMOS '550 clone wouldn't
handle a 3.6MHz input clock.

Regardless, the question was about sync serial speeds.  You don't do sync
with a '550, so the point is moot.

> -DG

-- 
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer        msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au    [[
]] Genesis Software                     genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au   [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and                                      [[
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]] My car has "demand start" -Terry Lambert  UNIX: live FreeBSD or die! [[



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