[rtl] comedi-0.6.8

[David Schleef <ds@stm.lbl.gov>]

It's time to think about upgrading to a new
version of comedi.  There's lots of new features
that many people have wanted/needed, and the 0.6
series has stabilized to the point where I *want*
people to use it -- to expose the remaining bugs.

Comedi now has a mailing list.  Send "sub-scribe comedi"
to majordomo@stm.lbl.gov to sub-scribe.  (Remove the
hyphen -- it's there to fool rtl's majordomo.)

Comedi souce is at ftp://stm.lbl.gov/pub/comedi.

The new features that are now implemented are:

  - device locks: necessary for using comedi from
    multiple processes (or RTLinux)

  - comedi now handles requests from RTLinux tasks.
    Most hardware drivers can handle this.

  - works with both Linux 2.0 and 2.2

  - kernel interface is significantly faster and
    thus can handle higher throughput

  - more library functions.  Even more soon.

  - a calibration utility for self-calibrating boards.

  - all hardware drivers now provide the information
    necessary to translate (integer) sample values
    to physical units.

  - I learned a little bit about binary compatibility.
    You should be able to compile programs with 0.6.8
    and expect them to run with future versions of
    comedi.

  - more driver-specific improvements

partially implemented features: (soon to be completed?)

  - RTLinux callbacks: RT functions can be called
    when specific events occur, such as an analog
    input interrupt.

  - value-added devices: separate drivers that aren't
    actual devices, but perform tasks with existing
    devices, such as a PID controller, a function
    generator, or a lock-in amplifier.

  - mapping of kernel buffers into user space via
    mmap().



dave...

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