Mail from <pab@users.sourceforge.net>, 02/06/01

Stephane mentioned the hamlib project to the
linradio.sourceforge.net developers a few weeks
ago. I believe my reply was routed to
/dev/null@shell1.sourceforge.net. Anyway I have
put some notes and early untested code at:

http://linradio.sourceforge.net/hamlib.html


Here are some winradio-specific issues:
- Winradios are simple (henceforth cheap) receivers. The software
  driver does a lot of work that you would normally expect to see in
  an embedded controller. The driver is about 100KB of C.
- Receivers come with ISA, PCMCIA and RS232 interfaces.
- The protocol varies a lot across the model range.
- Most models barely have an internal state. They can't even tell
  which frequency they are tuned to.
- With most models, frequency sweeping must be done in software. This
  requires real-time tricks with RS232 (currently suboptimal).
- High-end models have a DSP (not supported with Linux).

We are currently providing two abstractions for all of this:
- A kernel module which provides /dev/winradioX devices and ioctl API
  (radio_ioctl.h).
- A user-mode driver which has problems with security (being root to
  use ISA receivers) and RS232 performance.

The best approach is to create a hamlib-X.Y.Z/winradio/winradio.c file
that wraps our ioctl API (toolkit/driver/radio_ioctl.h) into a "struct
rig_caps".