PCjr NMI and 8253 Timer interactions

[CSquared]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: PCjr NMI and 8253 Timer interactions


> On 30 Sep 2009 at 11:31, CSquared wrote:
>
>> Many years ago I tried a similar trick.  I think I wanted a 10
>> millisecond interrupt rate instead of 55ms for an embedded DOS
>> application, and I got it to work - sort of.  However, I soon
>> discovered that many other things including the Borland delay()
>> function depend on the 55ms interval, so I rather quickly abandoned
>> that line of thinking.  I rather suspect your PCjr keyboard driver is
>> making similar assumptions regarding the tick rate.
>
> Several programs made this work on the PC, as long as the interval
> could be a sub-multiple of 55 msec.  So, for instance, if you could
> live with 11 msec. or 5.5 msec., this is how you would do it.
>
> Hook the interrupt 9 vector and create your own ISR for 4 of 5 timer
> interrupts, then direct the the 5th to the normal vector.  All that's
> required in your ISR is any register saving required for your own
> needs, and a routine to issue an EOI to the 8259.   Works like a
> charm--everything runs just as it should.

Neat!  I never thought of that, but I can see that it would work just fine. 
I'm pretty sure I made the mistake of changing the 8253 counting rate 
without compensating for it as you describe.  I probably could have lived 
with an 11ms interrupt rate too.  I was porting a good-sized semi-ancient 
program from PLM-51 on an 8032 to C and PLM-86 to run on an embedded PC 
motherboard, and did not want to have to change a whole bunch of timing 
constants with the attendant risk of overlooking something.  I wound up just 
changing all the constants instead.  I'll have to keep your idea in mind for 
future reference.  Believe it or not, I still do a bit of development under 
DOS at times.

>
> However, on Mike's Peanut, there is no 8259.  Everything goes through
> the NMI handler--a very bad decision on IBM's part, seeing as how the
> 8259 was one of the least expensive Intel 8x support chips.  A
> rudimentary prioritized interrupt system could have been implemented
> with a priority encoder and some other glue.

I did not know that; I've never done anything at all with a PCjr.

>
> Cheers,
> Chuck
>
>