I'm looking at tackling the serial support to make it block individual 
Squeak Processes (this will eliminate the need to poll). I am going 
to add a new plugin to do this, rather than changing the existing 
SerialPlugin.

I am (for the moment) only interested in Unix.

Here's what I plan to do:

* use the aio support for asynch files. Have a similar structure to 
the AsyncFile so that we can:
* re-open serial ports on image startup
* block on reads or writes (note that writes are likely to be buffered 
by the OS)
* require opening of serial ports by name rather than by number. The 
mapping (if needed) can be done in the image.

I don't know whether it would be a good idea to have separate 
semaphores for reading and writing, though I suspect that I'd like 
this.

Do any of you see a need for such a plugin? Any particular desires for 
or thoughts on:

* separate semaphores for read/write
* on-the-fly changes to port parameters (rather than closing and 
re-opening)
* control/reading of modem status lines

Anyone want to help?

Thanks,
-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE