I've had a look at the asm-cris rs485 implementation, as JP Tosoni suggested, and say that that interface would satisfy my requirements, and would also provide a suitable interface for controlling out dated radio modems. I would say though that some additional consideration should be given to the interface. I had assumed that the rts_on_send, and rts_after_send were time delay figures until I read the suggested rework by Alan Cox, then read through the crisv10.c code. In the crisv10 serial driver code the rts_on_send specifies the state that the RTS line should change to when a call to the TIOCSERWRRS485 ioctl is made the rts_after_send is the state that RTS is changed to after the transmission has completed. So in two of the four possible combinations user space control of RTS is still required in order to get any directional control activity out of the RTS line. I would be so bold as to say that this combination of user / automatic direction control would be unlikely to be ever used by anyone. If this is correct then the two flags could be replaced with one rts_tx_level indicating if RTS should be high or low during a transmission, and pre-transmission delay. Would this be clearer? The other observation about the crsv10.c implementation is that the call to TIOCSERWRRS485 ioctl, or write() if the enabled flag is set, does not return until the transmission has completed and the line has been turned around. This functionality could be restrictive in some situations (single threaded user applications that wish to do other stuff during transmission). My suggestion would be to scrap the TIOCSERWRRS485 ioctl, in favour of using the standard write(fd) and drain(fd) function calls, but to stick with the TIOCSERSETRS485 ioctl for automatic direction control port setup. I would be suggesting a control structure (based on Alan Cox's suggested modifications of the include/asm-cris/rs485.h) as follows: /* * Serial interface for controlling RS485 settings on chips with suitable * support. Set with TIOCSRS485 and get with TIOCGRS485 if supported by your * platform. The set function returns the new state, with any unsupported bits * reverted appropriately. */ struct serial_rs485 { __u32 flags; /* RS485 feature flags */ #define SER_RS485_MODES (7 << 0) /* Mask for mode bits. */ #define SER_RS485_MODE_DISABLED (0 << 0) #define SER_RS485_MODE_RTS_TX_HIGH (2 << 0) #define SER_RS485_MODE_RTS_TX_LOW (3 << 0) #define SER_RS485_MODE_DTR_TX_HIGH (4 << 0) #define SER_RS485_MODE_DTR_TX_LOW (5 << 0) __u16 delay_rts_before_send; /* Milliseconds */ __u16 delay_rts_after_send; /* Milliseconds */ __u32 padding[6]; /* Memory is cheap, new structs are a royal PITA .. */ }; Any comments? The above would allow for RTS and DTR direction control as well as settings for lead in and lead out timing. -- Christopher Gibson <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-serial" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html