RXTX: The Prescription for Transmission

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Thu Sep 20 2007 After several setbacks, the ftp, wiki and bugzilla services are back up. The mail-list is under investigation. The system was upgraded which may cause issues that we are not aware of. Please report any problems to tjarvi@qbang.org.
Thu Sep 13 2007 The server behind rxtx.org has had a hardware failure. The machine has been repaired, files restored and has been shipped. It is expected to be online the week of Sep 16th. The mail-list, bugzilla, wiki and downloads will be restored then. The source is still available on the CVS link above until then.
Wed Mar 1 2006 RXTX 2.1-7r2 (Final) Source and Binaries are now Available! There are no source changes. Mac OS X binaries are updated from a current build and a problem with win32 libraries was fixed. We found problems with the binaries and had to recompile to fix them.
Sat Feb 4 2006 RXTX 2.1-7 (Final) Source and Binaries are now Available! Dont confuse this with RXTX 2.1-7pre... This is the Final release of 2.1-7. RXTX 2.0-7 will follow after Sun releases a new version that resolves incompatabilities. They have been very cooperative but things take time (think May). Mac OS X x86/universal binaries/install fixes Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com> source catch exceptions on flush() so close() works. Adam Walsh <adam@grummen.net> source more close() performance fixes Ãvind Harboe <oyvind.harboe@zylin.com> source Blue Tooth Support cleanup writeByte so close works, send the original exceptions so people can see the exception. Paul at freemail.hu source source %s/\`which java\`/\\\`which java\\\`/g in configure.in Takeshi "Ken" Hamasaki <hama@cyberonix.co.jp> source System.gc() slows down close() too much. Ãvind Harboe <oyvind.harboe@zylin.com> source Configure.java message correction User serial_close and serial_open in termios.c JNI_OnLoad and JNI_OnUnload are in SerialImp.c now so remove them from init.c Gerrit Telkamp <g.telkamp@domologic.de> source CNI retry on EINTR <mark@panonet.net> CNI Ignore SIGXCPU as GCJ garbage collection uses this too. Mark Anderson <mark@panonet.net> CNI Patch to avoid having the SIGPWR signal interrupt select() Mark Anderson <mark@panonet.net> CNI debug message cleanups and fd fix Mark Anderson <mark@panonet.net> Dont override system properties Klaus Kierer <klaus.kierer@tiscover.com> W32 build fixes and Locking fixes Dave Acker <dacker@nomadio.net> Mac OS X auto* build fixes liblockdev support dereferencing type-punned pointer will break strict-aliasing rules. Fixed. x86_64 Linux Fixes fixes BlackBox Serial now runs switch to JNI_VERSION_1_2 -- many people are still using 1.3 JREs Thread safer nativeDrain()/flush() method. Philip Gladstone <philip@gladstonefamily.net> Don't look for unexpected lockfiles in expected places Philip Gladstone <philip@gladstonefamily.net> adding the new properties gnu.io.rxtx.SerialPorts and gnu.io.rxtx.ParallelPorts insead of overriding the system properties and uses them only as default values Klaus Kierer <klaus.kierer@tiscover.com> release locks when device is unavailable. Tico Ballagas <ballagas@cs.rwth-aachen.de> J2SE java.util.loggin and property file to match Stephane Cachat <stephane@cachat.org> termios stack overflow fix for Linux caused by including termbits.h Bill Holmes <weh@super.org> Support for USB frobs in Linux (reports are that this does not work exactly as expected with some kernels) Christopher R. Wren <wren@merl.com> configure fix for jdk 1.5
Sun Dec 18 2005 After Sun Javax.comm broke their flexible 2.0 API, removed it and replaced it with an API version 3.0 rxtx can not support for almost all platforms rxtx supports, the rxtx 2.0 release has been hidden and rxtx 2.1 which replaces the API in package gnu.io is being offered to avoid confusion. The rxtx 2.0 support will resume if the design issues are resolved by Sun.
Thu Jan 20 2005 CVS snapshots and binaries for W32 and Linux have been put on the download page. Please report any bugs based upon these snapshots for the next release.
Mon Jan 17 2005 A source release of rxtx-2.0-7pre2 has been released today for testing. Binaries will be provided in the next release. Fixes for 64 bit machines, thread fixes for newer JRE (and maybe BSDs), minor lock file corrections. If rxtx blows up your JRE, this is probably what you are looking for. RXTX 2.1 has these changes in CVS also. A formal non pre release is comming for both.
Fri Jan 7 2005 A problem with the mail-list link has been corrected. The mail-list link was stale for a couple weeks so if you had problems, you should be able to use the mail-list now.
Fri Apr 9 2004 RXTX 2.1-7pre17 and 2.0-7pre1 source and binaries are now available on the download page.
Fri Apr 4 2003 New Prereleases for Sparc-Solaris, Linux and W32 are available for testing. The source for them is available. Here are all known current issues. Only the first expects to be fixed before 2.1-7. The rest should follow shortly after.
1. Baudrates of 128000 * N may have problems
2. Add a method for re-checking for valid ports
3. Add support in RXTX to specify valid ports on the PC.
4. Adding support for half duplex serial communication.
5. Error events for parity errors.
6. Baudrate of 5
7. serial break time
8. terminating character checking for reads
9. Event listeners need to be added when the port is opened to initialize the native structures.
10. Closing a port from an event listener results in a deadlock.
11. Closing a port without adding an event listener results in a deadlock.
Wed Dec 18 2002 Prereleases are available for testing. The source for them is available in CVS.
Oct 17, 2002 rxtx-2.1-6 and rxtx-2.0-5 where released today. read(byte) does not timeout read(byte[]) returns 0 on timeout (Fixes DalSemi iButtons) Dave Dribin <dave@dribin.org> QNX Port Bill Smith <bsmith@tridium.com> read() fixes - should be the same as Sun's CommAPI now. timeout and threshold fixes for above Bill Smith <bsmith@tridium.com> All QA tests passed [except Solaris..waiting for a CDROM]. Debian lock file fix "Villa Valerio" <valerio.villa@siemens.com> HP-UX port enumeration fixes. Sheikh, Awais <awais.sheikh@hp.com> rxtx-2.0 License fixes so Companies may avoid problems. HP legal and the GNU foundation.
Aug 15, 2002 rxtx-2.1-5 and rxtx-2.0-4 where released today. Small fix to avoid autotool version conflicts
Aug 13, 2002 rxtx-2.1-4 and rxtx-2.0-3 where released today. A series of minor bug fixes compile fixes. Custom speed fixes. Unix control of baudbase and divisor. updated tools for builds. First release since the QA. 'Works for me' release. Results of QA. Win CE port Michal Hobot <MichalHobot@netscape.net> Mac OS X fixes Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com> Multiple runtime fixes. timeout fixes and other fixes <wroberts1@home.com> lock file server. more portable output buffer empty detection. Compile fixes for jdk 1.3+.
Aug 12, 2002 Denis <primelhannes@gmx.de> has contributed armv4l-unknown-linux-gnu binaries. They have been added to the current tarball.
Mar 11, 2002 Tests releases of 1.4 and 1.5 are available for testing. Win CE port Michal Hobot <MichalHobot@netscape.net>. Mac OS X fixes Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com>. Multiple runtime fixes. More portable output buffer empty detection fixes. FreeBSD build fixes. win32 frame, overrun, parity & brk error support. Speedups for output buffer empty/write loops.
Feb 2, 2002 Tests releases of 1.4 and 1.5 are available for testing. Timing fixes Wayne Roberts <wroberts1@home.com> These will be replaced with formal releases after everyone has had a chance to test them. More portable (no pthread signals) output buffer code. Lockfile server. DSR/DTR fixes. Compile and runtime fixes.
Dec 9, 2001 Catherin Guiollot <catherine_guiollot@hp.com> has provided a port of the latest rxtx-1.5 work to HP-UX! This will be in the next release but we just wanted to give everyone a chance to download the work. You may find the source changes and binaries here.
Dec 4, 2001 rxtx-1.5-8 and rxtx-1.4-15 were released today. True64 Port Finbarr O'Kane <finbarr@e-merge.ie> FreeBSD fixes Peter C. Verhage <peter@no-nonsense.org> UnixWare and OpenUNIX fixes, fixes for Unexpected Lock files Jonathan Schilling <jls@caldera.com> --disable-lockfiles fixed. Same exception messages as Sun's CommAPI for baudrate errors. pthread writes for OS's other than Linux and Win32. OUTPUT_BUFFER_EMPTY for OS's other than Linux and Win32. Win32 port enumeration fixes for COM1-8. Win32 speed fixes. More thread fixes. fixes for applications not using Monitor Threads. lock file support for Redhat 7.2. Full CommAPI support for Win32, Linux and Solaris. Many more forgotten. Several days worth of testing (ongoing).
Dec 3, 2001 the cvs information has changed. See cvs for full details.
Nov 11, 2001 1.5-7 download link fixed below and 1.5 Serial.dll uploaded. Just starting to dig through the feedback on 1.4-14. Wow :)
Nov 2, 2001 rxtx-1.4-14 and rxtx-1.5-7 were released today. These are canidate releases. A one week period is open for testing/feedback. The download page will not change. The releases pass most of some tests being run on the lib. Here is a chance to get your changes in before rxtx changes slow down in a couple weeks. Binaries for x86 Solaris, Linux, Win32 and Sparc Solaris are offered for testing in 1.4 and 1.5. UnixWare and OpenUNIX ports. Jonathan Schilling <jls@caldera.com>. autotool support for Mac OS X. Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com>. Asynch write fixes. setParityErrorChar() and setEndOfInputChar() added. getParityErrorChar() and getEndOfInputChar() added. Lots of tickles a few wacks more error debug info. fixes by the buckets. Thread fixes for open/close/monitorthread/native code. win32 fixes for NT and win9x.
Oct 15, 2001 rxtx 1.4-13 and rxtx-1.5-6 were released today. Mac OS X port to Code Warrier. Documentation of the above. possible double deletion fix all by Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com> Specified port fixes Santiago Nicolau <nicolaus@ing.unlpam.edu.ar>. Merged with rxtx-1.4. comm.jar renamed to RXTXcomm.jar in 1.5 to avoid confusion. port enumeration fixes. multiple win32 fixes. lockfile fixes for native threads. thread fixes, thread test added. user defined lock directory support. Many more forgotten.
Oct 10, 2001 1.4-12 (stable) was released today. Stable? Well its got the Mac OS X port for Code Warrior in it. We will keep the last release on the download page since there has been little time to test everything. Here is a call for help. Test it, break it, report it. Please use the mail list linked above for bug reports. Its your best chance of getting fixes. Thanks to Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com> for the Mac work. (Joseph Golstone <joseph@lp.com> and Paul Tokarchuk <ptokarchuk@sympatico.ca> too!)
Oct 4, 2001 1.4-11 (stable) was released today. Late night release... hoped to do 1.5 too but it took a while to get the OS's up on the new lan. Lock file fixes and others <wroberts1@home.com>null termination of strings in lock_file and lock file fixes <rob@pitman.co.za> If you had problems with green threads jdk the above will probably help. Documentation of libsecure issues while running as root Vadim Tkachenko <vt@freehold.crocodile.org> Code Warrior build files for Mac OS X Dmitry Markman <dmarkman@mac.com> win32 fixes and enhancments. BSD tests are not currently being run; No time... jdk 1.2.2 is sig11'ing. Hints are welcome.. Mac OS X may be for rxtx 1.5 take your risks, please send fixes if you find something. Linux, Solaris, winNT tested for builds. Linux, WinNT tested for runtime. Please send bug reports to the rxtx mail list linked above.
Sep 20, 2001 1.5-5 (devel) was released today. win32 fixes <wroberts1@home.com> (NT tested). Initial Solaris port (2.6 tested). initial Mac OS X port (10.1 tested) Joseph Goldstone <joseph@lp.com> Paul Tokarchuk <ptokarchuk@sympatico.ca>. 1.5 package renamed to gnu.io. Memory leak Cleanups. cross-compile fixes. more windows fixes. more ioctl support for windows. more fcntl suppport for windows. misc changes to windows Makefile for building on mingw32 systems in DOS. uucp_lock file support. Many thanks to Mathworks for Making these happen. symbolic link lock files now work (Mandrake) peter.beelen@philips.com. Configure.in fixes for permission issues Vadim Tkachenko <vt@freehold.crocodile.org>. Closed memleaks on open()/close(). registered port support. Many more since forgotten.
Sep 20, 2001 1.4-10 (stable) was released today see 1.5-5. 1.5 is package gnu.io that replaces all of javax.comm. 1.4 provides the bottom for Sun's javax.com. Take your pick. Be happy.
Jun 21, 2001 1.4-9 (stable) was released today Minor fix of error reporting in lockfiles Steve Drach <drach@eng.sun.com> Mac OS X initial port work Joseph Goldstone <joseph@lp.com> enumeration speedups Wayne Roberts <wroberts1@home.com> Documentation changes for lockfiles build fixes for jdk 1.1.8, kaffe 0.61 automation of build tests with support for $JAVA_HOME sync with 1.5
Yes the maintainer was gone for a while.
Jan 26, 2001 1.5-4 (devel) was released today. Irix build fixes (still needs CFLAGS fixed?) Michael Delgadillo <delgadil@ymi.com>. Windows build support with lcc Valentin Pavlov <v_valchev@prosyst.bg>. Windows build fixes with mingw (both need more code). put enough support into win32 termios to allow BlackBox to run but not work. BeOS opens and closes serial ports. hpux build fixes merged. merge with rxtx-1.4 fixes and features. backed out Vector port enumeration. Futher Documention.
Jan 8, 2001 1.4-8 (stable) was released today. irix build fixes (fine tuning required) Tom Mander <tom@proximity.com.au> more lockfile code with testing from "Roberto" <rwaissma@mathworks.com> and Chris Portal <cportal@mathworks.com> bsd and linux default to lockfile support some documentaion clarifications.
Dec 3, 2000 [updated Fri Apr 25 10:45:14 EDT 2003] Metadata. rxtx now has a mailing list. maillist There should be some other changes comming once I figured out what all Jasmine Strong <jasmine@regolith.co.uk> has donated for the project. For those used to dry news... There are rumblings that 1.4 is going to work on irix soon and an outstanding critical patch to 1.5. With any luck the maillist will open up the development.
Nov 14, 2000 rxtx-1.4-7 (stable) was released today. House cleaning. HP-UX fixes for port enumeration. Cathrine Guiollot <catherine_guiollot@hp.com> CLASSPATH build fixes. Dale Seaburg <kg5lt@earthlink.net>
Oct 29, 2000 rxtx-1.4-6 (stable) was released today. Support for explicitly-specified lists of ports. Martin Pool <mbp@linuxcare.com> Documentation for explicitly-specified lists of ports. Martin Pool <mbp@linuxcare.com> Clarification of accessReadWrite(). Martin Pool <mbp@linuxcare.com> RXTXVersion.java was added. HP-UX fixes for Serial Support (it may need some fine tuning). Cathrine Guiollot <catherine_guiollot@hp.com> Documentation of RXTX lantency. frantz <fcapiez@club-internet.fr> Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 2.1 sec 5.6 lock files (UUCP style lock support is needed). Removed extra files not used in 1.4. Merged config/Makefile fixes from 1.5. Merged win32 fixes from 1.5. Cleanup of ParallelImp.c eventLoop (more needed). Merged documentation changes from 1.5 that are related.
Oct 6, 2000 rxtx-1.5-3 (devel) was released today. Initial BeOS Support Brian D. Hindman <bjhindman@yahoo.com> Win32 cross build fixes jcbernard@free.fr Documentation changes D. Bahi <dbahi@tenornetworks.com> Kaffe Support. Freebsd build fixes. Makefile fixes. Merged changes from 1.4-5
Aug 19, 2000 rxtx-1.4-5 (stable) was released today. RXTXPort constructor to set the name to the port being opened. RXTXPort.removeEventListener() fixes/work arounds all by Chris Hamlett <chris.hamlett@securelogix.com> SGI Irix build fixes Thorsten Schmidt <thorstens@cologne.sgi.com> Corrected SerialPortEvent.getNewValue() open()/close() fixes. Chris Hamlett <chris.hamlett@securelogix.com> SerialPortInstructions.txt contributed by Vaibhav Andleigh/Athena <andleigh@mit.edu> inputBuffer does not dictate read size. Makefile cleanup. 1.5 stop bit support.
Jun 16, 2000 rxtx-1.5-2 (devel) was released today. This brings the full commapi development version in synch with rxtx-1.4 (stable) fixes released. Initial work for RawIO support is included. Jim Garvin <jgarvin@gardelsoftware.com>
Jun 15, 2000 rxtx-1.4-4 was released today. rxtx-1.4-1,2,3 were used to work out some bug reports by mathworks's Chris and Joey. An attempt to get eventLoop() to exit properly. Chris Portal <cportal@mathworks.com> data accessed by multiple threads declared volatile. synchronization fixes(?) Chris Portal <cportal@mathworks.com> get rid of annoying kernel version messages Joey Armstrong <joeya@mathworks.com> Allow Event loop to die silently after closing the fd. LPRPort open() throws PortInUseException not IOException cleanup of LPRPort java variable access. Documentation changes Bryce Nesbitt <bryce@nextbus.com> HP-UX build fixes (still a messed up compile flag I think) "Peter Pastrnak" <praktfp1@hpbbm.bbn.hp.com> if you get HP-UX working please let peter know. redo of RXTXPort's read() "Bertrand Renuart" Many println's replaced with appropriate exceptions "Bertrand Renuart" Suse build fixes. Jean-Francois Fels <Jean-Francois.Fels@cnes.fr> jdk-1.3 build fix (lost the email that pointed this out) took out extra code from 1.5 development to simplify the package.
Apr 3, 2000 rxtx-1.3-13 was released today. patches for Cyclades support and other multi-port cards that do not support TIOCGICOUNT or TIOCSERGETLSR Jac Kersing <J.Kersing@the-box.com> Stallion Card Support Greg Luck <gluck@tempo-services.com.au> ~20 additional devices added for Linux.
While not complete, a development rpm is available with a full commapi implementation. Ownership needs work but BlackBox seems to run fine. See the download page.
Mar 12, 2000 rxtx development has two trees now. rxtx-1.3 will continue as a stable tree. A development version is now available. The main features are:
- a complete commapi implementation. (not well tested but blackbox runs)
- rough framework for RS485 support. (very open to changes)
- rough framework for I2C support. (very open to changes)
To obtain a development version visit the CVS link but use the following checkout command:
cvs checkout -r commapi-0-0-1 rxtx-devel
Mar 10, 2000 rxtx-1.3-12 was released today. Added Calls to DeleteLocalRef to functions get_java_var and throw_java_exception to avoid FATAL ERROR in native method: Outof memory when expanding local ref table beyond capacity W. Craig Trader <ct7@vitelinc.com> and Gareth Lee <gareth@ee.uwa.edu.au> fixed flush() for printer ports. Robert Perry <rlperry@paradigmsys.com> work around for missed DSR events. Ken Eisner <019769e@acadiau.ca> readArray behavior fix Gareth Lee <gareth@ee.uwa.edu.au>
Feb 14, 2000 rxtx-1.3-11 was released today. Added notification of output buffer empty. Chris Portal <cportal@mathworks.com> tracked down a bug in open() (introduced in rxtx-1.3-10) Tim Groner <tgroner@cs.umanitoba.ca> Ken Eisner <019769e@dragon.acadiau.ca> Fix for people reporting lost bytes. Wayne Robers <wroberts2@home.com> Douglas Baker <dbaker@connix.com>
Jan 16, 2000 rxtx-1.3-10 was released today. Tracked down threshold bugs and Linux configure fixes. Brent J. Nordquist <bjn@visi.com> Moxa Driver Support read/write examples libc5 build fixes. Peter Bennett <bencom@bencom.co.nz> FreeBSD configure and compile fixes Soren Dayton <dayton@overx.com> Tracked down racing event loops. Alejandro P. Revilla <apr@cs.com.uy>
Dec 16, 1999 Amazing. Ken Thompson has set up www.rxtx.org Thanks Ken!
Dec 4, 1999 rxtx-1.3-9 was released today. Japanese install instructions Thanks to Masayuki "Tencho" Yamashita <tencho@venus.kanazawa-it.ac.jp> IBM JDK support. Thanks for bug reports from Herber Carl Meyer <hcMeyer@mediaone.net> and Scott Simms <scott@beacon.com.au> Warning messages when kernel does not match headers Alejandro P. Revilla <apr@cs.com.uy> Documentation of libc5 bugs. Peter Bennett <bencom@bencom.co.nz> Warning when there are multiple jni include file paths. Win32 code now builds. Thanks to Wayne Roberts for the changes to termios.c. FreeBSD builds and works for serial communication.
Oct 26, 1999 rxtx-1.3-8 was released today. Introducing Wayne Roberts Win32 code. Thanks to Bertrand Renuart, Andrew Baerst, Mark Lindsey for bug reports. NetBSD port Stuart Anderson <anderson@metrolink.com>
Aug 22, 1999 rxtx-1.3-7 was released today. More Threshold and Timeout fixes. Comtrol card support by Ken Thompson. An initial attempt to get the printer code working with linux-2.2.11. CVS support thanks to Ken Thompson.
Aug 3, 1999 rxtx-1.3-6 was released today with some minor changes to Threshold and Timeout support.
Jul 30, 1999 rxtx-1.3-5 was released today. After a tour of BSD OS's (fun and recommended) rxtx is now able to build on the latest free and NetBSD. Openbsd is perplexing. If and one knows how to get Java on open BSD drop the maintainer a note. Some initial work on thresholds and timeouts was added. *BSD need more work with respect to events. Contributions are more than welcome there. If none show up, the maintainer will do what he can between work and teaching evening class. The debian dpkg file was added also. RPM and dpgk will be worked out in the next release.
Jul 26, 1999 rxtx-1.3-4 was released today. Improved printer support, build fixes many minor changes. If you have time give it a shot. BSD people interested in rxtx: the disks came in today. rxtx will build on *BSD this Friday.
Jul 23, 1999 RXTX has a new home page. A new release of RXTX with working printer support will be up Monday. BSD support is expected next Friday if the cheap-bytes disk get in.
Jul 02, 1999 RXTX is in transition. Thanks to Matthew Gray for offering a home for rxtx as we search for the best long term solution.
May 09, 1999 The cvs module rxtx-devel has initial support for printer ports if anyone is interested. ParallelBlackBox runs. Its not been tested with a printer yet.
May 02, 1999 rxtx-1.3-3 was released today. Fixes to hardware flow control and software flow control implementation. Many minor fixes. Thanks to Neil Darlow, Douglas Lau and Chris Kakris. Let us know how it works.
Apr 29, 1999 We suspect the flow control bugs are fixed in CVS for rxtx-1.3. Thanks to Neil Darlow for the assistance. 'cvs update' in the rxtx-1.3 src dir will update your sources. Let us know if they work. We are currently going through any build problems reported and fixing them. A tar ball will be released in a couple days.
Apr 19, 1999 We had hoped to release a new development version of rxtx-1.3 today but there are still two outstanding problems we are trying to resolve (ppc linux jars are not working and a yet to be completly characterized hardware flow control glitch). All other changes are available in cvs.

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Last updated: Thu Sep 20 11:16:35 EDT 2007