*BSD News Article 14402


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From: adam@veda.is (Adam David)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: 3c503 on IRA9??
Message-ID: <C5Ey0C.AB1@veda.is>
Date: 13 Apr 93 08:24:12 GMT
References: <dwarner.13.0@sceng.ub.com> <C5DzL6.661@veda.is> <9304130133.ab09013@gate.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Veda Systems, Iceland
Lines: 31

damian@centrix.demon.co.uk (damian) writes:

>You can only select two things on the 3C503 card: the IO base address and
>it's memory address. The rest is all set by the driver. So you will have
>to put the correct info in your config file and the driver should set the
>IRQ address. There is no DMA on the 3C503 card that I know of so that
>can be ignored.

Thanks Damian :-)
So, if I understand right one just plonks the card into the motherboard
(after setting the correct addresses) and the irq level and DMA channel
(which are configurable in software) are taken care of by the driver.
This is good news, (OK I should RTFS, but I did RTFD) may I suggest that
INSTALL.NOTES be updated to reflect this if it is true. In the configuration
information section (actually just transcribed from the system config file)
it seems to state that the card has to be set to irq2 in order for the
driver to recognise the card. I did not try to use the card, since it made
no sense to me using a card set to irq3 which the system was supposed to
treat as if it were on irq2. At last I will try the illogical and just
plug it in to see if it works.

Gnnn! I wasted phonecalls to 3Com idiot-support(*) in England on this one.
(asked for which byte to send to which port on the card, and got asked
in return which of the supplied drivers I was trying to configure).
You live and learn...

(*)idiot-support: tech-support which deals with enquiries of a non-technical
nature, referring technical enquiries elsewhere.

--
Adam D. (adam@veda.is)