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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.development:1227 comp.periphs.scsi:14059 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au!belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au!not-for-mail From: juliane@belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au (Julian Elischer) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.periphs.scsi Subject: Re: Plans for Adaptec 2742? Date: 20 Sep 1993 10:11:26 +0800 Organization: Dept of Community Development, Perth, Australia Lines: 55 Distribution: world Message-ID: <27j3ge$k0o@belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au> References: <1993Sep18.164043.26737@cc.umontreal.ca> <CDKn31.FAD@world.std.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au [all comments below are relative to [386BSD/FREEBSD/NETBSD] In article <CDKn31.FAD@world.std.com> hd@world.std.com (HD Associates) writes: >In article <1993Sep18.164043.26737@cc.umontreal.ca>, >Surprenant Colin <surprenc@ceres> wrote: >>Are there any plans to write a driver for the new Adaptec 2742? (julian?) > >If either of the two new Adaptec boards (one is EISA and one VL) >support a target mode, and Adaptec will support it, I'll write a Julian >driver for it. >Peter This is the situation regarding SCSI adapters at the moment: I have driers for aha1542, aha1742, ultrastore 14f/34f, and bustek 742/445. There is a driver for the TNC1680 that needs someone to polish and debug it. (volunteers?) There is a separate driver for the st01/tmc885 (Imbelieve they are similar) that I have an offer to port to the scsi system. The AHA2742 is a new design by adaptec, and in their wisdom thay have made them TOTALLY incompatible with the old boards. I can get no information here in Australia about these boards, and I certainly don't have on to experiment with. If I had the programmer's reference manual and a board, then maybe one might get written in a while (I'm busy rewriting large chunks of the scsi system at the moment) but from what I've heard second hand it sounds like a hard job.. This is what I have heard: The new boards are much lower level than the old ones and the processor has to do much more work, (this raises doubts as to it's suitability for timesharing systems, but it's only a rumour at this time). Apparently it has some high power procesor or something on it, so what the f*** is it doing? Adaptec won't release a programmer's reference that outlines register settings, and structures, but instead insist that we BUY from them a set of pre-written sources that we then have to port to 386bsd and THEN CAN NOT REDISTRIBUTE with the sources to 386bsd(et al). This is about as useful to 386bsd/linux/etc. as tits on a bull. I'm hoping that some/all of this information is wrong. It'd be sad to thisnk that teh 1742 was the pinacle of adaptec's achievements. If Roy Neese can comment on these (random rumours) I'd be appreciative. I appologize to anyone on the SCSI list if these have al been covered there before, but I have only just got Usenet access again. julian (julian@dialix.oz.au, julian@dcd.wa.gov.au)