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From: shinoda@jaist.ac.jp (Yoichi Shinoda)
Subject: Re: PCMCIA (was Re: MCA support?)
Message-ID: <CqoHIB.Mr0@jaist.ac.jp>
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.development
Sender: news@jaist.ac.jp (News System Administrator)
Organization: Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST)
References: <1994May27.163614.567@is.morgan.com> <2s5h3n$ioc@convex.convex.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 17:49:23 GMT
Lines: 92
In article <1994May27.163614.567@is.morgan.com>,
Joel Reymont <joelr@morgan.com> wrote:
> Would anyone recommend a free (or commercial Unix)
> that supports it? I'm running on an IBM ThinkPad 750CS
> and I would prefer *BSD over Linux, even if it requires
> some porting. I would also like to keep the access to my
> PCMCIA modem and ethernet on the above conditions.
>
> Any recomendations?
>
> Thanks a lot, Joel. (who doesn't want to waste his skills on Windows)
>
> P.S. I got word that somebody hacked MCA support into NetBSD and
> that somebody else added support for PCMCIA to BSDI. Any
> pointers to those pieces of code?
In article <2s5h3n$ioc@convex.convex.com>
grefen@convex.com (Stefan Grefen) wrote:
> As there is such a big demand for PCMCIA:
> I've PCMCIA support up and running in NetBSD current.
> Requirements are (at the moment) only that the PCMCIA controller chip
> is a 82365sl or clone. That should cover most of the systems.
> (As far as I know even thinkpad's have in IBM 82365sl clone).
>
> There is a small device driver that handles the chip. As someone writes
> one for another chip every supported card would work there immediately.
>
> At the moment I have a D-Link ethernet card and a Megahertz modem.
> Any NE2000 compatible card should work with minor changes. IBM cards
> are supported but not tested.
>
> Some cards (D-Link, IBM ethernet , Megahertz modem) are automatically
> recognized during the boot process and the mapping for the PCMCIA bus is
> build based on config and card information.
>
> Also you can turn off a card (and remove it) during runtime, or insert and
> attach it during runtime (Reattching should work on monday , one bug left :-).
I don't recommend anything, but since Joel wanted a pointer, and Stefen
gave one for the NetBSD, here is the pointer to the counterpart.
I have been working on the PCMCIA support on BSD386 for last couples of
month, including machine independent power management support for those
machines with descent PM-BIOS implementation. You can do every sorts of
rude things with this driver, including hot insertion/deletion
and suspend/resume.
List of cards which I have confirmed the correct operation with machines
in my reach (Toshiba T3400CT, Gateway2000 Handbook 486DX2/40, NEC UltraLite
VERSA 25/c) includes IBM Ethernet, Megahertz XJ1144 and CC3144, EXP ThinFax
9624 and SunDisk SDP5A series. I also have working drivers for Xircom's
Credit Card Ether and Credit Card NetWave, but I don't think I'll make
these available to the general public, unless Xircom decides to give out
their specs without NDA. As Stefen mentioned, IBM's ether is (almost)x
compatible with NE2000, so the code should be able to work with other
'said to be NE2000 compatible' cards such as Socket's EA (this one's got
a 64K buffer, which is good for being spray'ed) and NE4100 info mover
without major modification. I'm also looking at adding a support for
3com's 3C589 since they are giving out the specs for free without NDA.
Any descent modem cards should work also, without modification, as well
as ATA cards.
The power management portion of my code is just about to be beta-tested by
the WIDE internet project people and should be out to the general public
in a couples of weeks, and fully integrated card support is in its alpha
test phase and alpha testers are enjoying switching back and forth between
ether and modem/PPP depending on where they are, in their office, home or
in the transition, but will take a while (may be another month) before
general release, since I'm working on rewriting some of my codes to look
like PCMCIA/JEIDA socket and card services so people can write/convert
drivers with ease.
Oh yes, several things I have to comment regarding the original question.
The stock BSD386 1.1 is confirmed *NOT* to work with 750s. It has trouble
with keyboard as well as inverted media change (or door open?) bit in the
floppy controller. I believe people at BSDI (or wherever) are aware of
the problems and are working to correct them. In addition, the instance
of the 750 which I had a chance to take a look used small portion of its
conventional (I mean non-SMM mode) memory, just below the VGA VRAM,
used for power management purposes, which I think will impose some
problems also.
Yoichi Shinoda
School of Information Science
Japan Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology