> Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 13:09:05 +0200
> From: Peter Koch <koch@dfki.uni-kl.de>

> Hi!
> 
> First of all, i'd like to thank you for NetBSD. Especially
> for the Sun3 port.
> 
> I have some questions:
> 
> #1: Is DMA working now (Ethernet and/or SCSI)?
>     The last time, i ran NetBSD, its performance was worse than
>     bad, because it did no DMA at all!

Ethernet goes reasonably fast (as far as I know).
SCSI is still polled and no DMA (it's being worked on).

> #2: Does NetBSD support the old VMEbus Sun2 SCSI controller (sc0)?
>     I have two of them and since they are plugged into the servers,
>     i cannot run these without them.

Nope.  Nobody has volunteered to write the driver yet.

> #3: I have two Ciprico Rimfire SMD disk controllers and two still
>     working SMD disks. I don't want to trash them, because they 
>     are so damn fast. Ciprico sold the Rimfire with device drivers
>     for SunOS 4.1 in source! Is it very difficult to port device
>     drivers from SunOS to NetBSD???

Given source to a SunOS driver, it should be fairly easy.

> #4: What's about Xylogics 451 or 7051?
>     I have two (currently unused) xy451 and the Rimfire does have
>     a xy emulation (for easy booting), which is usable (but somewhat
>     slow).

There is an Xylogics 451 driver in the sparc port now.
I've been delaying on the DVMA support it needs, otherwise
it should pretty much drop in...

> #5: What is so difficult about the Sun3x (3/80, 3/470)?
>     I'd think, a mixture of the HP-300 and Sun3 code should work!
>     I have a 3/80 and a 3/470 and these are great machines.
>     Especially the 3/470 is superbe.

I've heard that this is being worked on too.
(I'll let the parties identify themselves if they want.)

Gordon Ross