>From: Rick Kelly <rmk@rmkhome.rmkhome.com>
>Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 21:06:42 -0500 (EST)

>I don't think that an OS should use kludges to make up for underlying
>hardware limits, at least not on cheap, Intel commodity hardware.

Do I detect a bit of snobbery?  I think I do.  IMNSHO, if someone
wants to run NetBSD on "cheap" hardware, they should be able to do
so.

>I take a certain interest in news postings that describe the bounce
>buffer support in FreeBSD and Linux as performance killers.

As others have mentioned, 16 additional MB more than makes up for
that.

>Jonathan Stone said:
>>I think, respectfully, that this needs to be fixed.  Yesterday.
>>(Even that  may be too late.)   And it's gone on long enough
>>that, IMHO, it's time to ask the relevant portmaster and Core members:
>>
>>	*Why is this still broken?*
>
>The hardware is broken, not the OS.

Bollocks.  The 1542 works fine; it cannot be faulted for existing on a
bus (ISA) that was designed when more than 16MB of RAM was nearly
inconceivable.  There wouldn't be as many 1542s in existence as there
are if it were not a solid design.

>The VLB and PCI busses are there for a reason.  A Buslogic VLB controller
>costs less than a Adaptec 1542, and is a lot faster in the bargain.

The 1542 costs less if you already own it, and VLB and PCI don't do
you much good if your motherboard doesn't support them.  Yes,
replacements are cheap; but people shouldn't have to replace *working*
hardware in order to run NetBSD.

I design ISA hardware for a living.  I wouldn't shed any tears if ISA
disappeared forever.  But that is *not* going to happen in this
decade.

In short, I'm with Jonathan on this one.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>           http://www.shore.net/~mikel
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA       (eq (opinion 'ADI) (opinion 'mike)) -> nil