Subject: Re: Dynamic devices (and i386 bounce buffering)
To: Rick Kelly <rmk@rmkhome.rmkhome.com>
From: Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com <michaelv@HeadCandy.com>
List: current-users
Date: 02/11/1996 02:13:53
>>One thing I'd also like to see in the ports is the ability to truly 
>>dynamically verify devices.  What I mean is, say you have sd0 and sd1
[...]
>>If the device is not responding, retry it N times and then mark the
>>device as gone.  If the device comes back, mark it as present and
>>keep going.

>This is, at least partly, a hardware design problem.  I know that you can
>do this on the RS6000 and perhaps a few others, but usually the SCSI bus
>hardware on most systems will react to this by wedging.

Are you sure?  I've yanked my CD-ROM drive off my NetBSD machine after
booting, to use on my Windows machine, many times without a problem.
I sometimes then bring it back and plug it in, without rebooting, to
read something off a CD.  No problems.  I've also done this with tape
drives.

I'm using a BusLogic BT747s, but I don't know why that would make a
big difference....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael L. VanLoon                                 michaelv@HeadCandy.com
       --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
     NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4,
                           DEC PMAX (MIPS), DEC Alpha, PC532
     NetBSD ports in progress: VAX, Atari 68k, others...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------