Subject: Re: Disk-On-Chip support?
To: Brook Milligan <brook@biology.nmsu.edu>
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@rek.tjls.com>
List: current-users
Date: 11/30/1999 19:03:36
On Tue, Nov 30, 1999 at 09:17:42AM -0700, Brook Milligan wrote:
> Does NetBSD support the Disk-On-Chip chips?  Do they require special
> drivers?  Anyone using them for booting or otherwise?

They suck.  They require special drivers.

Just use CompactFlash parts -- they emulate IDE disks.

(Or, for that matter, controllers, if connected with the other kind of
 cable).

Use genuine SanDisk parts, though -- many of the Japanese parts OEMed
by other manufacturers have horrible bugs when used in disk mode.

Adapters to connect CompactFlash (or PCMCIA flash) parts to normal
IDE cables are available from Adtron and others.  Alternately,
SanDisk sells ATA flash 'disks' in a variety of sizes in both 2.5"
and 3.5" disk form factors, with normal IDE pin headers on the back.
Smallers sizes of these are quite reasonably priced.

If you're building custom hardware, though, I strongly recommend
you just put a CompactFlash socket on it, wired up to the motherboard
IDE controller, and be done with the problem.  It's totally beyond
me why the PC motherboard vendors who provide DiskOnChip sockets
don't do this instead, it'd cost them a lot less money and be much
more useful!

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
	"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"