Thomas Boroske writes:
 > 
 > I'm a bit confused. The PowerROM, IIRC, is an Eprom for a number of 
 > SCSI cards (including Alsystems') that contains the firmware for 
 > these cards. 
 > 
 > The *RiscOS* firmware. 

Right, but it also holds the podule info structure (inc. manufacturer
and product ids).

 > So I would expect the content of a card's eprom to be totally irrelevant
 > to wether RiscBSD works with the card or not. The probing for devices 
 > occurs *after* the kernel has started, so I would assume that the 
 > system's memory is cleared of all traces of RiscOS scsi firmware by 
 > then (the eprom on the card, unlike the system ROM, is not accessed directly
 > when running the software on it, but merely serves as a storage base).
 >
 > So basically I would assume you have to use the driver for the Morley,
 > if there is one, not for the Powertec.
 > 
 > Please, someone tell me what I got wrong. Especially: Is any part of 
 > the code in the Eprom actually used under RiscBSD, during startup 
 > or later ? I can't believe it, I mean, you can't run RiscOS modules
 > (that's what scsidriver, scsifs etc are after all) under RiscBSD.

True, but although no *code* is executed from the ROM, the ROM is used
to obtain the podule's ID. Now the Alsystem's PowerROM uses the same
podule ID regardless of the actual card in use. This breaks the Acorn
spec as the podule ID is a h/w specific ID. RiscBSD sees all
PowerROM's cards as being equivilent h/w.

So what RiscBSD does, it is sees the PowerTec ID and tries to use the ptsc
driver on it. This fails as the card is really a morley (or whatever).

We are talking to alsystems about a way of identifying PowerROM'd
cards in a different way... this could get messy tho'.

 > Thomas Boroske

Cheers Scott

-- 
Scott Stevens, Network Services Group, Computer Centre, Imperial College
"Around 200 American tom-boys discovered the very same vaccine, I'm
sorry, Around 2:00 *AM* Eric and Tom Boyce discovered the very same
vaccine"                                          - The Radio Active Rep.