On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 19:49:31 -0500 (CDT),
"The Great Mr. Kurtz [David A. Gatwood]" <davagatw@Mars.utm.edU> wrote:
> 
> MkLinux's external SCSI driver seems to have problems handling things such
> as drives not ready (e.g. attempting to access a removable while it's
> spinning up.  I've had a look at the sources, and it says they're from
> NetBSD, some driver called asc.c.
> 
> /*      $NetBSD: asc.c,v 1.18 1996/03/18 01:39:47 jonathan Exp $        */
> 
> I have several questions:
> 1.  What NetBSD platform did that come from?

Isn't that our sound chip driver? ;-) Ok, it sure looks like
sys/dev/tc/asc.c, which is a turbochannel device driver.  So, it must
be pmax and/or alpha.

> 2.  Is that a predecessor to the esp driver?

It looks like a 53c94 driver...  Isn't esp a 53c96 driver?  I don't
know anything about their similarity...  You should be able to
download the datasheets in PDF from NCR's web site IIRC.

> 3.  What's the current status of the esp driver?  Will it handle such
> things as not causing a kernel panic when accessing a drive that's not
> ready?  Since esp's supposedly so M.I., what's the chance of easily
> porting it into MkLinux (given that its current driver is a NetBSD driver
> of some ilk)?

I can't comment on this one.

> 4.  What's the probability that it will help?  IOW, what's the probability
> that the problems are not in Mach's M.I. SCSI code?

"Who knows?"

> If anybody's online this evening who knows anything about it, I'd love to
> hear about it, because I'm considering suggesting that someone try porting
> the esp driver on the MkLinux development list, if it's more stable than
> the driver MkLinux already has.  (I won't be home this week, so I'd like
> to send it out tonight, before I forget. :) 

Well, good luck.  Wishing you luck is the best I can do here.

Ken