On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Tristan Horn wrote:

> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Ken Nakata wrote:
> > You may have to dump/view the content of the ROM, using MacsBug or Slots
> > program.  A copy of Slots should be found on ftp.macbsd.com.
> 
> I have MacsBug installed, but I'm in the class of users who don't know how
> to do anything useful with it other than es and rb.  :)

In the newer macbugs that I got off the CodeWarriorCD you can type
help (or somethig similar) to get a list of commands and some
explanation of what they do, using the log command you can export this
to macos and print it.

> I couldn't find Slots at ftp://ftp.macbsd.com/pub/NetBSD/
> 
> > On which machine it claims to work doesn't matter.  What matters to
> > NetBSD "ae" or "sn" driver is what programming model it uses.  NIC
> > chip and SONIC chip are different enough to need different drivers.
> > Your card is recognized by the "ae" driver that takes care of NIC
> > variation, but I have a feeling that yours is a SONIC chip which the
> > "sn" driver should recognize.
> 
> I guess it's time to download ksrc121...

I am actually very interested in this problem and since I have been
poking around the relevant sources maybe we could give it a try.

The very first thing we all really need to know is what kind of 
chip is running this card.  The easiest way to find this out
is to open up your mac and read it off.  Open the case on your IIci
take a look at the chip with the largest surface area on the ethernet
card.  Their should be at least one line of writing silkscreened on it often
3 or four or so.  We are looking for a manufacturers symbol and a number
that looks like 8390 or 83932 or 83??? there maybe other letters or
numbers on either end.  Best thing to do is just write down
all the writing and only send us what looks like the 839?? line (this
way if what you send us looks wrong we won't have to ask you to crack
the case again) this information we absolutely need.

Next it would be helpful if you can aquire the afore mentioned slots
program (maybe someone on the list can tell you where to get it or
send it to you.) this could be helpful later.

There is still hope of getting this card to work.

The problem is that NetBSD isn't reading your MAC address correctly
(the 00:00:00:00:00:00 number from your message)  If you have a NIC
(8390 variant) card this might not be a problem.  See the Ethernet MAC address
is a string of 48 bits that in theory uniquely identifies each ethernet
card in the world.  Since it is very cheap to make identical chips, this
string is almost never stored in the main ethernet chip on a card since
this would reqire that all the chips be different or have some nonvolatile
memory on board.  Instead this 48bit string called the MAC address is
burned into a PROM or ROM on the card, software drivers read the addresss
and write it into registers on the main chip on the card which then
uses it.  This way all the main chips are identical, but the MAC
address are all different.  It appears that your cards MAC address
isn't being read by NetBSD's driver correctly.  There is a comment
in the source about some cards whose MAC addresses are read differnt
than normally, yours may turn out to be one of them, if so
a simple kernel build should fix this.  If this isn't the case there is
still hope, if this card has a chip that netbsd has a driver for then
we might try building a driver that doesn't set the MAC address register
on the theory that the MacOS drivers that were run before us have already
loaded the correct registers with this value.  To try this would
again reqire a kernel build but also a few easy source teaks.  If this
doesn't work and you can find out what your MAC address is some other
way, and NetBSD has a driver for the main chip on the card, you
could try to hardcode the driver to not try and read the MAC address
from the card but instead fill the registers with the correct value
that NetBSD's driver isn't reading off the PROM correctly.  Again
kernel build with a few simple source tweaks.  Lastly if you can't
figure out what the MAC address is, we can do like the previous
option, but just pick one at reandom since in reality this number
doesn't have to be unique it only has to be unique to your LAN.
If you chose a number at random that odds that will be wrong are
very very low (of the order of n * 2 ^ (-48) or so where n is the number
of other stations on your LAN) again this requires a few source teaks
and a kernel rebuild.

Start out by collecting the chip information listed above, and 
lettting us know.

> > (Is there any relationship between Sonic cards and SONIC chips?)
> 
> I'll leave that for someone else to answer.
> 
> > Before shelling out $$$, I suggest you check out the working status
> > page on www.macbsd.com.
> 
> I was hoping a IIci user could point me to the card they're using, as well
> as give me an indication of the price they paid for it.  How about the
> MacCon-i?  (Replies to this should probably be sent privately; I don't
> want to clutter the list with opinions on ethernet cards...)

Yes the Asante MacCon-i nubus card I have in my IIci works very well
and as I recall it ran me about $100

> Thanks,
> Tris
> 
> 

---------
Christopher R. Bowman
crb@Glue.umd.edu
My home page