> I'm not entirely sure that the SCSI controller is connected to the drive I
> have in there, though. After an hour or so of digging around inside,
> I managed to locate a ribbon cable which seems to connect directly
> to the back of the backplane. I'm confused as to how this could (if
> it does at all) connect to the SCSI card... 

The scsi card puts the scsi bus on the middle connector of the VME
bus.  you have to make sure to plug the scsi card in the slot for that
has the ribbon cable on the other side.

But even if you had the card in the wrong slot, netbsd would still
find it in the probe... it just wouldn't find any disks...

One more thing...the VME backplane has some jumpers on it next to the
connectors...if memory serves, you have to make sure that any empty
slot has the jumper installed.


> Perhaps NetBSD doesn't know how to cope with the card that I
> have? I'd hate to learn that I need to somehow find myself a copy of SunOS
> after I've spent all this time working on getting NetBSD working. :) 

Which kind of scsi controller do you have?  Last I knew, netbsd would
only work with the "si" controller (of those that plug into a vme
bus).  There was a much earlier "sc" controller that works (sort of)
under SunOS but not under NetBSD.  You can tell the "si" controller
because it has an NCR 5380 chip on it (it's a 40 pin package about .75
inch by 2.5 inches).

If you have an sc controller, buy an si controller.  You can probably
pick one up for about $50.  The sc is a real dog.  Trust me, it's not
worth bothering with.  (In the Sun 3/75 I used to have, when I
switched from an sc to an si, I suddenly became able to actually use
the mouse while writing to the scsi tape!  With the sc controller,
using the tape drive brought the whole system to its knees. )

If you have an si controller, make sure the DIP switches are set to
match the kernel configuration.  The sun hardware FAQ should probably
have the correct DIP switch settings.

Keith