Subject: Re: Sbus ethernet cards
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: David Laight <David.Laight@btinternet.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 11/26/2001 10:20:17
> > There are single slot sbus NICs out there aplenty; I do not know if
> > there are ones with 10BaseT ports, but I own one with AUI and
> > 10Base2.
> 
> I have seen a number of single-slot SBus cards that provide Ethernet.

10M cards - typically an AMD lance tied to the LSI logic Sbus 'DMA' part.
You will see Sun, ICL and Fujitsu parts lurking.
It ought to be easy to make any of them work.
ICL certainly made cards that are switchable AUI/10base2, switchable AUI/TP
and TP only.

These cards sometimes contain SCSI because the lump of silicon that interfaces
to the Sbus contains a SCSI controller (and a parallel port and...).  There
is one on the motherboard that handles a load of the system peripherals.

(Yes you have Sbus SCSI cards to get more disks, and systems with 2 Sbus
busses each with 5 empty slots so yuo can add add lots of everything)   

Known variations:

1) Sun boards do not have a MAC address PROM, ICL (and I think Fj) boards will.
2) Later ICL boards (probably) have the 79c90 c-lance because the NMOS part
   went obsolete - the later motherboards definitely do...
3) It is possible some boards have the DMA+ part - but I didn't ever see any
   of them.
4) The board might have either a pull-up or pull-down on the ALE/AS line
   from the lance.  Both the lance and DMA need to be configured to match
   this resister. Further (from a driver source file):
   /* If the lance is run with ACON set then it glitches ALE when releasing hold.
   They fixed this in the C-Lance - but now get a glitch when ACON is clear.
   Thus the Lance must be run in ALE mode and the C-lance in ACON mode
   (failure to do this can cause the DMA+ part to lock the Sbus). */

5) 100M cards based on several sun chipsets, including the FEPS.
   (I wrote a driver for that one...)

I don't know how 'good' the netBSD driver for these cards is.  We had a lot of
trouble with Sbus latency on heavily loaded (usually multi-cpu) systems.
(but never in the development lab....)  The Sbus doesn't guarantee the lance
enough bandwith - so you get fifo underrun and overrun errors.

Yes - these card come up for sale on ebay...

    David