Subject: RE: okey, its time to get some more terminals.
To: Ronny Svedman <ronny@Update.UU.SE>
From: Johnny Billquist <bqt@Update.UU.SE>
List: port-vax
Date: 09/17/1998 18:39:19
On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Ronny Svedman wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Gunnar Helliesen wrote:
> > Ronny Svedman wrote:
> > > 
> > > Is it not possible to avoid building a kernel, by simply 
> > > setting the card
> > > switches to whatever is teh kernels idea of where it's at ?
> 
> > Well, that depends on what other hardware you have installed. The point
> > is to avoid conflicts on the bus.
> 
> Aha! *click*
> 
> BOTH vector and csr numbers must be unique over the bus !

Yes. In PC-speak, CSR is the I/O address, and the vector don't have an
equvalent term (no, it is *not* the same as the IRQ).
Most modern hardware have software settable vector, however, so that is
usually not a problem.

(Btw, CSR stands for Control & Status Register).

> now, thats a very important piece of information.

I would say so. :-)

> I havent been juggling the hordware in this computer around at all,
> assuming that there should be no conflicts. But now i get this feeling..

Your feeling is most likely wrong. ;-)

> Is the csr & vector of the different boards hardcoded in the kernel?

CSR is hardcoded in the kernel, vector is not.

> I assumed that there was some autodetection facility to figure out the
> comfiguration (i.e the kernel scans for cards and reads the cards' switch
> settings at boot-time). I fthis is not the case, no wonder it wont work
> "out of the box" :)

No autodetect. If someone would like to, they could implement the DEC
detection stuff, but I don't think it's worth the hassle.
But the DHx-11 cards are normally strapped for 760440, which also is the
address that NetBSD expects it to be, so things should usually work just
fine. And once more: If the cards is detected at boot you are all set.
There is nothing more to it.

> You mentioned earlier that there is a utility to determine the numbers for
> unix also. It would be very nice top point me at where i can find this
> utility, since i have no means of booting this vax into vms...

(Footnote for you, Ronny. There is such a utility on Magica as well... :-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol