While I away at the IETF, there was a discussion about ATM posted to the
freebsd-hackers mailing list.  However, since I am going to be discussing
is not specific to FreeBSD, I'm also sending this to the tech-net mailing
of NetBSD.

For those of you who haven't seen it, you might want to check out the
paper about IP Switching on http://www.ipsilon.com.

Unlike Ethernet or FDDI, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between
an ATM adapter and the number of interfaces for the system.  Indeed, ATM
might best be represented by a layered approach similar to what is done
with SCSI.

In a traditional system, you will have one or more Classic IP networks
and possibly additional emulated LANs.  However, it is unlikely that most
ATM adapters will care about that.  What they will need is a minimalist
interface which ties in just below the signalling layer (possibly even
not needing a singalling layer in some environments).

This means that a MI signalling layer, classic IP, etc is needed.
Hopefully that code can reuse existing software such as VINCE
(ftp://ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/vince/).  

My current concern is the driver interface to signaling and data movement.

FWIW, I've given up on ATMworks 350 because it uses a 21050 PPB and that will
just lockups on Triton-based motherboards.  I'm currently working on the next
generation card after the 350.

-- 
Matt Thomas               Internet:   matt@3am-software.com
3am Software Foundry      WWW URL:    http://www.3am-software.com/bio/matt.html
Westford, MA              Disclaimer: I disavow all knowledge of this message