I have been trying to use the NetBSD PCnet device driver
(if_le_pci.c, lance.c, am79900.c) on a big-endian PowerPC system with
disasterous results when the card is started for external activity.  The
Linux PCnet32 driver does work with the system and I notice that the Linux
driver forces multi-word memory values to little-endian when communicating
with the adapter while the NetBSD driver does not.  The macppc port of
NetBSD does uniformly byte-reverse access to all PCI adapters through bus
space and that aspect of the configuration of the adapter does function
properly.

	The aspect of the am79900.c driver which does not byte-reverse
values is the assignment to the initialization block (am79900_meminit),
for example.  If the controller is accessing the values as little-endian,
then the addresses for its ring buffers and descriptors would be jumbled
and the adapter would scibble over incorrect pieces of memory, which could
explain what I am experiencing.

	I am somewhat surprised that no one else has tried to use a Lance
Ethernet 79900 on a big-endian system with NetBSD device drivers and
encountered this problem.  I am hoping that I am mistaken and severely
confused.  What am I missing?

Thanks, David
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David Edelsohn                                      T.J. Watson Research Center
dje@watson.ibm.com                                  P.O. Box 218
+1 914 945 4364 (TL 862)                            Yorktown Heights, NY 10598