> At this point, lots of other OS' are supporting ATAPI.  Linux has, for
> a very long time.  FreeBSD does, I guess.  Even Plan9 supports ATAPI.
> One would think it would be more of a priority with the central developers
> of NetBSD, since so very many PeeCees are now shipping with ATAPI CDROMs,
> and the lack of support *severely* limits those people's installation
> options.
> 
> -- 
> Jason Downs
> downsj@teeny.org  --> teeny.org: Free Software for a Free Internet <--
> http://www.teeny.org/

I would imagine that if someone were to give Charles Hannum a ATAPI CDROM
drive, that the "central developers" might make it a higher priority.

Drivers are typically written by people that have the hardware, or that
are able to borrow the hardware long enough to get a driver working.
(or by people like Jason Thorpe who write drivers sight unseen) :-)

Seriously, getting the hardware into the hands of those that can write
a driver is the first step.  _Giving_ the hardware would be even more
of an incentive.

If I had 2 machines I wanted to run NetBSD on, and they both had ATAPI
CDROMs, I would certainly be _glad_ to give one to a NetBSD developer
so I could get support for the other under NetBSD.  I don't have any
machines with IDE at the moment, and only one CDROM drive, so I can't
help.

-Andrew