Subject: Dynamic devices (and i386 bounce buffering)
To: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@dsg.stanford.edu>
From: Open Carefully -- Contents Under Pressure <jgraham@defender.VAS.viewlogic.com>
List: current-users
Date: 02/09/1996 09:23:07
One thing I'd also like to see in the ports is the ability to truly 
dynamically verify devices.  What I mean is, say you have sd0 and sd1
at units 0 and 1 respectively.  Now you plug in a tape drive (st0).
Before you plug it in you say:
	# mt -f /dev/nrst0 st
And you get:
	/dev/nrst0:  Device not configured
[presumably FKA "No such device or address"]

When you plug it in, you should be able to repeat the command and get:

Brand INC-5411 4mm helical scan:
   sense key(0x6)= unit attention   residual= 0   retries= 0
   file no= 0   block no= 0
   
If the device is not responding, retry it N times and then mark the
device as gone.  If the device comes back, mark it as present and
keep going.



				--*greywolf;
--
Please be quite.  No eating the lab.