Subject: Re: New NCR driver
To: Ignatios Souvatzis <is@jocelyn.rhein.de>
From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.lip6.fr>
List: current-users
Date: 04/24/2000 13:22:21
On Mon, Apr 24, 2000 at 12:23:06PM +0200, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 23, 2000 at 11:48:55AM +0200, Manuel Bouyer wrote:
> > However, I indend to have a separate driver for the 825/875/895 which
> > should have better performances than the ncr driver (ncr uses the same
> > script for all boards, so doesn't use some of the features of the newer
> > adapters).
> 
> I suggest using the same driver, and use a different script based on chip
> capabilities. After all, the 720/770/8xx have a chip type field.

Some code can be shared, for sure. But I'm not sure I'll use the same
data structure for both (the load/store instruction allows to do much cleaner
things).
There is also code size issues: the size of the script binary is not small,
a machine using the bus independant driver should,t have to pull in the 875 
script if it needs to.
I'm not sure how I will do things yet but I may keep support for the newer
chips in siop, it's almost free if you don't use the RAM.
This way, if size is an issue (e.g. boot floppy kernels) you can save some
space by dropping the enhanced driver.

--
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
--