Subject: Re: Recommend SCSI for PC164SX
To: None <bryanxms@ecst.csuchico.edu>
From: Havard Eidnes <he@netbsd.org>
List: port-alpha
Date: 09/23/2001 16:41:43
> I just purchased a new PC164SX bare mainboard on which to install
> NetBSD.  I would like to obtain a good, solid, well-supported
> Ultra-wide SCSI host adapter for this system.  Searching the Net
> yielded that any NCR, SYMBIOS or Qlogic controller should be
> supported by SRM (it needs to be supported because I will have one
> drive and I want to boot off of it).  Are there any 64-bit SCSI
> boards out there that I might be able to find which really serve
> well under NetBSD, and can be booted from SRM?

Finding a new SCSI card that is supported by SRM is probably going to
be difficult.  First off, this depends on the SRM variant you're
using; my information is for an Alpha PC164.  For the NCR/Symbios
cards, you will probably need an original plain 810, not 810a, and
that's a narrow card.  For the Qlogic, you also apparently need
hardware which is considered slightly "historic" at this point --
Qlogic 1020, again a narrow card.  I have a Qlogic 1040B in mine, and
SRM does not recognize it as a bootable device.

You'll probably find the same situation being the case if you want to
find a network card which is bootable.

Your best bet is probably to get your hands on a used card from that
era which is of the right type, and which is (re)labeled by DEC.

What I ended up doing was getting an IDE drive for my system, and
using that as the system disk.  Doesn't the PC164SX also have an
on-board IDE controller?

As for 64-bit SCSI, I'd probably go with a Qlogic 1080 or look for one
of the iWill Qlogic-based cards, some of which are dual-channel and
which are probably more reasonable priced than the Qlogic-original
cards (even though they use the same chips).

Regards,

- H=E5vard