In message <3548CD40.7065E023@causality.com> you wrote:

> Thomas Boroske wrote:
> 
> > Some things I would like to know are:
> > 
> > - Is the powertec v1 scsi controller supported in a fast-ish way now ?
> >   Or rather a non-kerneltime-hogging way at least ?
> 
> non-kerneltime:	yes

But better than the system I use, I think rpc-5828 or something ?

> fastish:	no

:-(

> :-( Stick with IDE.

With HD prices having fallenso much I'll probably do that. 
Only downside is what to do with my SCSI discs then.

> > - Is it now, with reasonable experience and work put into it,
> >   possible to get a working compiler toolchain ? With my current
> >   install it wasn't possible to get a working (C++) setup
> >   (that's 1.2G with some compiler patches, I think).
> 
> Apart from the StrongARM bug, yes.

That's the "revision k bug", yes ? IIRC when booting, the kernel 
states "bugged STM instruction" somewhere. So I guess I'm affected too.

I missed part of the "revision k" discussion though, so what's the 
problem in a nutshell ? Will there be a workaround eventually ?
Point is, I doubt I'm prepared to buy another SA card just 
for RBSD.

> > - Is Netscape (or QTscape) available ? Is it free and/or available
> >   in executable form ? Is it fast enough to be usable (SA RPC, 42MB) ?
> 
> Markus and myself have built Cryptozilla with the full motif front end.
> It's very stable, and as soon as I re-link Markus' port with a static
> Motif library, it'll be uploaded for all. 

Fine :-)

> > On a related topic: Chaltech's motherboard, how fast is it ? I don't
> > mean the CPUs clock frequency, but how many (sequential) MB/sec you
> > get over the RAM bus, the PCI bus ? How's the EIDE interface, how's
> > SCSI and network cards ? Just out of interest.
> 
> Ram bus---we've never measured it mike that but I guess 200MB/secish.

Come on - no-one ever did a measured STM or LDM loop ? I can't 
believe it.

> PCI bus? Whatever you normally get over a PCI bus, I guess 132MB/sec
> peak, 

Well, "normally" is a bit difficult. Of course, the PCI bus can do
that but is the system also up to it ? I mean, it depends a bit
on the PCI bridge you use, write buffering or not.
Again, are you telling me no-one ever tried how many MBs/sec you 
can write to that PCI video card you ship with the system, and
compared it with a PC ?

> over 100 actual. EIDE---it can sustain just under 11MB/sec using
> UltraDMA from a dirt cheap disc. SCSI---it works. Network cards---a 25
> quid Netgear 10/100BaseTX bus mastering DMA PCI card will work fine and
> will allow around 6.5MB/sec in both directions (13MB/sec total, full
> duplex) on a 100BaseTX network.

So you've got all the drivers running ? Or is the system so compatible
that you can simply use the general NetBSD drivers for PCI cards ?

Kind regards,

-- 
Thomas Boroske