>From: rvb@IGW.TRUST.CS.CMU.EDU
>Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 2:44:56 GMT

>	3. ... The main reason for it's absence is, that you need to modify all drivers
>	   used with PCMCIA, to not crash or hang the system if the card is removed.
>	   This is going to be pretty near impossible.  You have to
>	   guard every port reference that is used anywhere in the
>	   driver to accept the possibility that the card was pulled
>	   out and the value is bogus.  You then have to get out of
>	   whatever nesting of routines the code is in.

What we need is a concept like mounting for (removable) disks.  You
can't pull the card until you've 'unmounted' the device.  After you
plug in a new card you can 'mount' the new device.

Such a thing can be used for much more than just PCMCIA.  There's
also SCSI (?), and in the future things-attached-to-the-parallel-port
and USB.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>           http://www.shore.net/~mikel
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA                assert(*this!=opinionof(Analog));