Subject: Re: EISA Vs. PCI on big mean news machine
To: None <port-i386@NetBSD.ORG>
From: dennis <dennis@etinc.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 11/09/1995 11:38:03
>Verily did dennis write:
>
>> This is all nice and accurate (but unattainable), but the real reason to
>> go with PCI is because its new and accepted and EISA is old and dying.
>> Many vendors are developing PCI products, few (if any) are developing 
>>  EISA products. Since PCI is more widely used, there are more products 
>> and they're less expensive....and PCI is 4X faster.
>
>Not necessarily.  (Well, mostly true, but not entirely)
>
>Take Intel's EtherExpress Pro 100BaseT adaptor for example.  They make
>an EISA version, but it isn't widely known since they advertise heavily
>on the PCI one.
>
>The EISA bus will still be around for server-class machines for quite
>a while - until cascaded PCI-bus (more than {3,4} PCI slots) motherboards
>are popular.  AFAIK, HP, in their NetServer boxen, are the only/most-popular
>cascaded PCI-bus motherboards available.

Lots of "dead" busses are still around...but when people stop developing new
products it time to look elsewhere. 4 PCI slots is usually plenty, as beyond
disk, 
video and ethernet there is limited advantage. There is little value running
modems
or 56k devices PCI....all PCI machines are a crapshoot as the number of
products 
for ISA is astronomical and you simply can't use one in an all PCI machine.
They'll be
out there...but it will be awhile before they're the standard. "You" server
guys are a 
serious minority and are likely to stay that way. Your "Jake Foo" character
is a tiny, tiny
pct of the marketplace.

db

PS: Didn't I read that NetBSD doesn't support PCI-PCI bridges?
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