>Andrew theorizes....

>>> 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.

>>This is why big server vendors, either don't have PCI at all, or only
>>a couple PCI slots, but around 8 EISA slots?  The Compaq 4500 has 0
>>(zero) PCI slots, and the HP LS has 2 or 3.  Interesting, if EISA
>>is really dead, why these guys are making such a mistake?  Could it
>>be that the Triton chipset is just too damn limiting for _real_ servers?

>Of course Compaq and HP have PCI machines also......
>Companies are producing these because the unix and novell vendors take 
>so long to add things  like PCI and drivers, and EISA is older and there's 
>lots of guys (like you) who are telling everyone how great it is. They also
>began developing them before PCI was widely accepted, plus EISA is compatible
>with ISA so you don't lose ISA slots with an EISA slot, so putting
>all EISA is not as limiting as all PCI.

No, the reason these big companies still have EISA busses in their
big, high-end multi-processor servers is because EISA is well defined,
and it works.  PCI doesn't.  At least, not until recently.  Compaq
couldn't get a PCI chipset that would work on its multi-processor
machines, and I still don't know if they offer PCI in their big
Prolineas, at least not the four-processor-capable models.

ALR boasted that they had a multi-processor PCI machine running -- not
because they thought it was cool, but because they were the first to
make this difficult task work (in the Intel world), and it was a
significant engineering achievement.  The PCI chipsets (at least for
the Intel market) are just not ready for prime-time yet in some of the
very high-end applications.

This is not to say you shouldn't buy PCI.  Obviously it has a much
brighter future.  But it isn't because Unix vendors can't write
drivers quickly that these companies still sell EISA machines.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael L. VanLoon                                 michaelv@HeadCandy.com
       --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
     NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4,
                           DEC PMAX (MIPS), DEC Alpha, PC532
     NetBSD ports in progress: VAX, Atari 68k, others...
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