Subject: macbsd floppy driver, was "Re: "
To: None <kenn@eden.rutgers.edu>
From: Hauke Fath <hauke@Espresso.Rhein-Neckar.DE>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 03/31/1998 19:57:19
At 2:53 Uhr +0200 31.03.1998, Ken Nakata wrote:
>On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 02:27:35 +0200,
>ehsmswg@aom.ericsson.se (Mats Erik WENNEBERG EHS/GR) wrote:

>> 4) Does it exist some support for the diskett drive yet?
>
>Hauke Fath has succeeded to make an LKM-ized floppy driver that reads
>and writes 800k diskettes.

How do you know?  ;)

In fact, if only I get a night or three to dive into it, the driver LKM can
go beta in a few weeks. A redesign of vital parts appears to have squashed
a nasty bug. I'm still unquiet, though: I prefer bugs leaving a mark on my
hands so I _know_ I hit them. That one disappeared silently instead.

>The real problem is that we don't have any
>technical documentation on the controller chip (SWIM).  The Mac Linux
>people seem to be much more active on working to support 1.4M
>diskettes, so we might be able to use their work when they succeed.

Ahh, Linux Propaganda...

What they do have in Linux/mac68k is a driver framework that can probe the
IWM and eject the disk, and a long way to go to a "working floppy disk
driver", and a clueless webmaster... 'nuff said.

>The AV Macs use a different type of controller chip which is similar
>to the ones used in Intel PCs.  I'm hoping to get the datasheet so I
>can write a driver for it, but it's not going to work for the non-AV
>Macs...

Where'd you get that from? I suppose that - like apparently much of the
other hardware - it cannot be very different from the chip used in the
PowerMacs. And at least Linux/pmac appears to have a floppy driver. So,
there must be _some_ documentation floating around.

	hauke


--
"It's never straight up and down"     (DEVO)