Subject: Re: Drive formatting...
To: None <port-sparc@NetBSD.ORG>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Holo.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-sparc
Date: 01/09/1997 13:20:06
> One more thing...the VME backplane has some jumpers on it next to the
> connectors...if memory serves, you have to make sure that any empty
> slot has the jumper installed.

Well, on the Sun-3 VME backplane, there are about seven jumpers, only
two of which you should ever mess with.  They are the BG3 and IACK.  On
empty slots, the jumpers should be installed; for boards that
interrupt, IACK should be removed, and for boards that do DMA, BG3
should be removed.

I don't know whether the backplanes differ between the Sun-4 and Sun-3
machines; since they're basically 9U VME cardcages, probably not much.

> If you have an sc controller, buy an si controller.  You can probably
> pick one up for about $50.  The sc is a real dog.  Trust me, it's not
> worth bothering with.  (In the Sun 3/75 I used to have, when I
> switched from an sc to an si, I suddenly became able to actually use
> the mouse while writing to the scsi tape!  With the sc controller,
> using the tape drive brought the whole system to its knees. )

This is actually just a question of disconnect/reconnect, isn't it?
NetBSD/sun3 si driver doesn't fully support disconnect/reconnect as of
the 1.2ish kernel I'm running; I think most of the si driver is MI, so
I'd guess NetBSD/sparc doesn't either...in which case the difference
will be not nearly so dramatic.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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