Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 11:25:19 -0700
   From: "Erik E. Fair"  (Time Keeper) <fair@clock.org>

   This is a hardware bug. Has anyone looked into what a later (correct and
   pin compatible, one hopes) revision of the LANCE chip would cost from AMD,
   so that we can simply replace the buggered chips in those Sun 3's that have
   the Rev C? Call it a NetBSD Engineering Change Order (ECO) or Field Change
   Order (FCO). Pity that we probably can't get AMD to replace these chips
   under warantee.

Sometimes what you suggest is not always feasible in any way shape or
form.  Hardware bugs are a reality for any kernel engineer and it
comes with the territory by design.  If what you suggested was the way
to go then no one would have a sun4m machine because every single
instance of that architecture has very serious hardware bugs which
require explicit kernel workarounds.

Just my $0.02

Later,
David S. Miller
davem@caip.rutgers.edu