On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Jacob Suter wrote:

> does anyone have a VS3100/M30 (with the patched SCSI code) kernel up on an
> ftp somewhere?  

I can probably get you a kernel with the PIO SCSI stuff compiled in, but
there are some interesting complexities which arise...

Background information.  Basically, the VS3100 code is primarily if not
entirely based on Bertram Barth's development efforts on his VS3100/M76. 
The M76 is a moderately more advanced version of the VS3100/M30/M38/M40/M48. 
The M76 comes with dual SCSI controllers integrated into the main system
board.   The older VS3100's make use of a seperate add in board to
provide disk I/O.  The board configurations I'm aware of come in two
varieties. One is a SCSI/SCSI card, the second is a SCSI/MFM card.  The
last time I checked (which has been a while) the code in the 1.2G kernel
source still made the assumption that your system had the SCSI/SCSI
configuration which is inherent to the M76, but not a given with the other
systems.  If you had say a SCSI/MFM controller pair, or didn't have any
disk I/O board present then the netbsd kernel will hang during boot as it
infinitely attempts to find two SCSI controllers.

This past summer I worked with Bertram a bit (I basically used my machines
to test out some stuff for him) to make some changes to the SCSI detection
routines so they wouldn't insist that two SCSI controllers be present. 
The precompiled kernel I reference in the HOWTO was compiled by Bertram
with the above changes.  I don't know if the changes have made it into the
official kernel source yet -- though they really should be there.

Anyway... the PIO hacked version of the kernel I crafted recently was
based on 1.2G sources that were current in July.  Those sources do not
have the friendly SCSI detection code, which isn't a problem for me as my
VS3100/M38 at home has a SCSI/SCSI card.  So the PIO-hack kernel I built
will run on an M76 or any VS3100 with two SCSI controllers.  So if you've
got the dual SCSI board in your VS3100 then the kernel I'd supply you
should run okay.  If you've got the SCSI/MFM controller card, then my
kernel will cause your system to hang mid boot.

NetBSD/VAX isn't just an operating system, it's an adventure.

My next question is predictable.  What's your VS3100/M30 got in the way of
a controller board?

-brian.
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Brian D. Chase         Systems Coordinator        brian.chase@carpediem.com
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