Subject: Re: NetBSD/vax QBUS IDE?!
To: None <port-vax@netbsd.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-vax
Date: 11/21/2002 21:24:38
> The proper way is to design a Q-bus IDE controller which speaks
> MSCP/UQSSP.

For what value of "proper"?  I feel confident I could (upon digging up
Qbus and IDE documents) design a dumb IDE interface, like the one chd
built.  I do not feel competent to design anything that speaks MSCP
without some onboard CPU, which would, I would estimate, at least
double the chip cost and greatly increase the hair involved.  Even
then, I'd need MSCP documentation, and I have no idea where to find
that.  (I don't know where to find Qbus and IDE specs, either, but them
I've seen and thus I'm confident they exist.  MSCP docs could be made
of unobtanium for all I know, and given DEC's aversion to publicly
documenting its hardware protocols very well may be.)

If *you* want to, be my guest.  But otherwise, it seems silly to
criticize people who *are* doing something because they made design
tradeoffs differently from how you would have.  I know I would
certainly rather have a non-MSCP IDE interface in hand than have a
dream of an MSCP-speaking version.

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