WTB: Pro380, VAXstation

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Thu Apr 15 19:49:04 2004

>>>>> "Antonio" == Antonio Carlini <arcarlini_at_iee.org> writes:

>> As for a Pro being the easiest route, I wouldn't say so. The bus
>> architecture is completely unrelated to that of any other PDP11,
>> and ugly/messy/baroque/bogus at that. There is NO DMA. The
>> Ethernet card uses the worst Ethernet chip I know.

 Antonio> Out of interest, which chip would that be?

Intel 82586, if I remember right. It uses queues, not rings, for its
commands. There are race conditions in the programming interface so
that the chip sometimes sets a queue to empty at the same time that
the driver puts a new entry on the queue, which forces the driver to
notice that and repair the confusion.

This is why real Ethernet chips use rings.

     paul
Received on Thu Apr 15 2004 - 19:49:04 BST