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From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
Message-Id: <199603112036.MAA12787@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
Subject: Re: NCR disk controller, hp disk
To: gibbs@freefall.freebsd.org (Justin T. Gibbs)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 12:36:39 -0800 (PST)
Cc: se@ZPR.Uni-Koeln.DE, questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199603110006.QAA01321@freefall.freebsd.org> from "Justin T. Gibbs" at Mar 10, 96 04:06:26 pm
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> 
> >On Mar 8, 23:18, "Rodney W. Grimes" wrote:
> >} Subject: Re: NCR disk controller, hp disk
> >
> >} We really need a SCSI expect to go rewrite the firmware for the NCR cards,
> >} what we have today has so many incompatibility problems it is getting hard
> >} to spec systes using it :-(.
> >
> >Rod, 
> >
> >this is plain untrue and you ought to know it ...
> 
> I think we should spend more of our time working to solve the problems
> in the system than disparaging FreeBSD's contributors.  Perhaps the

I agree, and what I said above was in no way meant to be any form of
attack on any person, it was a simple statement of my opinion that the
NCR firmware is in desperate need of a rewrite.  

What basis do I have for saying this.  Well, the NCR provided loadable
firmware with SCSICAM does not have the problems that I am seeing from
the FreeBSD firmware, thus it is possible to make the NCR work with
a chinnon in sync mode, thus it is a FreeBSD firmware/driver bug.

> NCR driver has bugs.  Well, so does the aic7xxx driver.  Anyway you
> slice it, writing SCSI adapter firmware isn't easy.  My only complaint
> about the NCR driver is that the format of the script is very difficult
> for an "outsider" to interpret which makes it hard for me to
> lend a hand in fixing bugs.

Agreed.  It is also very hard for a person that has learned the NCR
compiler to try and and use the current tool in FreeBSD due to the
disparity between the two.

> Most of what I've learned in doing the
> aic7xxx driver is directly applicable to any SCSI controller, and
> many of the problems with one of the two drivers have been reproducible 
> in the other during different times in their development cycles.
> One thing I'd like to know is if the two problems that were listed
> here (the Chinon sync problem, and the HP drive doing tagged queuing)
> are reproducible in the aic7xxx driver.

The chinnon drives work fine in sync mode with the aic7xxx driver, and have
for a long long time.  The HP C3725S is working fine with the aic7xxx driver
as of 3 weeks ago, and on a March 9 build of -stable, are tags on or off
by default in -stable for the aic7xxx driver as I am running GENERIC kernels
and have not tweeked anything?


-- 
Rod Grimes                                      rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation Company                 Reliable computers for FreeBSD