From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 5 11:55:55 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA27910 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:55:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA27905 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:55:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert@usr08.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA00571; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:55:22 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr08.primenet.com(206.165.6.208) via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd000444; Tue Jan 5 12:55:17 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr08.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA18014; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:54:57 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199901051954.MAA18014@usr08.primenet.com> Subject: Re: PnP PCI modem To: sthaug@nethelp.no Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 19:54:56 +0000 (GMT) Cc: jamie@itribe.net, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <14757.915110288@verdi.nethelp.no> from "sthaug@nethelp.no" at Dec 31, 98 02:18:08 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > So, does this mean motherboards with a decent number of PCI slots will > > start appearing? > > I wouldn't count on it - I think it's more likely that you'll see more > USB equipment. > > AFAIK it's rather difficult electrically to have more than five slots in > one PCI bus. Thus if you need more, you'll need a system with more than > one system bus to PCI bridge. Thus higher cost, lower volume. This is a current issue, and is related to the chipset. Apple has a good PCI chipset, as does DEC; I believe both support 6 slots without a bridge because they have seperate lines for 6 slots. The Intel chips tend to have only 4 lines; some motherboard manufacturers double up one of the lines to get 5 slots. I suspect you could double up some of the lines on the DEC chip; don't know about the Apple. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message