Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 13:35:26 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards Message-ID: <199601292035.NAA04370@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199601271750.MAA07907@etinc.com> from "dennis" at Jan 27, 96 12:50:29 pm
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> I disagree...this is a development list...if there are bugs in the > drivers or they just dont work then its an issue on this list. The driver you are complaing about is third party. > I find it bone-chilling that the selection criteria for a vendor is > based on their willingness to give away information on their boards, > as vendors of poor commercial products are usually the most anxious > to have "somebody...anybody!" use their product. I find it equally bone-chilling that vendors still build portability at the level of real-mode-only-BIOS, especially sice we all know that Windows95 is a product to get software written to the Win32 interface to leverage developers into producing NT-compatible products. It is obvious to the most casual industry observer that BIOS-based drivers are going away for everything but boot-time, and even then there are mumblings of going to OpenFirmware (FORTH) code in ROM on the card for processor and mode independence for card firmware, even for Intel-based machines (see the latest PCI spec, if you don't believe me). Companies like Diamond, whose reluctance to provide programming info stems from their hiring of EE's to write their ROM code so that the PAL inputs for various clock settings for BIOS INT 10 modes are not at standard locations because they expect you to always use BIOS, are about to be screwed by the Microsoft machine. Maybe they will hire a software engineer before it is too late; maybe not. Companies like Adaptec , whose reluctance to provide programming info stems from their (incorrect) assumption that they are gods and boot code is a trade secret (no one gives a damn about boot code -- you run it once and ignore it forever after) and copyright is insuficient to protect their sequencer code... well, they will hold on a while longer. Adaptec, is, after all, the Microsoft of the SCSI world, making defacto instead of reasoned standards, etc.. By virtue of their position, people will build drivers for their products into OS releases. You are welcome to sign NDA and provide drivers and track -current (or less ambitiously, releases), though how you will be able to wedge in boot-critical devices without doing the VM86() support I'm always going off about, I don't know. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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