From owner-freebsd-smp  Wed Jul 16 08:16:47 1997
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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:16:35 -0600
From: vanmaren@fast.cs.utah.edu (Kevin Van Maren)
Message-Id: <199707161516.JAA02892@fast.cs.utah.edu>
To: smp@FreeBSD.ORG, smp@csn.net
Subject: Re:  HEADS UP: EISA cards.
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Okay, I'll bite.

First off, I think that you DO want to abandon the 8254 timer
under SMP.  The APIC's internal timer is much nicer.

Second, while I'm not very familiar with DMA under FreeBSD, but
you made it sound like only EISA cards would be affected, and
not ISA network cards or sound cards.  Is this certain?

Also, there are still a lot more EISA machines than SMP machines,
especially when you consider that almost every new server still
comes with EISA.

It seems that if you use the APIC timer, you get more functionality 
and higher resolution, while still retaining compatability with
EISA hardware.  This seems like a good idea.

Kevin