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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Message-Id: <199610251858.LAA14036@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: PIC+EISA Recommendations?
To: Harlan.Stenn@pfcs.com (Harlan Stenn)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 11:58:16 -0700 (MST)
Cc: current@freebsd.org, smp@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <3385.846268125@mumps.pfcs.com> from "Harlan Stenn" at Oct 25, 96 02:28:45 pm
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> Since this is a topic of discussion...
> 
> I'm about to pick up a Photon video card so I can use one of my Sony
> single-sync monitors with FreeBSD.
> 
> The 4M PCI Photon card is only $45 more than the 2M ISA Photon card, so
> I'd rather get the PCI version.
> 
> I have an 486/90 EISA machine with an AHA 1742, and I'd rather not waste
> that controller if it's cost-effective to move it to a new machine.
> 
> So is there a good single or dual P[56] or P{5,6} CPU motherboard that
> has both PCI and EISA?

The ASUS PCI/EISA is what Poul or Peter is using (on loan from Walnut
Creek, it was the machine Jack Vogel, who did the original SMP work
and the FreeBSD 1.1.5.1 SPARC port, was using).  It's a decent
motherboard.

I got the PCI/ISA motherboard because I wanted to address the issues
that ISA introduces, and so that there would be a hardware difference
taken into account in the low level code base.


> Or should I just leave my 486/90 box alone and get a straight PCI
> motherboard?

You simply *can't* get a "straight PCI motherboard".  The closest
you can get is an industrial box -- there are several companies
selling passive PCI backplane machines, with no ISA components at
all.  Unfortunately, the 82378 PCI-ISA bridge is generally on the
processor card itself, instead of off on a seperate card, so there's
no way to tell from software what hardware is there, short of burning
it into the BIOS ROM's.  8-(.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.