Re: SCSI / PCI

On 26-Jun-98 Andy Valencia wrote:
> Is there any possibility we could install a SEGV handler and manipulate the
> environment on the fly?

Potentially. Seems very cumbersome though...

>>I suspect that using direct IO to the PCI chipset is more likely to work in
>>th
>>e
>>VSTa environment.
>
> If there's a modest set of chip types to support, I'm sure this is workable.
> It seems like the PC video arena is an example where there's just barely a
> contained enough set for this approach to work.

While in principle cards can supply their own drivers via BIOS32, I don't think
this is used very much. The only exception I know of is putting a CAM layer
into SCSI controllers, but I think most people avoid it and go straight to the
hardware.

BIOS32's main purpose is to simply provide the OS with the PCI bus
configuration. Linux used to use it exclusively, but it now seems to go
straight to the hardware for the more common Intel and other PCI controllers.
I think this allows you to tweak performance settings (burst modes, auto-retry,
timing, etc). Since there don't seem to be very many incompatible PCI
controllers around, this is probably a reasonable approach.

        J
Received on Fri Jun 26 19:05:46 1998