From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 5 12:34:09 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA03490 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:34:09 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nlsystems.com (nlsys.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA03485 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:34:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from localhost (dfr@localhost) by nlsystems.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA13116; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 20:33:43 GMT Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 20:33:43 +0000 (GMT) From: Doug Rabson To: Terry Lambert cc: sthaug@nethelp.no, jamie@itribe.net, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PnP PCI modem In-Reply-To: <199901051954.MAA18014@usr08.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Terry Lambert wrote: > > > 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. Not sure about Apple but the Dec alpha box which I have (with 6 slots) uses a pci-pci bridge. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 442 9037 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message