Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 22:59:59 -0500 (EST) From: Pat_Barron@transarc.com To: questions@FreeBSD.org, Mark Bynum <bynum@sed.cs.fsu.edu> Subject: Re: 3c505 driver and Installation Message-ID: <kj88Oz2SMV1bEDEIYz@transarc.com> In-Reply-To: <199501201959.OAA02150@sed.cs.fsu.edu> References: <199501201959.OAA02150@sed.cs.fsu.edu>
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FreeBSD does not support the 3c505 EtherLink Plus, and the card can not be made to emulate another kind of Ethernet board. The programming interface is quite different from the 3c501 or 3c503. If anyone out there does have a driver that understands this card (even simply using the default Primary Command Block interface), I'd like to get a copy too - I have several of these cards lying around. I have complete programming specs for the card, too, and I'd been thinking of putting together a driver for it myself, but I didn't think anyone else besides me would have any use for it..... The really cool feature of this card is that it has downloadable firmware - you could, for example, implement the entire TCP layer right on the card (it has an 80186 processor on it). Of course, I've never been able to figure out how one would make a BSD-based system be able to take advantage of something like a "smart network interface" of this sort. Another drawback is that the 3c505 can only have up to 512K of memory on it, so that might put a limit on what you could do. --Pat.
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