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Date:      Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:49:32 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Paul Southworth <pauls@locust.cic.net>
To:        Gary Palmer <gpalmer@westhill.cdrom.com>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: SMC 9232 EISA ``Fast'' Ethernet Card
Message-ID:  <Pine.SUN.3.91.950608214021.4703E-100000@locust.cic.net>
In-Reply-To: <12701.802652714@westhill.cdrom.com>

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On Thu, 8 Jun 1995, Gary Palmer wrote:

> Does anyone know if the SMC 9232 EISA 100Mb/sec ethernet card is
> compatabile with FreeBSD in any way? We've got a machine here, which
> is needed to do WORM support, which can't be used on the ethernet at
> it's new location as it doesn't see the card :-(

Hi Gary.  I successfully procured some of the engineering specs (and 
cards) from SMC a couple months ago (which David has).  Unfortunately the 
9232 was not among them, nor was the 8033W (twin-channel EISA 10Mb/s 
card).  It was my understanding that they were willing to cough up the 
specs for the Elite (and Elite/Ultra and EZ) cards, and for the DEC-based 
cards, but for a number of the more proprietary cards they wanted 
non-disclosure.  Maybe someone else has had better luck, but to my 
knowledge the specs for those cards are not immediately forthcoming.  I 
think we did pretty well to get what we got.

You might take a gander at the current SMC support in Linux to see if 
someone "over there" got specs.  If the gods smiled on Donald Becker he 
might have the needed goods.  Last I knew he had succeeded in procuring 
specs for the new 3com cards and was getting busy with drivers.

My success with SMC came after a couple faxed typed letters on company
letterhead extolling the virtues of free operating systems and telling
them how popular this stuff was, then followed up by a few months of
polite and diplomatic phone calls and email where I tried to sound very
much like I was wearing a tie.  Not too hard really.  If you want the
contacts I will give them to you. 

--
Paul Southworth
CICNet Systems Support
pauls@cic.net



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