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Date:      Mon, 2 Mar 1998 05:54:54 -0500
From:      Bruce Vandiver <76350.1227@compuserve.com>
To:        Trushar Zaveri <ad903@torfree.net>
Cc:        tech_help_drivers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   the Future Domain TMC-16XX
Message-ID:  <199803020555_MC2-352C-B90@compuserve.com>

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>I picked up your email address from the newsgroups a little while ago
>because I saw you were trying to get drivers for a bunch of Future Domain
>SCSI cards you have.  I have the TMC-1680-SVP in my old old ancient 486
>machine, but I have a bunch of old narrow SCSI disks that I want to use on
>that machine (make it a storehouse kind of thing)

>anyway, most of that is besides the point...  have you gotten anywhere
>with the leads you were given?  I know a couple of people offered to help
>you integrate the modified AHA-2920 driver back for support of the
>TMC-18C30, and if you *did* get it to work (or if you didn't) could you
>let me know?  I've banged my head against the kernel a bit, but I'm no
>programmer unfortunately, and I cannot get the kernel to compile if I try
>to get the card support in.
>looking forward to hear what you have to say about it.
>Thanks in advance!

Hi Trushar:

I have had offers of help, but no action. It seems easy to give lip service
to the subject, but action is another matter. Here are some of the
comments I have received: (you may already have read this)

>Hello Bruce.  I've been a FreeBSD user for more or less 4 years now and am
>interested in trying my hand at some kernel coding. I have been following
>your posts in -hackers with a fair amount of interest, since I have a
>Future Domain card that was donated to me by someone who upgraded and am
>interested in putting this hardware to use.  I think that incorporating
>the driver into FreeBSD might be something good for me to gain some
>experience.  I have taken the driver that Bob Bishop mentioned and
>integrated it into -current on my test machine and I have it talking to
>some SCSI devices.  I don't have much to test it on, since I have only IDE
>HDDs and not many SCSI peripherals. Reading raw code + little experience
>with device drivers + little experience at low level SCSI = a non-trivial
>task.  However, I'm willing to give it a try. - K.C.
From: kfurge@worldnet.att.net

>If you'd like, I'll be more than happy to send you the tutorial I threw
>together on starting to write device drivers. Unfortunately, this is how
>device drivers get written. Someone with the device, and interest to have 
>it supported (read: You) lays their hands on the programming
documentation, 
>does much trial and error learning the driver interface, and then writes 
>the driver.
From: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com>

>You appear to be failing to appreciate that FreeBSD acquires
>new drivers because people go out and develop them, and then
>contribute them to the project.
>There isn't a Driver Development Lab with lots of people and
>money that's studiously ignoring your requests while playing
>Doom and chugging Jolt and pizza. I wish there was; I'd be
>begging for a job there myself.
>
>I would strongly suggest that you should study the Linux source that 
>you have, and the source for a similar ISA SCSI adapter driver, and
>begin your own development. I do seem to recall someone mention that
>they had documentation for the controller you are asking about on the
>shelf; perhaps you should search the archives at www.freebsd.org for
>a reference here too, as such documentation would be very useful.
>
>Please feel free to post questions regarding your development to the 
>list, as we do try to encourage new contributors whenever possible.
>Regards, Mike.
From: msmith@freebsd.org

>There already is a driver, which only has not been imported
>into the CVS tree, since it used source files spread out all
>over the kernel tree. This was going to be resolved shortly
>(as of December 1996 ;-).
>I may be able to dig out the sources, and you will have to
>stuff them into the correct directories and modify some of
>the files used to configure the kernel.
>But it may be better to ask *Joerg Wunsch* to make up his mind
>how to import that driver into -current ... Regards, STefan.
From: Stefan Esser <se@freebsd.org>
* BTW - (joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de) or (j@uriah.heep.sax.de)

>> Have a look at
>> http://www.sbox.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rmike/freebsd/welcome.html which
>> contains an 18c30 driver ported for the AHA2920.  It also contains the
>> original tmc18c30/ISA support which may well work with your cards.
>>From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
>
>Well I never.  If anyone out there is using this driver, can we have 
>some feedback?  If it works and appears to be maintained, we ought to
>incorporate it...
From: Bob Bishop <rb@gid.co.uk>

I am especially interested in the comment "If it works and appears to be
maintained, we ought to incorporate it..." From Bob Bishop.

Will anything come of all this? I really don't know. For now I'm using
Linux.
I remain hopefull, but I am pretty much in the same shape as you. If you
get any good news, please copy me on it. Thanks in advance!

Regards;

Bruce Vandiver
76350.1227@compuserve.com

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