What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Paul Gortmaker]

Hi Geert,

A discussion is underway with respect to the future of the various ISA
drivers[1], and Alan suggested checking with the m68k folks:

  Check with the M68K people however. 3c501 won't matter to them but I'm
  not sure which of the other chips ended up on Amiga ISA bridges. I know
  NE2000 clones did.
  
I know you've currently got that "almost ne2k" driver that runs IRQ-less.  Are
there other "ISA-like" onboard devices in the M68k harware scope that rely on 
existing (x86) ISA drivers?

Thanks,
Paul.

[1] http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/160144/

--

Re: What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Michael Schmitz]

Paul,

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 4:31 AM, Paul Gortmaker
<paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> wrote:
> Hi Geert,
>
> A discussion is underway with respect to the future of the various ISA
> drivers[1], and Alan suggested checking with the m68k folks:
>
>  Check with the M68K people however. 3c501 won't matter to them but I'm
>  not sure which of the other chips ended up on Amiga ISA bridges. I know
>  NE2000 clones did.
>
> I know you've currently got that "almost ne2k" driver that runs IRQ-less.  Are
> there other "ISA-like" onboard devices in the M68k harware scope that rely on
> existing (x86) ISA drivers?

Not sure it's still considered ISA based in its current state, but the
smc91x is another one used on Atari. That one's got an interrupt
though, and I had confirmation that it works fine from a user just a
few days ago.

You mentioned the IRQ-less ne2k already - making that one run on
netpoll has stalled for now because I'm too busy at work. Neither
driver has been merged mainstream yet.

Most of the Amiga cards are 8390 or Lance based IIRC (there's a Lance
based Atari driver as well!) but these do not share code with the ISA
Lance drivers as far as I can see. Geert may know more details.

Cheers,

  Michael

Re: What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Finn Thain]

> [1] http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/160144/
> 

That thread makes it pretty clear that you don't like the presence of a 
certain NIC driver, because you don't like limited hardware, and because 
you personally have no need of neither.

But, nowhere in that thread is there any reason given for piecemeal ISA 
removal: Alan asked "So, should we dump ISA?" after suggesting "Removing 
[the NIC driver] because nobody is running one even in a museum might be a 
good reason".

So, I wonder, how will you ascertain that there are no users of this code 
you've targetted?

Finn

Re: What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Paul Gortmaker]

On 12-05-20 05:10 PM, Michael Schmitz wrote:
> Paul,
> 
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 4:31 AM, Paul Gortmaker
> <paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> wrote:
>> Hi Geert,
>>
>> A discussion is underway with respect to the future of the various ISA
>> drivers[1], and Alan suggested checking with the m68k folks:
>>
>>  Check with the M68K people however. 3c501 won't matter to them but I'm
>>  not sure which of the other chips ended up on Amiga ISA bridges. I know
>>  NE2000 clones did.
>>
>> I know you've currently got that "almost ne2k" driver that runs IRQ-less.  Are
>> there other "ISA-like" onboard devices in the M68k harware scope that rely on
>> existing (x86) ISA drivers?
> 
> Not sure it's still considered ISA based in its current state, but the
> smc91x is another one used on Atari. That one's got an interrupt
> though, and I had confirmation that it works fine from a user just a
> few days ago.
> 
> You mentioned the IRQ-less ne2k already - making that one run on
> netpoll has stalled for now because I'm too busy at work. Neither
> driver has been merged mainstream yet.
> 
> Most of the Amiga cards are 8390 or Lance based IIRC (there's a Lance
> based Atari driver as well!) but these do not share code with the ISA
> Lance drivers as far as I can see. Geert may know more details.

Thanks Michael for the level headed on-topic reply, I appreciate
it.  That smc is used by 20-odd arm defconfigs, so it really isn't
valid to consider it as a stand alone ISA card used just by older
x86 hardware with ISA bus.  In fact I'm not sure it ever shipped as
a standalone ISA card...

Paul.

> 
> Cheers,
> 
>   Michael

Re: What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

Hi Paul,

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 6:31 PM, Paul Gortmaker
<paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> wrote:
> A discussion is underway with respect to the future of the various ISA
> drivers[1], and Alan suggested checking with the m68k folks:
>
>  Check with the M68K people however. 3c501 won't matter to them but I'm
>  not sure which of the other chips ended up on Amiga ISA bridges. I know
>  NE2000 clones did.
>
> I know you've currently got that "almost ne2k" driver that runs IRQ-less.  Are
> there other "ISA-like" onboard devices in the M68k harware scope that rely on
> existing (x86) ISA drivers?

IIRC, the only m68k machines (supported by Linux) with ISA slots are:
  - Q40/Q60, probably used with NE2000 cards only,
  - Various Amiga bridgeboards, none of which are supported,
  - Apollo DN, used with a 3Com 3c505 ISA Ethernet card (preferably the
    version with an Apollo boot ROM), but the (changes to the existing) driver
    never entered mainline, witnessed by the orphan APOLLO_ELPLUS config
    option we removed a few years ago.

Apart from that, several "ISA" (Ethernet) chips were/are used, as
typically that's
the simplest solution to add peripheral support to a CPU local bus using a
minimum of glue logic.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds

Re: What ISA hardware is integrated into m68k bridges

[Michael Schmitz]

Hi Paul,

On 23/05/12 01:52, Paul Gortmaker wrote:
>> Not sure it's still considered ISA based in its current state, but the
>> smc91x is another one used on Atari. That one's got an interrupt
>> though, and I had confirmation that it works fine from a user just a
>> few days ago.
> Thanks Michael for the level headed on-topic reply, I appreciate
> it.  That smc is used by 20-odd arm defconfigs, so it really isn't
> valid to consider it as a stand alone ISA card used just by older
> x86 hardware with ISA bus.  In fact I'm not sure it ever shipped as
> a standalone ISA card...
Just the infamous NE2000 clone then for Atari (RTL8019AS is what it 
reads on the ISA card hanging off the ROM port of my Falcon).

Cheers,

   Michael