my@falcon.nsc.com (Michael Yip) (04/14/91)
I understand that the EISA is a standard bus for high end PCs and
it is being used for the HP Snake series of workstations. Does it
mean that the software spec for interfacing to the HP-UX operating
system is also in the public? Can anyone/everyone get the spec
and develope for the HP series of workstations? or someone needs
HP's approval?
Hardware is probably not an issue but how about the driver software...
-- Mike Yip
my@berlioz.nsc.com
PS: And OPEN-ARCHITECTURE using the EISA bus will do the user
not good if the software is not OPEN to everyone ...glen@unknown.HP.COM (Glen Robinson) (04/16/91)
The Series 700's use EISA for expansion as of the HP-UX 8.05 release. The first machines are running 8.01. 8.05 will be the release shipped to all but the very first customers. Approximately mid July, 1991 a version of the HP-UX Driver Development Guide for 8.05 will be released. This will include information for developing EISA kernel drivers on the Series 700. This release will also include information for develping VME, DIO, and EISA drivers on the HP-UX 8.0 release for our Series 300/400 SPUs. A version of the HP-UX Driver Development Guide for 7.05 (VME, DIO, and EISA on the Series 300/400 SPUs) is currently available. The part number for this guide is 98577-90012. Note that drivers' developed for EISA on the Series 400 are source code compatible (assuming they follow conventions and calls as outlined in the Driver Development Guide) with EISA on the Series 700. HP-UX kernel driver semantics are BSD based with the addition of some HP specific services related to an interface select code (isc) structure upon which services such as select code and device queueing are based. In addition, the HP-UX kernel auto configures based on code using the isc structure and services. Usual babble about ideas comments, etc being mine and not my company's ... Glen - R