mrm@sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) (07/19/89)
I just received an Intel (R) Above(tm) Board Plus I/O. It is a 2MB
+(par/ser) 16-bit memory card. Turns out that it only can be addressed
on a 512k boundary as extended memory. That is somewhat less than convenient
with a motherboard that can only be configured as 512/0, 640/0, or 640/384.
I'd rant, rail, and rave at the MB manufacturer, but the only address that
I have for them is Taiwan :-) That leaves Intel. The folks at phone support
are real nice, real helpful, and they know the fix. The sell a new chip for
the board. It
1) is "promotional",
2) isn't shipping in the new boards now shipping,
3) is backordered,
4) will ship next Thursday or the following Tuesday, or so,
5) goes UPS ground,
6) costs only $30,
7) can be put on VISA/AMEX/MC or CASHIER's Check or "a company check
if you're on our approved list",
8) allows addressing on a 128k boundary (I hope)
So, I get to buy it on my VISA, submit to my company for reimbursement, wait
some more to find out if the card even works at all, and it`s "promotional".
Sounds more to me like a fix of a design flaw. Some might even call it a bug. I
wouldn't grouse too much, but this particular flaw didn't show up until running
of their SETBOARD.EXE under DOS only mentioned start addresses of 1.0, 1.5, ...
Downloading a new version of SETBOARD.EXE from their (very convienent) bulletin
board gives a program that actually explains this requirement. Had it been
mentioned in their rather beautiful shiny brochures, I might have chosen an
alternative solution, but now I've got the board.
Foo. Our customers expect us to fix stuff that doesn't work and not charge 'em
if it was our fault. No wonder Intel rakes in coin. At least the Intel folk
were real nice; I think it comes from working in Oregon where the air is still
nourishing. BTW, what gives with a tm on the word "Above"? How about tm on
"Below" or "In" or "On" or, oh well, I guess I'll just wait for the chip.
---
Mike Murphy Sceard Systems, Inc. 544 South Pacific St. San Marcos, CA 92069
mrm@Sceard.COM {hp-sdd,nosc,ucsd,uunet}!sceard!mrm +1 619 471 0655baxter@ics.uci.edu (Ira Baxter) (07/19/89)
If you are so annoyed at Intel about not fixing their bug, why don't you cheerfully suggest to Intel that you'll send the board back, and buy a board from someone that doesn't have the problem. Intel will either pop the chip for free, or you will have voted economically against their policy. Sheesh. -- Ira Baxter
darryl@lemuria.MV.COM (Darryl Wagoner) (06/03/90)
I am trying to install a Intel ICC card into a Mitsubishi MP 386 system. The problem is that I can't open any of the ports. The open returns with errno 19 (No such device). The card is found at boot time and /etc/icc/dload is running. I have tried it with the driver from Interactive and Intel both. It has the same effect on both 2.0.2 and 2.2 Unix. I have moved the DMA address from F0,0000 to F7,0000 and I/O address from 308 to 348 with no change. I have been using interupt level 10. Here is my current sdevice/icc file: icc Y 6 5 2 10 348 357 0 0 Any ideas on what the problem could be?
jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM (Jack F. Vogel) (06/05/90)
In article <1314@lemuria.MV.COM> darryl@lemuria.MV.COM (Darryl Wagoner) writes: >I am trying to install a Intel ICC card into a Mitsubishi MP 386 >system. The problem is that I can't open any of the ports. The open >returns with errno 19 (No such device). Hmmm, I run an ICC on turnkey and other than its annoying propensity to "crash" meaning that the onboard software dies and needs to be reset at least once a day :-{, it works OK. >The card is found at boot time and /etc/icc/dload is running. I have >tried it with the driver from Interactive and Intel both. Well, I was going to suggest bus speed or something but if the kernel sees the card at boot then that is not likely the problem. I did have to throttle the bus when I upgraded to a 25Mhz system to get the thing to work. >icc Y 6 5 2 10 348 357 0 0 This looks OK. >Any ideas on what the problem could be? About the only other possiblity that comes to mind is to make sure that the major of the ttyi*'s is right, meaning that it matches the number of the driver in the kernel ( check /etc/conf/cf.d/mdevice). I have had things get out of wack and the two not match at least once, although not with this driver. Good luck. Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not LCC. -- Jack F. Vogel jackv@locus.com AIX370 Technical Support - or - Locus Computing Corp. jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM
support@ism780c.isc.com (Support account) (06/06/90)
In article <1314@lemuria.MV.COM> darryl@lemuria.MV.COM (Darryl Wagoner) writes: >I am trying to install a Intel ICC card into a Mitsubishi MP 386 >system. The problem is that I can't open any of the ports. The open >returns with errno 19 (No such device). > In 2.0+ releases of Interactive Unix, the driver was updated so that the second switch (the middle one on the board) needs to set thusly: on x x x x off x x x x switch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 which amounts to setting the I/O address to 348 for the first ICC card. Here are second switch (I/O address settings) for second, third, and fourth cards: (2nd card: I/O address: 34C) on x x x off x x x x x switch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (3rd card: I/O address: 350) on x x x x off x x x x switch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (4th card: I/O address: 354) on x x x off x x x x x switch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 How you know that switches are set correctly: after switches 1 and 3 are set to default and switch 2 is set as above, put ICC driver in kernel, build kernel, shutdown to install. Put card in box and reboot. If everything is everything you will see the following just before the console login prompt: ICC card 0 installed Notice: iccprim: card 0 Asynch Driver, V0.8b Apparently this card is finicky about cabling. Have user consult the ICC User Manual if they have problems with terminals after the card is working. Also note that unlike the asy driver for com ports, one can spawn a getty on an ICC card port whether anything is connected to the port or not, without getting a "getty respawning too rapidly" message. If the driver is having problems with ICC ports, it is more common to see an error 19 (no such device) when attempting to turn on such a port. ....