Compatible PCI devices on O2/Octane.
ssgriggs
function properly in an O2 is a PCI Adaptec 2940UW. Are there any
others that'll work?
swift
mus...@ucc.asn.au.invalid
: As far as I'm told, the only peice of PeeCee hardware that will
: function properly in an O2 is a PCI Adaptec 2940UW. Are there any
: others that'll work?
..and that's a 2940/OW, for OpenFirmware, unless you can hack a vanilla
one to work.
--
I don't get mad.... I get stabby.
Greg Douglas
Heck yeah. There's a 10/100 Ethernet adapter made by Racore, I
believe,
and a PCI bridge (don't know the manufacturer). There's SGI's own
DVLink (IEEE-1394 Firewire "solution"), FDDI (dual and single attach),
a second video card (woof-woof). A real smorgasbord (he said
sarcastically).
I don't know if these are peecee compatible or not.
--
Greg Douglas
http://www.reputable.com
Michael Rice
There's also a PCI reflective memory network card from VMIC that works
beautifully in Octane. I use it for real-time data acquisition and it
works perfectly.
The bottom line is that any PCI card can work - it's getting driver's
that is the problem.
<rant>
Although I loathe most PC hardware, there are some very cool
cards/peripherals available for PCs - mostly in PCI form. Although the
SGIs (Octane, Origin, others?) have PCI bus available the PCI cardcage
is $1200! Why so much for a shoebox with a few slots? That price makes
it more cost effective to buy a new PC than to add a little PCI bus to
your SGI. I would love to write some SGI drivers for some of my cool PC
hardware, but not for $1200 (I don't have a PCI cardcage in my Octane at
home - only in my customer's Octane).
</rant>
Michael
Rob
> Although I loathe most PC hardware, there are some very cool
> cards/peripherals available for PCs - mostly in PCI form. Although the
> SGIs (Octane, Origin, others?) have PCI bus available the PCI cardcage
> is $1200! Why so much for a shoebox with a few slots? That price makes
> it more cost effective to buy a new PC than to add a little PCI bus to
> your SGI. I would love to write some SGI drivers for some of my cool PC
> hardware, but not for $1200 (I don't have a PCI cardcage in my Octane at
> home - only in my customer's Octane).
> </rant>
I'll second that rant about the card cage. TOO EXPENSIVE BY FAR. A couple
hundred quid is all it should be - and that is still not cheap. Installed
as STANDARD it should be.
Rob
Martin Slaney
mus...@ucc.asn.au.invalid wrote:
> ssgriggs <swi...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> : As far as I'm told, the only peice of PeeCee hardware that will
> : function properly in an O2 is a PCI Adaptec 2940UW. Are there any
> : others that'll work?
>
> ..and that's a 2940/OW, for OpenFirmware, unless you can hack a vanilla
> one to work.
I would have _thought_ the open firmware (OF) version might only be reqd to
boot the machine, and that the version with PC BIOS would work otherwise
....
Could someone (who knows - Alexis ?) clarify this please ?
What about OEM PC versions of the 2940UW (e.g. Dell) with OEM firmware ?
ssgriggs
> Heck yeah. There's a 10/100 Ethernet adapter made by Racore, I
> believe,
Cool. I checked their site, but it's pretty scant on details. I saw
mainly 802.3 over fiber cards. They only touted their Winblows NT
compatiblity. However, other cards stated in fine print "other drivers
available". It reminds me of the time I ordered a LVD SCSI controller
for a DEC Alpha 4100 and noticed that the card was identical to the
PeeCee version of the card, only it was 300 bucks more for the 3.5"
floppy with Tru64 drivers. Later on the card failed and I re-ordered
the PeeCee version and it worked fine in the Alpha. What a scam. I'm
sure it cost them to develop and blah blah. Still. What a scam.
> and a PCI bridge (don't know the manufacturer). There's SGI's own
> DVLink (IEEE-1394 Firewire "solution"), FDDI (dual and single attach),
> a second video card (woof-woof).
The DVLink card would be a neat toy. Only I'm sure the price tag would
choke my enthusiasm.
> A real smorgasbord (he said sarcastically).
Yep. If I ever become a Real Programmer [tm], maybe I can write a some
drivers for the more interesting devices out there. I'm doing a lot
more coding in C lately. However, I suspect that without some details
about the IRIX kernel internals it maybe a bit difficult. I noticed
the other day that there are .PDF's available on writing device
drivers in IRIX. I looked at them, but they dabble in some arcane arts
still too far above my programming comfort zone.
> I don't know if these are peecee compatible or not.
Heh, no doubt. If I had a warehouse full of SGI's I don't think I'd
know a hell of a lot about PeeCee's either. *grin*.
swift.
Paul Jefferies
the Qlogic SANBlade 2200 PCI Fibre Channel should run. I've no problems
on an octane, 6.5.11f straight out the box.
Christian E. Boehme
> > and a PCI bridge (don't know the manufacturer). There's SGI's own
> > DVLink (IEEE-1394 Firewire "solution"), FDDI (dual and single attach),
> > a second video card (woof-woof).
>
> The DVLink card would be a neat toy. Only I'm sure the price tag would
> choke my enthusiasm.
SGI apparently use the TI IEEE1394 OHCI chips in their PCI designs.
That said, I'd suspect any of the el cheapo "FireWire" adapters to
work with their drivers (its called OHCI for something;) that come
with their PCI adapters if only someone could verify/test it.
I understand, though, that acquiring a super cheap alternative
that would just work as equally well might not make much sense
once you sold your leg for (the same) hardware from SGI.
> more coding in C lately. However, I suspect that without some details
> about the IRIX kernel internals it maybe a bit difficult. I noticed
> the other day that there are .PDF's available on writing device
> drivers in IRIX. I looked at them, but they dabble in some arcane arts
> still too far above my programming comfort zone.
From my experience, techpubs and the toolbox contain a whealth of info
for programming drivers. It still might seem that writing kernel code
is somewhat discouraged as appears to be the case with vfs modules -
NO documentation at all (oh, I forgot, it's supposed to be SysV
compatible). Having a base understanding on how drivers work
in general (eg, contexts, upper/lower halves, and memory spaces
in particular on SGI/MIPS hardware) does of course help.
> > I don't know if these are peecee compatible or not.
>
> Heh, no doubt. If I had a warehouse full of SGI's I don't think I'd
> know a hell of a lot about PeeCee's either. *grin*.
That's a VERY valid point. Read the PCI driver docs and you come
to the conclusion that your driver might work no problems in the
ccNUMA machines (Octane, Origins) but will most likely crash an
O2. PCI bus implementations are quite different in these machines.
I write all of my drivers for Octanes although I would VERY MUCH
want to do the same for O2. Problem is the lack of the appropriate
h/w. Anyone have a reasonably cheap O2 (preferably with R10K)
for sale (I'm serious) ? The reward will come in the form of
free open sourced IEEE1394 drivers and whatever strikes me at
the moment (maybe some pro audio cards and SCSI stuff) ...
Cheers,
Chris