[9fans] Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs - Frequently Asked

[G. David Butler gdb@dbSystems.com]

It is interesting that you bring this up...

>Hello 9fans!
>
>FAQ says in comp.os.plan9:
>>Ethernet Adapters
>>	3Com 3C509, 3C509B are recommended. The EISA 3C579 works, but
>>	isn't worth the extra cost. The PCMCIA 3C589, PCI 3C590 and PCI
>>!	3C595 (fast ethernet) also work. AMD 79C970 based adapters seem to
>>	work fine. SMC (WD) series up to the Elite (and the Elite Ultra),
>>	some NE2000 compatibles (including an NE4100 PCMCIA card) and one
>>	Eagle NE3210 EISA card. The 3Com 3C503 does not work at all under
>>!	load. The 3Com 3C595 is not supported.
>Does 3C595 work or not?
>
>According to 3COME Home Page
>the Fast EtherLink that 3COM currentlly sails are:
>PCI: 3C905-TX, 3C905-T4
>EISA: 3C597-TX
>ISA: 3C515-TX

I have a 3c509, 3c579, 3c597 and 3c905.  The ISA card works, except
under heavy receive load with an adaptec 1542 bus-master the small
receive FIFO will drive you crazy!

But the 32bit cards don't work worth a sh*t!  After spending too
much time going through Plan9 and Net/FreeBSD source I have determined
these cards go into stupid mode on transmit when presented with
bursts of receive data.  In other words, if you rip a lot of data
off the card or force a lot into the card, it works great.  But just
try a single compile session, which does full 8k reads and writes,
and the cards go stupid.  A cp of a ~large file in a directory will
do it to.

They will not accept any more data into the transmit FIFO, will not
transmit what is in the FIFO and will not give you a TxAvail interrupt
when the FIFO finally does drain!

I don't have any documentation to the cards, so I'm in the dark.
Any body want to help?

David Butler
gdb@dbSystems.com