Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[geoff]

I'm no fan of USB, but it seems closer to what you want than SCSI.  In
fact, though, SCSI disks (for example) from different vendors do just
seem to plug in and work.  Admittedly adding support for a new class
of SCSI device is more work (unless you just punt the whole problem to
scuzz, and thus largely to the end user).

But the peripherals themselves (or classes of devices) aren't the big
problem, at least for SCSI or USB, it's the interfaces (controllers,
host adapters, whatever) themselves, at least in the wonderful world
of unstandardised PCs.  Plan 9 has drivers for the PCI Buslogic/Mylex
and NCR/Symbios/Tekram SCSI host adapters, but not the PCI Adaptec or
any of the lesser known ones.  And as far as I know, there are at
least two USB interfaces already (logically different and using
incompatible chip sets: UCHI vs OCHI and Intel's chips vs Via's).  Our
biggest headache is VGA cards, which seem to have shelf lives of a few
months, and Ethernet cards, which are beginning to have shorter shelf
lives (can you still get FA310s?) but which fortunately mostly just
reuse a few Ethernet chips (or emulately them inaccurately).

So to have a relatively stable peripheral environment one would need
to (somehow) standardise buses (internal and external), controllers
and their interface protocols, and the protocols between the
controllers and the actual peripherals.  But then the world would
change around us; people want greater speed or utility (Shrug and Pray
on live systems seems to be the only compelling reason for USB over
SCSI).  In the decade or so, the PC has been through ISA, EISA, PCI,
AGP, PCMCIA and Cardbus buses (among others), and PCI is certainly an
improvement over ISA. We've seen IDE/ATA get less stupid (real DMA,
what a concept!), SCSI get faster, USB get invented and then get
faster (to the point of being more than a toy).  Ethernet has gone
from 10Mb/s to 100Mb/s to 1GB/s and I believe the 10GB/s committee is
already at work.  And it's all gotten smaller and cheaper.  Microsoft
try to influence the design of PCs with their periodic standards
(e.g., PC98), but they don't have very good taste in hardware.  I'm
not sure who else has the influence or power to enforce hardware
standards, since nobody is in charge of the overall PC architecture.

I cope by stock-piling cheap supported controllers and trying to
simplify hardware configurations.  For CPU servers and terminals,
booting off floppy lets you avoid local disk entirely if you have
enough RAM, so Ethernet should be the only real pain for CPU servers.
There are several cheap supported cards out now; the NetGear FA310 is
a 2114x, but watch out that the 311 and 312 are not.  For terminals,
there's VGA Hell to be suffered.  The ATI Xpert 98 cards were good for
a while, but now it's hard to find any of them that don't have the
Rage XL engine, and we don't have support for those currently.  It
appears that the Nvidia TNT2 M64 situation is getting sorted out.

All of this is in part why I'd like to get an Ipaq (bitsy) when (if)
they stop being so scarce.  It's got a processor that Intel didn't
design and it looks like the only Intel PC goo in it is a PCMCIA
controller and the flash memory.  No wretched Intel interrupt
controllers, no red-hot glowing CISC processor, no IDE cretinism, 001
USB controller, 001 video interface.  38,000 lines in
/sys/src/9/pc/*.c vs. 11,700 in /sys/src/9/bitsy/*.c.  Amazing what
you can do when there's someone in charge to tell the sleazier
hardware designers, `no, you can't save 5 cents per unit by omitting
DMA, making the software swap the bytes, and leaving out a boot ROM so
that the user has to type in the boot program in hex on the serial
port at every boot'.  I'm skeptical about the bitsy's suitability as a
terminal, but it might make a fine CPU server since it's got what
matters: a reasonable CPU, a lump of RAM and an optional PCMCIA
network card (Wavelan currently).

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

geoff@collyer.net wrote:
> So to have a relatively stable peripheral environment one would need
> to (somehow) standardise buses (internal and external), controllers
> and their interface protocols, and the protocols between the
> controllers and the actual peripherals.

Yeah.  Actually only the plugging interface needs that level of
standardization.

> But then the world would change around us; people want greater
> speed or utility ...

Indeed, and good engineers know how to design in advance to
accommodate change.  I deliberately pointed to SCSI as partway
there, because it has been able to evolve in that way without
losing support for older SCSI devices.  Note that unlike most
contemporaneous interfaces, SCSI used a packet protocol.

The fact is that people really do want plug-and-play, it's just
that they don't really have it available today.  USB devices
aren't truly plug-and-play, because a device-specific and
platform-specific piece of driver software must be installed.

> I cope by stock-piling cheap supported controllers and trying to
> simplify hardware configurations.

Yeah, if we want to run Plan 9, currently we have to do that.
I am not satisfied at having to dig up junk hardware.  Ideally,
I should have one workstation that can be used for all workstation
tasks, be it interactive 3D games or software development.  That
workstation ought to be as nice as possible within my budget.

> ...  The ATI Xpert 98 cards were good for a while, but now it's
> hard to find any of them that don't have the Rage XL engine, ...

That has been my experience, too.  Beware "value editions".

> ...  38,000 lines in /sys/src/9/pc/*.c vs. 11,700 in
> /sys/src/9/bitsy/*.c.

How much of that is due merely to the fact that the "Bitsy"
hasn't yet had much time to evolve?

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[jmk]

On Thu Jul 12 17:13:24 EDT 2001, chris@cjl1.demon.co.uk wrote:
> > So? What makes you think that someone else can?
>
> As an individual (not representing a corporation)
> I find it extremely difficult to get hold of data sheets.
>
> I have filled in countless web-forms to register
> for the ability to access the 'developer' pages
> on a manufacturers site.
>
> I have yet to gain access to a single one!
>
> This make it hard for the hobbyist to get involved in
> writing drivers.
>

You are missing 2 things:
1) it's not any easier for someone working for a corporation - in many
   ways it's worse as a) they know you have a lawyer, b) they think they
   may be able to make money out of it, both of which colour the discussion,
   and 3) they may consider you a competitor in some sense.
2) the datasheet may not exist. The lifetime of interface cards is so short
   and the margins of the manufacturer so thin they often don't bother with
   a technical writer.

Like Boyd I've used high-quality documentation from Digital. That level can
still be found from some of the established component manufacturers (e.g. Intel,
National Semiconductor) but even that doesn't always help when the components
are combined with others to make a system.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[bwc]

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I've found both the 3com site and the Intel developer's site to be useful.
It still takes digging, but I've been lucky.  The smaller companies are
a problem.  Many of their products are `clones' and they don't even bother
to write a manual.

Also, the PCMCIA, PCI, USB, and other consortia provide the baseline
description of much of this stuff.  The vendors often just say what
parts they really do.  ANSI for the ATA spec, for example.  Since
there are many vendors playing in the same space this makes sense.
Back when only DEC defined what a VAX was, each peripheral's documentation
would fully describe that peripheral.  Now they say `vesa video controller'
and just describe what makes them different.

In 1996 I had top secret copies of one of Intel's chipset I was using.
Today you can the equivilant document off the web.

  Brantley

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From: "Chris Locke" <chris@cjl1.demon.co.uk>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 22:09:10 +0100
Message-ID: <003d01c10b16$e8128b40$2248dec2@falken>

> So? What makes you think that someone else can?

As an individual (not representing a corporation)
I find it extremely difficult to get hold of data sheets.

I have filled in countless web-forms to register
for the ability to access the 'developer' pages
on a manufacturers site.

I have yet to gain access to a single one!

This make it hard for the hobbyist to get involved in
writing drivers.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

bwc@borf.com wrote:
> I've found both the 3com site and the Intel developer's site to be useful.
> It still takes digging, but I've been lucky.  The smaller companies are
> a problem.  Many of their products are `clones' and they don't even bother
> to write a manual.

As someone who is trying to restore old computer systems, or even
simply getting a 9-track 1/2" magtape drive working on a modern PC,
I keep finding that manufacturers of > ~10 yr. old equipment claim
to have no corporate knowledge of their old products, not even
documentation on file.  One gets the feeling that a lot of stuff
is developed by small ad hoc teams that are later disbanded
without having bothered to adequately document their work.

> Also, the PCMCIA, PCI, USB, and other consortia provide the baseline
> description of much of this stuff.  The vendors often just say what
> parts they really do.  ANSI for the ATA spec, for example.  Since
> there are many vendors playing in the same space this makes sense.
> Back when only DEC defined what a VAX was, each peripheral's documentation
> would fully describe that peripheral.  Now they say `vesa video controller'
> and just describe what makes them different.

Partly, it's a difference in the user population.  In the Good Old Days,
a noticeable fraction of the controllers went to sites that needed the
detailed documentation.  E.g. in order to write a UNIX device driver,
which was originally not such an intimidating task as it is now.
Today, only a handful of people (at most) develop low-level device
support, while maybe a million units are sold to end users who are
disinclined to buy anything that is accompanied by technical info.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Boyd Roberts]

From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
> Partly, it's a difference in the user population.  In the Good Old Days,
> a noticeable fraction of the controllers went to sites that needed the
> detailed documentation.  E.g. in order to write a UNIX device driver,
> which was originally not such an intimidating task as it is now.

absolutely.  the pdp and vax docs were succint, correct and the
h/w was pretty much sane as opposed to, say, vga hell.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[geoff]

jmk has a point.  I'll try to spend some time applying Jedi mind
tricks to hardware vendors.  I'm told that Nvidia will sell anybody
their interface documentation for $1,000, so they may be more
susceptible than most.

Figuring out which cards (or even chip sets) are going to have the
longest shelf lives, so that the effort is worthwhile, would help
to set priorities.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[geoff]

Doug asks how much of the 26,300-line difference in .c files
between the PC and the Bitsy is due to the Bitsy having had
less time to evolve.

The Bitsy family could well sprout new gadgets over time,
but it's somewhat physically constrained by its size and
I hope that Compaq will have the good sense to keep using
the same components unless it has really good reason
(not just the price on the spot market for components this
morning).  Meanwhile, in the wild chaos of the PC I count
12,181 lines of pc/ether*.c in 14 files for roughly that
many different kinds of Ethernet cards, and 6,583 lines
of pc/vga*.c in 21 files, again for roughly that many kinds
of VGA cards.  So 18,764 lines of the difference (all but
roughly 7,500 lines [my earlier line counts were rounded])
are accounted for by the lack of interface standards and
the needless complexity and pointless diversity of many of
those interfaces.  And there are lots of other incompatible
devices available.  I give jmk a lot of credit for keeping
those line counts as low as they are.

I know, let's make a version of Plan 9 that runs on Mach;
that'll solve all our problems!  ☺

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[jmk]

On Thu Jul 12 14:19:22 EDT 2001, chris@cjl1.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> > Why don't you write the Plan 9 driver for the hardware you want to use?
>
> 'cos not all of us can get the data sheets required.
>

So? What makes you think that someone else can?

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Chris Locke]

> So? What makes you think that someone else can?

As an individual (not representing a corporation)
I find it extremely difficult to get hold of data sheets.

I have filled in countless web-forms to register
for the ability to access the 'developer' pages
on a manufacturers site.

I have yet to gain access to a single one!

This make it hard for the hobbyist to get involved in
writing drivers.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Boyd Roberts]

> As an individual (not representing a corporation)
> I find it extremely difficult to get hold of data sheets.

right.

lucent/bell have a bit more influence than J. Random Coder.

at least with the pdp's and the vaxen you could get the doc
and it wasn't really heavy anough to be worthwhile to throw
at anyone :)

i read the 'red book' one weekend.  coded copy on write fork
the next week -- easy.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Jim Choate]

You're doing it wrong....

Go to your local courthouse and file a DBA (they are very inexpensive, in
Texas free). You may or may not decide to get a tax ID number for the
state or feds (depends on if you actually intend to take in money).

You take the DBA to your bank and have them note it in your file, this way
a check signed to the DBA can be cashed and if somebody does a referal to
the bank that will come back positive.

You then get business cards printed up, and if you have a 'multiple
mailbox answering machine' use it.

You want to identify your local wholesalers and distributors (eg Arrow or
Active for components, for boards and such you just ask one of the
managers at your local sales site) for the manufacturers in your area (you
can do this remotely but you'll need to make a few touchie-feelie trips
each year to stay in good stead). Make contact with one of the
salespersons and keep that contact current. Get on their mailing lists
under the DBA.

Identify the process whereby you can buy 'engineering sample size' orders
(usually this is a money limit or number of components). It's usually a
few dozen components or a couple $100 bucks. If you can involve a user
group of some sort it helps raise the cash.

Once all this is done you can usually get some access to databooks and
such much easier.

The trick is to look like a legitimate business trying to survive and not
some individual hobbyist trying to get a freebie.


On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Chris Locke wrote:

> > So? What makes you think that someone else can?
>
> As an individual (not representing a corporation)
> I find it extremely difficult to get hold of data sheets.
>
> I have filled in countless web-forms to register
> for the ability to access the 'developer' pages
> on a manufacturers site.
>
> I have yet to gain access to a single one!
>
> This make it hard for the hobbyist to get involved in
> writing drivers.


 --
    ____________________________________________________________________

                Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
                God said, "Let Tesla be", and all was light.

                                          B.A. Behrend

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[nemo]

: 'cos not all of us can get the data sheets required.

Now that you say that...

	anyone has information about the toshiba
2G pcmcia disk?

Just got one and have been looking for information
to write a driver ☺

Although linux seems to support it, I have found
no specific driver for the beast, perhaps it's a
generic pcmcia disk driver the one which works...

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[jmk]

On Thu Jul 12 04:38:24 EDT 2001, DAGwyn@null.net wrote:
> ...
> Yeah, if we want to run Plan 9, currently we have to do that.
> I am not satisfied at having to dig up junk hardware.  Ideally,
> I should have one workstation that can be used for all workstation
> tasks, be it interactive 3D games or software development.  That
> workstation ought to be as nice as possible within my budget.
> ...

Why don't you write the Plan 9 driver for the hardware you want to use?

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Chris Locke]

> Why don't you write the Plan 9 driver for the hardware you want to use?

'cos not all of us can get the data sheets required.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> Why don't you write the Plan 9 driver for the hardware you want to use?

Several reasons, some of them similar to yours:
Lack of available hardware documentation.
Lack of available time to do the work.
Lack of universality (i.e. it is expensive to do this every time
I upgrade the hardware or assemble a new system with then-current
hardware).
Remember, I said I was not criticizing the Plan 9 developers
on this score -- the PC hardware situation is horrible.  I was
just looking for a viable way to leverage the work that hardware
vendors have already put into drivers for Windows.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Boyd Roberts]

> jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> Why don't you write the Plan 9 driver for the hardware you want to use?

i'd add in high risk of trashing the machine while kernel
hacking it into a state so i can use my weird, french, but
cool, vaio(s).  i can type on its keyboard to an acceptable
[ascii] degree, but i can't back it up.  i've debugged
and written far too much unix kernel code to have a morbid
dread of booting new kernels on non backed up m/c's.

i think i've trashed two file-systems in my time, but _they_
were backed up.  those rm-03's were great.  all that removable
media stuff was great.  write protect everything in sight and
boot off a development pack.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Boyd Roberts wrote:
> those rm-03's were great.  all that removable
> media stuff was great.  write protect everything in sight and
> boot off a development pack.

Today's equivalent seems to be Zip drives.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Boyd Roberts]

From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
>
> Today's equivalent seems to be Zip drives.

yes, but it's nonsense.  those ra-90's were way cool.

at PRL i built a month of /n/dump out of ra-90's and
some scripts.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[forsyth]

>>All of this is in part why I'd like to get an Ipaq (bitsy) when (if)
>>they stop being so scarce.  It's got a processor that Intel didn't

you can get them off the shelf at several shops in York.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 11:54:19AM +0100, forsyth@vitanuova.com wrote:
>
> you can get them off the shelf at several shops in York.

and at impossible prices in Cape Town and Johannesburg too.

++L

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Boyd Roberts]

> you can get them off the shelf at several shops in York.

paris too.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[presotto]

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We already support TLS(& SSL2) encrypted connections.  That stuff
will go out with the next release.  Sean Dorward did it all.

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From: "William K. Josephson" <wkj@eecs.harvard.edu>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 19:27:02 -0400
Message-ID: <20010710192702.D14363@honk.eecs.harvard.edu>

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 12:08:16PM -0700, Mike Haertel wrote:
> >In fact, the new 9P2000 version of drawterm that rsc built
> >builds from kernel sources directly.
>
> Does this mean the new version of drawterm will support SSL
> encrypted connections?

I don't know the current status, but Russ and I were discussing adding
SSL support in late February or so.

 -WJ

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[rob pike]

> Isn't that largely what drawterm does?
No, because drawterm needs a CPU server to connect to.
In fact, the new 9P2000 version of drawterm that rsc built
builds from kernel sources directly.

I agree with the sentiment that DAGwyn's proposal isn't
very compelling.  With so many alternatives for hosting
or simulating one operating system over another, I don't
see the need for another, its advantages notwithstanding.
Inferno's emu gives a different language and a variety
of new things, but running a Plan 9 simulator in a Unix
window doesn't add nearly as much.  Moreover, it requires
a huge (by my standards, anyway) file system to support it:
the kernel is a teeny part of the whole, in great distinction
with Inferno.

-rob

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Mike Haertel]

>In fact, the new 9P2000 version of drawterm that rsc built
>builds from kernel sources directly.

Does this mean the new version of drawterm will support SSL
encrypted connections?

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[William K. Josephson]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 12:08:16PM -0700, Mike Haertel wrote:
> >In fact, the new 9P2000 version of drawterm that rsc built
> >builds from kernel sources directly.
>
> Does this mean the new version of drawterm will support SSL
> encrypted connections?

I don't know the current status, but Russ and I were discussing adding
SSL support in late February or so.

 -WJ

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Thanks, Rob, I appreciate the feedback.

I guess I'm frustrated by how hard it is to share a desktop
system between Plan 9 and other OSes (multibooting), due to
the difficulty in supporting myriad PC devices.  This is
not a complaint about the work of the Plan 9 development
team, just an unfortunate situation.

Maybe time would be better spent in designing a new system
architecture *so* compelling in its advantages over our
current common platform that it has a good chance to
displace the whole [deleted] thing.  One idea I've had for
some time is that peripherals ought to be self-identifying
plug-ins that use a common protocol, something like 9P --
it ought not to be necessary to have to write a new piece
of platform-specific software to get *some* basic
functionality out of new hardware.  So far the closest
realization of this notion has been SCSI, but it doesn't
take the idea nearly far enough.

[9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

What is it, apart from someone having to do the work, that would prevent
the above-device-level portion of Plan 9, perhaps Inferno's emu, running
on top of a UNIX system (or even Windows, gasp), with the hosted-Plan-9
first importing the UNIX /-rooted file system globally then overlay-
mounting the hosted-Plan-9 specific parts of the name space?  I.e. true
rio, acme, etc. for people who are not in a position to control the
choice of operating system.

I know that would introduce inefficiencies in the data paths, but that
is not necessarily a fatal problem.

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Lucio De Re]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 03:17:57PM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote:
>
> What is it, apart from someone having to do the work, that would prevent
> the above-device-level portion of Plan 9, perhaps Inferno's emu, running
> on top of a UNIX system (or even Windows, gasp), with the hosted-Plan-9
> first importing the UNIX /-rooted file system globally then overlay-
> mounting the hosted-Plan-9 specific parts of the name space?  I.e. true
> rio, acme, etc. for people who are not in a position to control the
> choice of operating system.
>
Isn't that largely what drawterm does?

> I know that would introduce inefficiencies in the data paths, but that
> is not necessarily a fatal problem.

Oh, yes, it does! :-)

Funny, I'd like it the other way: have all the nice features of the
Plan 9 infrastructure and throw the ugly Unix toys above it, simply
because they exist, and people are so used to them, they don't realise
they can live without them.

Like Doom (or is it Quake?), Word, Netscape, to name a few.

++L

Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Lucio De Re wrote:
> Isn't that largely what drawterm does?

I don't think so.  Can I use drawterm to run rio, acme, etc.
without the aid of a separate system running a Plan 9 kernel?

> Funny, I'd like it the other way: have all the nice features of the
> Plan 9 infrastructure and throw the ugly Unix toys above it, ...

Remember, the constraint I was addressing is when the actual
OS (direct hardware control) is predetermined (and not Plan 9).

Don't think that such an environment has only "down" sides;
consider that at least using Windows support for all those
PC devices (graphics cards etc.) isn't such a problem,
because somebody else will be taking care of that anyway.
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: University of Bath Computing Services, UK
Keywords:
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--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
D.H.Davis@bath.ac.uk