RSTS on a Pro, was Re: [HECnet] DECnet User Mode Router - Encapsulation Formats

On 06/23/2012 04:43 PM, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote: Urr? Doesn't the CNA use an Am7990 "Lance" chip? As I recall that isn't too bad to program. I must be misremembering what chip it uses..? Intel 82586, which has the worst programming interface in the history of Ethernet. It uses a single linked list, which is accessed both by the driver and by the chip, without interlocking. Race conditions everywhere... Ohhhhhhhhh, that one! I remember that chip. That was an "ie" (Intel Ethernet) in Sun parlance. The "le" (Lance Ethernet) found on some machines was far preferable. I had to write a driver for an Am7990 for an embedded application a long time ago; I remember that wasn't too bad. I've never really looked at the 82586 at the programming level; I just remembered not to try to put too much traffic through them when building networks of Sun machines. :) There's Linux support for it, for which source code is readily available, and I have some earlier Solaris source code which will have some code. Maybe pick through that for some tricks. But man that sounds dangerous, no access clash protection...ugh. Umm...are you willing to share that stuff? =) I run RSTS 10.1 on many of my PDP-11s; I'd LOVE to run it on my Pro-350! Sure, if I can figure out a way to do it reasonably cleanly. That would be great...Thank you! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA