Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: EISA boards
Message-ID: <1990Dec14.144153.12315@virtech.uucp>
Date: 14 Dec 90 14:41:53 GMT
References: <6316@crash.cts.com>
Reply-To: cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill)
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc., Sterling VA
Lines: 42

In article <6316@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes:
>This is the precise reason that I want to avoid EISA.  If you all thought I
>was screaming because of the recommendations of EISA over MCA I got.  You
>ain't seen nothing, if I would have gone EISA (haven't bought the system yet)
>over MCA and something like this would have happened, I would have screamed a
>hell of a lot more.  :)

One example of some hardware incompatibility (and there was no obvious
explanation for the problem) and you are sure that EISA is terrible?

Some things to remember with EISA at this time:

	1.  It is fairly new, so there may be problems with some
	    implementations (the same kinds of problems that exist with
	    some ISA implementations).

	2. Most OSs have not yet been tested/modified to work correctly with
	   EISA (don't know if this is true for ESIX, but ISC2.2 requires
	   a fix disk to work correctly with EISA).

I'm not saying EISA is "the" way to go, just that like any new toy, you can't
expect to run at the cutting edge of technology and not experience some 
problems.

>Such behavior is no where near acceptable for a Unix box.

Yup.  But if the Unix vendor does not say thier product will work with 
an EISA board, you are on your own.  The same goes for unknown ISA boards.

>Of course, WangTek tape drives (save their DAT's) aren't that great of a
>machine.  I remember adding one to a customer's Sun SPARCstation 1+ and it
>never quite did work 100% of the time.  Finally, it died completely a couple

Oh my god,  the VME bus must be the problem (if they still use VME?) :-)

(this is what you sound like when you sound off about EISA with the 
slightest hint that someone had a problem.)

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
uunet!virtech!cpcahil                           46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160
                                                Sterling, VA 22170