Re: Problems with DEC Etherworks 3

[Ken Yap <ken@nlc.net.au>]

>It appears there is a Linux driver (see 
>/usr/src/linux/drivers/net/de4x5.c) for this card, so writing an 
>Etherboot driver would be easier than having to decode things from 
>scratch.

No, this appears to be the older Etherworks 3, which uses the ewrk3.c
driver in Linux. The notes say it uses a custom chip by DEC. The chip
appears to be straightforward, using a shared memory scheme.

>All this being said, the time I have spent learning and contributing to 
>Etherboot has been well worth the effort.  I encourage anyone who is 
>interested in understanding computers more to do the same.  Driver 
>writing is like poetry; each word carries meaning, and it is an efficient 
>use of language.  I find satisfaction in knowing that a driver I wrote or 
>debugged is helping people who I may never meet.

That's true, there is something compelling about writing a piece of
software that actually talks to the the outside world via silicon and
metal, rather than being insulated from it by printf, or XPutPixel
or whatever.
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