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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!nic-nac.CSU.net!news.Cerritos.edu!news.Arizona.EDU!canopus!tom From: tom@canopus.as.arizona.edu (Thomas J. Trebisky) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: NetBSD VESA IDE support ?? Date: 16 Aug 1994 19:17:10 GMT Organization: Steward Observatory, Tucson, Arizona Lines: 41 Message-ID: <32r3bm$ql7@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: canopus.as.arizona.edu Cc: Hello, I am in the midst of buying a 386 (486 actually) machine to run NetBSD. The main board will be a VESA local bus 486DX2-66. The question I have is what flavor of disk controller will make best use of the VESA bus. Political factors here may preclude a SCSI subsystem, so here are the options that I would appreciate comments on: 1) Dumb little "IDE interface" with I/O, basically an ISA bus IDE interface. I feel sure this will work, but it won't take any advantage of the VESA bus which is sad. 2) Dumb VESA-IDE interface. I understand that cards of this sort are available for $79.00 or so. 3) Smart VESA-IDE interface with 2M of cache ($249 with RAM). ----- Now, if I do manage to convince the powers that be, to buy me a SCSI subsystem; which SCSI adapters make use of the VESA bus? Options I see are: 1) Adaptec AHA1542CF which is *not* a VESA card, but seems very popular among NetBSD users. $205.00 2) Adaptec 2842 which *is* a VESA card, but does *not* appear on the list of supported host adapters. $299.00 3) Buslogic KT445C (BT445c) which is a VESA card and does appear on the list of supported SCSI host adapters. $210.00 My inclination among these would be to get the Buslogic, if NetBSD can make use of the VESA interface. Thanks to all those who will contribute their helpful advice!!