*BSD News Article 96891


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From: "J.C. Archambeau" <n-xiv@worldnet.att.net>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: strange message from SCSI ahc driver at boot
Date: 31 May 1997 00:54:51 GMT
Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services
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Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu> wrote:

: It means target 5 on channel A of controller ahc0. The ahc driver
supports
: certain Adaptec cards that have two channels: one internal (you
attach
: devices with a 50-pin ribbon cable) and one external (there's a
50-pin
: mini SCSI2 'D' connector on the part of the card that sticks out the
: back of the computer). 

Actually, the dual channel Adaptec narrow SCSI cards have a pair of
50-pin IDS (ribbon) connectors and one HPDB-50M.  At least that's what
my 2742A-Twin has.  The external port that attaches to the bracket
plate is for channel A.  If you want an external port for channel B
you need to get your own adapter bracket or cable and put it at the
end of the ribbon cable used for channel B.

: Each channel is a seperate SCSI bus that can
: support up to 7 SCSI devices. In effect, it is like having two SCSI
: host adapter cards in one package. The 'A' violates the BSD device
ID
: convention to a certain extent since normally
controllers/busses/devices
: are numbered rather than lettered. Probably the Adaptec
documentation
: refers to the busses as channel A and channel B, so the driver
author
: used that nomenclature in the debug and probe messages.

It also doesn't correspond to other usage of dual channel adapters. 
Under other OSes (I won't mention that evil W word), it just refers to
each channel as a seperate adapter.  Anyway, thanks for the
clarification.  It acutally makes sense if you stop and think about it
albeit being undocumented.
 JCA
--
n-xiv@worldnet.att.net