[OpenIndiana-discuss] Monitor or writing drivers

[Michelle Knight]

There was a time where I understood the 8086 architecture quite well. I had 
Peter Norton's books and even wrote in Pascal and 8086 assembler taking over 
the graphics subsystems - http://msknight.com/index.php?page=221 - don't ask 
me what that code does now, though. I haven't got a clue.

A number of very kind people have e-mailed me directly with some considerably 
solid advice.

To be honest, I don't want to return to the days of knowing the architecture 
inside out. It was easier when I was in my late teens and didn't have any of 
the grief that burdens us adults. These days, unless it is part of the job, it 
is difficult to devote enough time to ... and from what I've been told, it 
would take a considerable amount of time to get to the device driver 
programming level ... along with technical details of the card that I'm not 
likely to get my hands on.

The GIC704SR5 is a good suggestion, but is only 1.5Gbps if I read correctly. 
The RocketRaid is 6Gbps; I need the speed to transfer terrabytes out to 
external storage overnight.

The RocketRaid 600 appear to be in Linux already, so there should be a driver 
already written. I'm hoping that I might be able to learn enough to be able to 
convert the existing code.

Oh ... bother. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Who am I kidding? I'm not the coder I was as a teen. I'm just throwing good 
money after bad, and am reliant on the good will of the people that have the 
knowledge to keep systems like OI, etc. running.

...and now I'm out of wine. That means time for bed.