Can we get back to the subject at hand i.e NetBSD?  99% of this message
is about NT and thus doesn't belong here.

later,
Adam Glass
adamg@microsoft.com

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	greywolf@siva.captech.com [SMTP:greywolf@siva.captech.com]
>Sent:	Thursday, September 19, 1996 10:35 AM
>To:	jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com
>Cc:	current-users@netbsd.org
>Subject:	Re: Diaspora, politics, and MI
>
># From jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com Thu Sep 19 05:19:50 1996
>#
># Windows NT uses exactly the scheme described.  A DMA driver *always*,
># *unconditionally* allocates a "mapping register" to connect I/O bus DMA
># addresses to memory bus addresses, and *always* deallocates the mapping
># register when DMA is complete.  (Gee, you'd think the NT designers were
># old VAX hacks or something :-).
>
>1.  If you want machine independence, that's certainly one way to do it.
>
>2.  I'm sure you're aware that the project manager for NT was a lead 
>programmer for VMS.  It shows that he _still_ doesn't know how to design
>an operating system.
>
>
># The Hardware Abstraction Layer contains
># *all* of the knowledge about whether a given bus or machine needs
>registers,
># bounce buffers, or no translation at all.  And while NT's performance may
># suck, this fails to be a source of any perceptable suckage.
>
>Here again, if you want machine independence, that's one way to do it,
>and it's probably not all that bad.  In fact, it appeared to me to be
>a great principle, but something, somewhere obviously isn't working quite
>right because we haven't even seen an alpha release for this kind of
>interface.
>
># 
># You wouldn't want *Windows NT* to be able to claim to be better designed
># and more machine independant than NetBSD, would you?  ;-)
>
>Windows NT will _never_ make either claim.  It runs on a SPIM processor
>and an Intel.  Does it actually run on a forward MIPS?
>
>They certainly have made no attempt to port it to the SPARChitecture.
>
>[Thank the High Ones for small favours.]
>
>				--*greywolf;