In message <9601161531.AA05387@cthulhu>, you write: 

-> >From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>

[...]
-> >>Synopsis:       autoconfig "*" wildcards aren't supported for ISA devices
-> 
-> >Seems to me that we shouldn't even get to the compile stage.  If I 
-> >understand it right, config(8) won't let you "*" a device if it's 
-> >qualified with "needs-count" in files*, contrasted with "needs-flag" or 
-> >nothing which does.

[...]
-> >So, if we don't particularly care about having foo.h, why not create a 
-> >"no-star" (I'll be damned if I can remember exactly what Torek called the 
-> >action of "starring" a device in his autoconfiguration paper...).  That 
-> >way we can avoid these configuration mistakes (and cryptic panic 
-> >messages) before we even get the kernel compiled.
-> 
-> He called it cloning, I believe.  If a 'no-clone' option is defined,
-> then it should be applied to the ISA bus instead of the individual
-> devices.  The inability to use cloned devices is a limitation of the
-> ISA bus, not of ISA devices.  There is no way to find *all* of the
-> devices on an ISA bus, as there is with a 'real' bus like PCI. :-)

	The thing you need to watch out for here is EISA devices, since
	they're currently entered in the config file as "xx* at isa?".

	Thus, if I've got 3 3c509 cards on an EISA bus, I should be able
	to say "ep* at eisa?".  However, until the eisa code is (re?)done,
	we can't really do this.

						--rafal

----
Rafal Boni                                            rafal@scofflaw.banyan.com
Software Engineer, Internet Products Division              Banyan Systems, Inc.
(All opinions are my own)              17 N.E. Exec. Park, Burlington, MA 01803