Greetings !

> > > > ... then loaded the kernel and died. Second time I remembered that I had
> > > > to switch to 256 colours first...
> > > *grin*  Anyone feel like fixing rasops?
> > My knowledge of Acorn hardware is - well, limited. Next to nonexistant.
> 
> This job doesn't require any particular Acorn knowledge, just an ability
> to try to code portable, fast rasterop code in C.
Hmm, did kind of this in assembler on x86, but someone must provide me
with information about the video memory organization in 4-bit color on
the Acorn ( planes like on the Amiga ? one byte - two pixels ? ) and how
to set the palette... not to talk about a cross compiling environment
for NetBSD/(i386 or hp300) or Solaris/SPARC, whatever may work.

> > What about switching the screenmode in BBBB ?
> 
> I'd rather not, but I'll get it to print a warning if it thinks things
> won't work.  That way, the old bootloader won't get in the way when the
> kernel finally supports lower bit-depths.
Hmm, it could ask wether it should switch to 8bit / same resolution when
possible ? At least as long as the kernel dies in anything else than
8bit

> > > > ... the usual Acorn stuff, then
> > > > podulebus0 at ioc0 bank 4
> > > > Castle Technology SCSI + CDFS Drivers (0055:00f6) at podulebus0 slot 0
> > > > not configured
> > > > ea0 at podulebus0 slot 1: SEEQ8005 address f2:f2:f2:f2:f2:f2 buffer RAM
> > > > failed self test, 131071 faults
> > >
> > > Pity.  I'll have a look and see if there's anything obvious I've missed in
> > > the code, but I'm not greatly optimistic.
> > Hmm, ARMLinux didn't like it too - my board is made by ANT, not Acorn.
> > Someone told me that there are some rather suble differences between the
> > ANT and the Acorn ether3 ?
> 
> Possibly, though I suspect the arm32 driver has been tested on both.
I remember reading something vague about that.

> Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about either the card or the chip on
> it (LSI Logic, who bought Seeq, don't have old enough data sheets on line)
> and I haven't got one to test either.
That makes it nearly impossible for you :-( I hope the code is somewhat
commented...

> > > > Would it help to put the ea0 in slot 0 ?
> > > I doubt it.
> > Any idea what it could be ?
> 
> Well, I've found the bug, and you were right (curses!).  I forgot to
> adjust the MEMC base address for the podule to allow for the slot number,
> so putting it in slot 0 might work.  My SCSI card (the card I've got that
> uses MEMC accesses) was in slot 0, which is why I didn't notice the bug
> earlier.
Cool ! I'll try it later ( no time today ) and send you the results... 
btw. - what does the kernel expect when it asks for a root device ?
simply ea0 to make it RARP and rpc.bootparam ?

> Oh, and I've fixed the bug that was causing some podules (notably Acorn
> SCSI cards) to lose their descriptons, too.
Great ! 

Sorry, can't keep it back - how hard is it to make the internal IDE on
A5k style machines work ? 

bye
Michael