On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 12:44:41PM -0800, jonathan@dsg.stanford.edu wrote:
>However, the issue with the chips on your blade systems is (as I
>beleive I tried to explain a couple of weeks back) they're not the
>common-or-garden versions with integral 1000base-T
>transceiver. Instead, your blades appear to have the "bcm5780S"
>version, which has builtin interfaces with 8-bit-to-10-bit encoded
>signalling) (aka "TBI" or sometimes "SERDES"), suitable for wiring
>direct to a 1000base-X optical GBIC.

In my discussion Friday, with penguincomputing, I forshadowed
your mentioning the eminent serdes optical issue, with my vague
recollection.

>Just personally, I wouldn't hold out much hope for *BSD driver support
>from broadcom HW engineering. OTOH, feel free to suggest my name as a
>possible recipient for an up-to-date BCM57xx programmer's manual :).

Will do! thanks for the detailed overview, should help penguincomputing
address the issue more directly. I'll forward to interested parties...

// George


-- 
George Georgalis, systems architect, administrator <IXOYE><
http://galis.org/ cell:646-331-2027 mailto:george@galis.org