From: zeke@fasttech.com (Bohdan Tashchuk) Subject: Re: DMA on PC motherboards Date: 11 Dec 1992 05:18:23 GMT
In <1992Dec8.175242.11901@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> chiu@alumni.berkeley.edu (David Chiu) writes:
>Hearing this from an engineer working in one of the major SCSI host adoptor
>manufacturor (don't want to make it sound like the company is slamming any
>chip makers here...)
>"Most chipsets (and thus MBs) on the market today can barely do bus mastering
> properly (for ISA based machines)... Opti *HAD* a good chip set earlier but
> their new chipset isn't better than any other chipsets"
This is a bunch of crap.
To a first approximation, you get what you pay for. If you buy the cheapest
Tiawanese clone you can find, you deserve to have it fail bus mastering.
I've been running an Adaptec 1540A in a clone 20 MHz 386 for four years.
It works very reliably. Motherboards from the "first tier" cloners work.
You take your chances with the cheap junk. For a first approximation as
to the better quality systems out there, get the "guaranteed compatible"
list from your favorite Unix vendor. Mine is on my vendor's list, and,
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, it works just fine.