[PARPORT] Re: EPP Boards


David Campbell (campbell@torque.net)
Tue, 6 Oct 1998 16:57:04 +0800


From: "Norman Gillaspie" <norman@pcseng.com>
To: <campbell@torque.net>
Subject: EPP Boards
Date sent: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 21:48:49 -0700

> Hi,
>
> I am wondering if anyone has a drivers for a parallel
> port card that uses the PCI bus.
>
> Here are some links of the cards I know of
>
> http://www.dolphinperipherals.com/4006.html
> http://www.siig.com/prodinfo/ioprod/cbriopci.htm
>
>
> If I can't find a Parallel PCI card and driver for Linux
> what other card would you recommend with an EPP driver for
> Linux if it exists.

The main problem with these cards (where can I buy one :-) is the posibility
of using one of the non-standard parallel port locations. For the ZIP drive and
2.0.x kernels this is a one line edit to fix. As for the 2.1.x kernels this will
require a slight edit of the parport_pc file which searches for PC style parallel
ports. Again only a one line edit (I need to check here).

The "SIIG" card appears to follow the standards as far as ECP/EPP
protocols are concerned (Apparently the Iomega drivers work fine except for
non-standard ports). Looks like the standard Linux drivers will work fine.

The "Dolphin Peripherials" uses an Exar chipset which starts ringing alarm
bells, it state that it has an "85 byte FIFO", the IEEE 1284 standard for ECP
states that the FIFO should be 16 bytes. (*downloading pdf datasheet*)
Hmm... as I thought its that annoying "High speed SPP piece of junk", don't
touch it with a barge pole, it is not even ECP compatible let alone EPP (best
mode for disk drive like devices).

I would like to know if these cards are "pure" PCI or a PCI-ISA bridge plus
ISA IO chipset.

In short use the SIIG card, if you have problems drop me a line. The question
is has anyone used this card with Linux and what were the results (cc to
linux-parport)

David Campbell
=======================================================
campbell@torque.net

Current project list:
a) Maintain Linux ZIP drivers
b) Create Linux chipset specific parport drivers
c) Start on ParSCSI drivers
d) Boot proms for parport devices (socket onto NE2000 cards)

Any assistance to clearing this list most welcome

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 30 Dec 1998 - 10:18:31 EST