SUMMARY: Writing a SCSI Driver

From: Steve Grandi (grandi@noao.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 17 1991 - 20:16:45 CDT


The original query:

> We are faced with the task of writing a SCSI device driver to run our new
> Solitaire film recorder from a Sun 4/60. We have source (4.1, not 4.1.1,
> unfortunately) and folks who have written drivers before.
>
> I have found references to two Sun manuals that would seem to be relevant:
> P/N 800-4700 "Implementation Guide to Sun Common SCSI Architecture" and
> P/N 800-4701 "SCSA Sun Common SCSI Architecture" and have ordered them from
> Sun (which means we will see them in 2 months or so).
>
> Has anyone out there written a SCSI driver for SPARCstations using the SCSA
> interface? Are the above mentioned manuals (plus the usual "Writing Device
> Drivers" manual) sufficient to get the job done? Any example SCSA drivers
> that out there that people are willing to share?
>
> There is a Sun Consulting Special (SIP) which is described as a "starter kit
> for SCSI drivers." Sounds perfect until you look at the price: $8,100,
> non-discountable!
>
>

The best answer:

From: rct@fid.Morgan.COM (Robert Terzi)

Get the Sun SBus Developer's Kit. It can be order through, I think,
Sun Express or Hamilton Avnet (probably better choice). The kit should get
there in reasonable timeframe and includes some very useful info,
namely: Writing SBus Device Drivers, The Sun Common SCSI architecture,
& SCSA Implementation guide. Yes, even though the kit and the driver
guide is aimed at SBus, it has *lots* of useful information about
drivers for SPARCstations. Sun's SBus group did a very good job at
putting this together IMHO. There are some sample drivers in the SBus
kit. Last I looked there was a sample SCSI skeleton driver. There
unfortunately isn't a good guide as to how to write SCSI drivers for
Suns.

[List price is $85 (discount level A). We ordered it through SunExpress and
it arrived a week later. Our driver guy is busily digesting it. Thanks
Robert!]

Other useful notes:

From: stern@bitatron.Eng.Sun.COM (Hal Stern - Consultant)

if you want the manuals tomorrow, call sunexpress.
1-800-usa4sun. give them a credit card #, and they
fedex the manuals to you with 1-5 day delivery.
for anything < $5,000, don't bother going through
the usual sales rep -> PO -> sales order -> order entry -> ship
cycle. sunexpress is by far the better way to get "small"
things.

From: kevins@Aus.Sun.COM (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})

You can get them much quicker by using the Sun Success Library - it's
a mailer archive, and we made sure those two documents were in it. (I was
one of the authors when at Sun) Start down the path with mail success@sun.com
Check with your sales critter, they may be able to to this *very* quickly
for you...

[Only Sun folk can get stuff from this server...]

From: Chris Maio <chris@boxhill.com>

There is an SCSA mailing list (mail to scsa-request@island.com to join),
and an example scsa driver was posted to that forum a while back.

Thanks to everyone who sent mail in response to my query!

Steve Grandi, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, Arizona USA
Internet: grandi@noao.edu SPAN/HEPNET: NOAO::GRANDI (NOAO=5355) +1 602 325 9228



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