[SunRescue] Hardware reference re-structuring ideas.

[Martin Frost]

Gregory Leblanc wrote:

> I think that a different section layout might make things easier to find
> for people new to the document (although veterans may remember something
> being somewhere that it's not).

> Here's idea number 1, please tell me why I shouldn't do it this way (or
> should).  Break it down into a section on the different archs.  So, 1
> section for Sun2, one for Sun3, one for Sun4, one for Sun4m, one for
> Sun4c, one for Sun4u (Are there more that I've forgotten?).  I see some
> problems with this layout, but it is an option.

I think it breaks things up a little too much that would be better kept
together. I quite like the current date-ordered list, as it also gives
an idea of which machines were contemporary with a given beast. I agree
that it is perhaps becoming a little unwieldy in the case of the SPARCs,
but I think that unless a division is intuitively obvious to a new
reader it shouldn't be made. I like the way that looking at the model
number on the machine is all you need to know which section it's in
(if there's no number, it's one of the first two...) If Ultras are added,
they could go in their own section, but I like having all the other
SPARCs together.

Otherwise, we have the case that SPARCstation IPX is in the sun4c section,
while SPARCstation LX is in the sun4m section; SPARCstation 2 is in the
sun4c section while SPARCstation 4 is sun4m; and Sun 4/400 is in the sun4
section but Sun 4/600 is in the sun4m section. Given the superficial
similarity in model numbers, this could confuse a new reader even further
than the current big section.

Kernel architecture is something of an obscure thing to a new reader. ;)

> Idea number 2 would be to break the machines and board down into
> different interfaces.  There could be an SBUS section, a VME section,
> and a PCI section.  This idea sounds a lot more limiting at the top, but
> under each of those sections, I could have a sub-section for each arch.
> The third idea would be to modify the existing layout to allow for
> easier management.  I'd want to combine/re-break out sections 3 and 4,
> perhaps into one section for each interface, more or less.

Structuring expansion boards by host bus architecture would be a very
good idea, IMHO. I say host bus architecture so that, say a VME->Multibus
bridge would go in the VME section rather than the Multibus section.
This would correspond to combining 3 and 4 and then splitting by bus.

This works because boards only have one host bus on them. Trying to
structure CPUs by bus won't work as well because some have more than
one bus (for example, the 4/600 as mentioned by James Lockwood).

--m