[rescue] Using an Adaptec 29160N SCSI card in an Ultra10

[Greg]

> On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 12:29:52PM -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:
> 
> > Yep.  The adaptec cards SUCK SHIT when used in a Solaris/SPARC system, and
> > then only the ones with the OpenFirmware BIOS work.  Adaptec has discontinued
> > the Solaris/SPARC support.
> 
> Since Macs use OpenFirmware, would Mac retail cards work?

Perhaps, but not in the way that you want.  There's a misconception
that OpenFirmware is required for a device to be used in a Sun
PCI-based platform and that's not true.  All PCI devices are
self-identifying so the OS will be able to use any PCI device
_as long as there's a driver for it_.  You only need OpenFirmware
for boot devices, those devices that will be used during boot
(console output, console input, boot device) as the OpenFirmware
contains the FCode that allows OpenBoot to perform I/O to those
devices.  OpenFirwmare will allow probe-scsi[-all] to work but
that is not sufficient for an OS to use the device, only OpenBoot.
For the OS to use the device an OS-level device driver is required
and that's the hard-to-find piece for the majority of PCI cards
marketed towards the PeeCee space.

-greg