From: Adams (adams@pdv3.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de)
Date: 09/26/92 

From: adams@pdv3.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de (Adams)
Subject: Re: Gnu hardware
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 18:54:43 GMT

Wouldn't it be reasonable to cut number of cards. I think it is suffient to
group similiar applications to ONE card like:

        1) Network card running ether,
                RS485 synchronous and asynchronous and/or RS322
        2) Mass storage IO : Floppy (ST506/412), IDE and SCSI
        3) Videocard[s].

What's expensive are not the actual controllers, but their support chips.

A reasonable network card for a multitasking system needs a kind of
micro controller anyway. Servicing RS485/RS323 is virtual free .

Same applies for mass storage I/O.

best