[parisc-linux] E55 (9000/856) proprietary interfaces

Tue, 6 Feb 2001 10:40:30 -0700

Christoph -

Please work through me on this one, rather than Martin.  I am the HP R&D
manager directly responsible for the PA/Linux work, while Martin is now the
overall General Manager for HP's Linux System Operation (i.e. this level of
request would just get delegated back to me anyway!).

As you know, the E55 is not supported in our current efforts.  Let me get
some input from the rest of the team on how best to approach your interest
for docs on this system, to do the work.  As you can tell from the email
replies you have sent on the E55, it is not a high priority for us at the
moment.

For now, some comments.  This project would not be where it is without the
interest and energy of people like you.  There are "volunteers" on this
effort who have contributed significantly, and we have tried to help people
by providing some documentation and (sometimes) equipment.

But, the fact is that we currently have more requests for this type of
documentation than we can handle.  So, we prioritize.  We are currently
focused very much on getting the A- & L-class systems working well.  To get
there, it has been pragmatic to get many workstations working as well - 712,
715, C-class, J-class, etc.

If it was easy to get documentation released, this would be an easier
problem.  The fact is, we first need to figure out what docs are needed,
where they are, how to get an online version, have someone review and clean
the documents so they can be released publicly.  Not only does this take
lots of time, but it can be especially difficult to even find the docs for
older products where none of the original engineers can be found.  For some
docs we have released (e.g. the Astro docs) we had an engineer spend weeks
going through this work.

This is not meant as an excuse, just the reality.  And, I should note that
the problem is not that HP is reluctant to release docs for older systems.
It is simply the time involved to get them ready for release.

So, again, we prioritze.  We have released many docs and are hoping to
release more (docs on graphics cards in next on my list).

Does this mean we will never release docs for the E55?  No, it is simply the
fact that the E55 is not our highest priority at the moment.  I hope you can
understand.

I will 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Christoph Plattner [mailto:christoph.plattner@alcatel.at]
>Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 8:45 AM
>To: martin_fink@hp.com
>Cc: parisc-linux@thepuffingroup.com; christoph.plattner@dot.at
>Subject: [parisc-linux] E55 (9000/856) proprietary interfaces
>
>
>Mr. Fink,
>
>Mr. Kaessmayer in Austria found your mail in the parisc-linux
>mailing list archives concerning HP support for the HP PA-RISC
>Linux project.
>
>I contacted HP in parallel to the PA-RISC hacker, because I am
>interested in using my HP server E55 (9000/856) machine with
>HPPA Linux (puffing group...).
>
>But this series of server has old proprietary interface, and so
>there are no drivers for the interfaces (SCSI, 8-port serial board
>multiplexer and parallel interface).
>
>In my so little spare time, I am interested to work on that part
>for having my E55 supported. Is there a possibility to get information
>(hardware docu, HP-UX driver sources, etc) tp be able to do this
>work ? Can anybody of the HP teams (hardware, device driver programmer,
>system programmer) help me in this point ?
>
>With friendly regards
>
>	Christoph
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>private:        christoph.plattner@dot.at
>company:        christoph.plattner@alcatel.at
>
>
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