NAME

sif − Interphase Storager 2 floppy controller

SYNOPSIS

controller sif0 at mb0 csr 0x7200 priority 5 vector siiintr
disk sf0 at sif0 drive 0

DESCRIPTION

This is a MULTIBUS floppy disk controller.  The driver software supports two floppy disk drives.  This man page documents the floppy disk support. 

The standard device names begin with “sf” followed by the drive number and then the letter a for partition 0.  The special file /dev/sf0a is linked to /dev/floppy.  The special file /dev/rsf0a is linked to /dev/rfloppy. 

The block files access the disk via the system’s normal buffering mechanism and may be read and written without regard to physical disk records.  There is also a ‘raw’ interface which provides for direct transmission between the disk and the user’s read or write buffer.  A single read or write call results in exactly one I/O operation and therefore raw I/O is considerably more efficient when many words are transmitted.  The names of the raw files conventionally begin with an extra ‘r.’

In raw I/O counts should be a multiple of 512 bytes (a disk sector).  Likewise seek calls should specify a multiple of 512 bytes. 

The size of the various partitions supported by the driver in fact are a function of the drive itself. 

FILES

/dev/sf0a     block files
/dev/rsf0a    raw files

SEE ALSO

autoconf(7), siq(7), sii(7)

DIAGNOSTICS

%s: hard error: %s, at: %d/%d/%d, cmd: %s.  A hard error of some type has occured.  The first string printed is the name of the device where the error occured.  Next printed is a textual description of the error, followed by the physical disk address where the error occured.  Finally, the command which caused the error is printed. 

Version 2.5  —  April 22, 1987