Conexant HCF 56k PCI modem help

Rick C. Petty rick at megan.kiwi-computer.com
Sat Jan 24 20:47:15 PST 2004


For a project, our customer wants to use these 56k PCI modems from
Creative.  Although not my first choice, I did some research and discovered
that the modems use a Conexant Systems, Inc. (vendor id 0x14F1) SmartHCF
56k chip (device id 0x1059).  It is not a "winmodem"; the HCF family is
"Controllerless" vs. the HSF "software" chipsets.

Under a vanilla 5.2-RELEASE, pciconf showed:

none9 at pci1:7:0:	class=0x078000 card=0x1059 chip=0x105914F1 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00
    vendor   = 'Conexant Systems, Inc.'
    device   = 'HCF 56k Data/Fax/Voice Modem (Worldwide)'
    class    = simple comms

I started by adding the following entry to the top of src/dev/puc/pucdata.c:

	{   "HCF 56k Data/Fax/Voice Modem (Worldwide)",
	    NULL,
	    {	0x14F1, 0x1059, 0x148D, 0x1059 },
	    {	0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF },
	    {
		{ PUC_PORT_TYPE_UART, 0x10, 0x00, 0, 0 },
	    },
	},

and the kernel detected the device (puc0) an bootup, but was unable to
attach because it "could not get resource".  That last line in the struct
was pure guesswork, based on many other entries.  I tried it with
PUC_PORT_TYPE_COM and had the same error.  Digging through puc.c I tried
adding PUC_FLAGS_ALTRES to the flags and it found the device, although
sometimes would hang on boot [I guessed various numbers for the "bar"
parameter with varying levels of bootability],  so I tried another
approach..

Further internet investigation revealed a linux driver from linuxant:
http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/hcf/downloads-license.php

They provide two versions of their drivers-- one binary-only "full" version
(at a "modest price") and a free (limited) version with source code.  The
code generates a few [linux] kernel modules via some shims to access the
binary-only modules.  I am hoping someone else of more kernel/driver/puc(4)
experience has the time to help get this ported...  please let me know
ASAP.

Alternatively, if someone could suggest a better solution (PCI-only) for
not much more than US$25/ea. that works well in FreeBSD 5.x I would be
quite grateful!  Thanks in advance,

-- Rick C. Petty
Senior Software Engineer
KIWI Computer


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