Using the WHATADAP.EXE Utility

The WHATADAP program interrogates any PCI, EISA, MCA, PCMCIA buses or 'Plug and Play' devices found in a computer and prints out identification information for any adapter card found. This information can be used as an input to the IFADAP program to allow selective loading of device drivers. Use WHATADAP as an aid to setting up boot device configurations for a particular hardware setup. Since the information returned is read from the adapter cards found in the computer, WHATADAP can detect any PCI, EISA, MCA, PCMCIA or Plug and Play card, not just those produced by Madge. The program must be run from the DOS command line/batch file environment.

The WHATADAP Options
WHATADAP Output

The WHATADAP Options

The only option supported by WHATADAP.EXE is /? which displays a short description of WHATADAP's function.

If WHATADAP.EXE is run without any options, it displays a one line description for every adapter card found in the computer. The amount of detail depends on the bus type of the card. The minimum description contains both a bus type and a bus identifier to allow the adapter card to be specified as an input to the IFADAP.EXE utility.

The WHATADAP Output

The output of WHATADAP.EXE depends on the bus types of the adapter cards found. The general format is: BUS=<bus type> BID=<bus identifier> [optional description] where:

<bus type>  <bus identifier>
----------  ----------------
  MCA        AAAA/B          AAAA is the MCA POS ID data
                             B is a 1 digit MCA slot number

  EISA       AAAA/BBB/CC     AAAA is the EISA manufacturer's code
                             BBB is the product code number
                             CC is the EISA slot number 

  PCI        AAAA/BBBB       AAAA is the Vendor ID number
                             BBBB is the Device ID number

  PNP        AAAA/BBBB/C     AAAA is the manufacturer's code
                             BBBB is the logical device ID
                             C is the Card Select Number

  PCMCIA     AAAA/BBBB/CCCC  AAAA is the manufacturers ID
                             BBBB is the manufacturers info 
                             CCCC is the logical socket number

Since the information returned by WHATADAP.EXE is read from the adapter card's memory, it cannot be guaranteed to be meaningful. This would depend on whether the adapter card's manufacturer has implemented the bus specification correctly. However, In all cases the information can be used as an input to IFADAP.

With some bus types (notably Plug And Play and PCMCIA) WHATADAP.EXE tries to get more descriptive information from the card, if this is available. This may help you to decide which bus identification belongs to which card. The exact form of descriptive information is dependent on the card manufacturer.

Example1

On a computer with an internal PCI/ISA bus, WHATADAP.EXE reported:

BUS=PCI BID=8086/122d Class:Bridge Device, Subtype:Host/PCI bridge
BUS=PCI BID=8086/122e Class:Bridge Device, Subtype:PCI/ISA bridge
BUS=PCI BID=8086/1230 Class:Mass Storage, Subtype:IDE controller
BUS=PCI BID=5333/8811 Class:Display Adapter, Subtype:VGA/8514
BUS=PCI BID=10b6/2 Class:Network Adapter, Subtype:Token Ring
BUS=PNP BID=101/8734/1 Madge Smart 16/4 ISA Clnt. PnP Ringnode
BUS=PNP BID=0/4d24/2 IBM Auto 16/4 Token-Ring ISA Adapter
BUS=PNP BID=9550/6d50/3 3Com 3C509B EtherLink III

Lines 1, 2 and 3 are all describing a multifunction PCI/ISA bridge chip with an embedded IDE disk controller. Line 4 describes the VGA video adapter. Line 5 describes the Madge Token Ring network adapter. Line 6 describes a Plug and Play Madge Ringnode on the ISA bus. Line 7 describes an IBM Auto Plug and Play adapter on the ISA bus. Line 8 describes the motherboard embedded Plug and Play 3Com ethernet adapter.

Example2

On a portable computer with a PCMCIA socket:

BUS=PCMCIA BID=141/1/0 MADGE SMART 16/4 PCMCIA RINGNODE

The description ("MADGE SMART 16/4 PCMCIA RINGNODE") of line 1 was read fromn the PCMCIA card configuration memory.

Example3

On a Microchannel bus machine:

BUS=MCA BID=74/1
BUS=MCA BID=74/2
BUS=MCA BID=eee7/5

Line 1 describes a Madge MCA ringnode in slot 1. Line 2 describes another MCA ringnode in slot 2. Line 3 describes an IBM video adapter in slot 5. Note that the MCA bus does not provide any extra descriptive information for you: such detail is not part of the MCA specification. If you are in any doubt about which line refers to which card on the MCA bus, the only reliable method is to remove and replace cards and to note the different outputs from WHATADAP.EXE.

Note that the extra descriptive information provided with the PCMCIA, PCI and Plug And Play buses is purely for the users convenience: it should not be used as an argument to IFADAP.

If the portable computer was likely to be powered up with one of two different network cards (for example, if it was in a docking station or free), then WHATADAP.EXE must be run with the computer in both possible combinations. If, for example, the docked computer displayed:

and the free computer displayed

BUS=PCMCIA BID=141/1/0 MADGE SMART 16/4 PCMCIA RINGNODE

then the CONFIG.SYS could contain the lines:

IFADAP BUS=PCI BID=10b6/2 DD=<PCI device driver arguments> IFADAP BUS=PCMCIA BID=141/1/0 DD=<PCMCIA device driver arguments>

In this way, the correct device driver is loaded for the environment. The advantage of WHATADAP.EXE is that if a manufacturer produces a new card, then WHATADAP.EXE can be run again and the new information added to CONFIG.SYS because WHATADAP.EXE needs no special knowledge of the type of card.