December 1998 - OpenBIOS - mail.coreboot.org

Chipset autodetect -- pro and con
by M Carling Jan. 12, 1999

Jan. 12, 1999

There seems to be some disagreement over the issue of whether or not OpenBIOS should provide for possibility to compile into a single binary support for multiple chipset types to be autodetected at run-time. For OpenBIOS to be successful, it needs to become more attractive to the MB manufacturers than the alternatives. I don't know whether such a feature would be attractive to the MB manufacturers or not. I suggest will begin by compiling a list of the advantages and disadvantages of this feature. Having done that (so that we understand it ourselves as best we can) we should then ask the manufacturers. (This will be a good step toward getting free hardware from them for development.) When we ask them, we should also ask any other questions about their needs. In effect, we need to do some market research. Here are the advantages and disadvantages that I can think of. There are probably others. Pro: It's cool. It would allow manufacturers to have one BIOS ROM that supports all their MB products. The autodetect code might also be useful for diagnostics. Con: Extra complexity--something else to go wrong. Bug free code is *really* important in the BIOS. Extra complexity--more difficult to test. What other questions would we like the MB manufacturers to answer for us? M

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None
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 24, 1998

Dec. 24, 1998

im working with 0.0.1, and found a potential problem. in start.asm, the 8042 is initialized. the problem is the my 8042 is in my sio! there are a few register emulated by the elan, and somewhere in the 8042_init its getting hung (well hung). Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 23, 1998

Dec. 23, 1998

i dl the 0.0.1 codebase, and have started adding support for my target, the sc400. i added all the init stuff, and my super io stuff, then compiled w/o problem! but, of course, it does nothing. today, i will try to find one of those diag cards so i can write messages out. im not sure how to cordinate changes with others. i have modified the .config.in file, and a few of the make files (to accept new vars for my hardware). Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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adding to menu config
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

i tried using the bios, and of course it did not boot on my system (elansc400). so im am working on a init for the sc400 and the ns97306 sio. i would like to add these into the menu config, and not being my unix, how do i do this. Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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bios and the amd sc400
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

sorry for the number of post, but im really interested in this project. my design uses the AMD elanSC400. I have already wrote code to boot WinCE (sorry), so I have knowledge of what needs to be done to init the elan. Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

Sorry, just after i posted my last message, i got 4 emails for the list! anyway. im interested in working on this project. if anyones interested, i have a copy of Anabooks AT BIOS kit. I use it all the time as a reference when writing embedded PC stuff where I junk the BIOS altogether. BTW. i can dl the codebase, but cannot unzip/untar it? Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

Is there anyone on this lists? Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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(no subject)
by Ruud Cox Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

auth d98f49a3 subscribe openbios r.cox(a)ehv.tass.philips.com

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Fwd: Holidays and a snapshot
by Daniel Engstrom Dec. 22, 1998

Dec. 22, 1998

Hello All! Stefan have the snapshot (hopefully). /Daniel ------ Forwarded message ------ From: daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no Subject: Holidays and a snapshot Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 15:44:13 +0100 (CET) To: stepan(a)wesley.informatik.uni-freiburg.de Reply-To: daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no Hello Stefan, It's been a while... Anyway, I haven't had that much time for coding the last month or so, (had to spend some time doing my day-job). But I have made some small progress and since I will go away until Jan 9 99 I hereby present you with a snapshot as of today. Improvements: * Ali 1511 boots now. (See ugly hacks in boot/tools/build.c) * An initial implementation of a memory allocator. * A prototype runtime configuration mechanism. (A cross breed of environment variables and the Linux command line) * Random stuff Merry Christmas and Happy New year. /Daniel -- Do you use MS Mail? If so please note that my email addresses are: daniel(a)lillfab.se - Work related. daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no - Private.

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Re: 414 FAQ accesses
by Dave Dec. 21, 1998

Dec. 21, 1998

At 06:23 PM 12/20/98 -0800, you wrote: >There hasn't been much activity on the list lately, so I thought it might >be worth mentioning that the FAQ has been accessed 414 times in the last >week. So somebody cares about what we're doing. :-) I am new to the list and very interested. What is the URL for the FAQ? How about other URL's that would be useful in getting up to speed. TIA, Dave

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