Re: [LinuxBIOS] one last note

[Peter Stuge]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2006 at 09:40:27PM -0700, Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> Adam Talbot wrote:
> > -Ron
> > To day I will sound like a n00b.  VSA?
>
> A strange piece of software that is installed and acts like hardware
> -- certain ops trap to it, I think.
>
> really odd. I can't find a good writeup on it, since it is mostly 
> proprietary.

VSA=Virtual System Architecture
VSM=VSA module

The BIOS inits VSA and all available VSMs. A VSM claims IO or int
resources.

VSA uses SMM to run VSMs when the OS accesses those resources.
(outb(xx,0x220) in kernel -> smint -> dispatched to audio VSM)

NSC had two documents describing it:
"VSA/BIOS Porting Guide"
and
"Virtual System Architecture BIOS Porting Guide"

Don't ask how they differ, I don't remember.

//Peter