I just can't believe it

[ron minnich]

brand new shuttle box

phoenix-award bios

"keyboard error or no keyboard present"

"Press F1 to continue"

It's just too funny. Imagine a beowulf of these!

ron

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 11:09:10AM -0800, ron minnich wrote:
> brand new shuttle box
>
> phoenix-award bios
>
> "keyboard error or no keyboard present"
>
> "Press F1 to continue"

Computer science at it's finest, anno 2008.
> It's just too funny.

I think it's sad actually.
> Imagine a beowulf of these!

Yeah.

//Peter

[Florentin Demetrescu]

yes but they DO have access to datasheets..
we don't...
they are "trusted" bussiness partners..
we aren't..
:/

Quoting Peter Stuge :
> On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 11:09:10AM -0800, ron minnich wrote:
> > brand new shuttle box
> >
> > phoenix-award bios
> >
> > "keyboard error or no keyboard present"
> >
> > "Press F1 to continue"
>
> Computer science at it's finest, anno 2008.
> > It's just too funny.
>
> I think it's sad actually.
> > Imagine a beowulf of these!
>
> Yeah.
>
> //Peter

[Bernhard Walle]

* Florentin Demetrescu  [2008-01-22 21:59]:
> yes but they DO have access to datasheets..
> we don't...
> they are "trusted" bussiness partners..
> we aren't..

Well, data sheet or not:

bool error_handling(int error)
    {
        switch (error) {
            ERR_KEYBOARD:
                printf("Keyboard error!\n");
                break;
            ERR_MEMORY:
                beep(); sleep(); beep();
                break;
            default:
                printf("Some strange error!\n");
                break;
        }

// two hours later, after some meetings
        // lots of coffee and before going home

printf("Error! Press F1\n");
        getkey();

return true;
    }

:-}

Bernhard

[Torsten Duwe]

On Tuesday 22 January 2008, Florentin Demetrescu wrote:
> yes but they DO have access to datasheets..
> we don't...
> they are "trusted" bussiness partners..
> we aren't..

It's not trust. it's the million-flies-syndrome along with percieved "business 
demands". Virtualisation can help here.

Some on this list are working in the twilight zone, in case vendors want help 
to escape.

Torsten

[Stefan Reinauer]

Florentin Demetrescu wrote:
> yes but they DO have access to datasheets..
> we don't...

Some of us certainly do. They might not be able to put them on a web 
page for download but still write ports.
I am working on support for newer Intel chipsets at the moment.
> they are "trusted" bussiness partners..
> we aren't..

For some vendors we certainly are.
> :/

It's not all that bad. We are catching up. Keep in mind the others had 
about 20ys advance to get the legal stuff sorted out. It takes a while, 
often longer than the actual development work.

Stefan

[Gregg C Levine]

Hello!
Extremely.
And yes I agree with you Ron regarding your unit. Incidentally one of its
problems happens to be heat management.

I also agree with Peter regarding the unit, (see earlier messages.)
--
Gregg C Levine [e-mail]
"The Force will be with you always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]

On
> Behalf Of ron minnich
> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 2:09 PM
> To: Coreboot
> Subject: [coreboot] I just can't believe it
>
> brand new shuttle box
>
> phoenix-award bios
>
> "keyboard error or no keyboard present"
>
> "Press F1 to continue"
>
> It's just too funny. Imagine a beowulf of these!
>
> ron

[Torsten Duwe]

On Tuesday 22 January 2008, ron minnich wrote:
> brand new shuttle box
>
> phoenix-award bios
>
> "keyboard error or no keyboard present"
>
> "Press F1 to continue"
>
> It's just too funny. Imagine a beowulf of these!

The Legacy BIOS vendors' QA process is properly described in 
linux/arch/i386/kernel/apm.c, just grep for "Ship"

It appears to be funny. But it's true.

Torsten

OT: I just can't believe it

[Rudolf Marek]

Hi all,
> It appears to be funny. But it's true.

Well most of them run DOS games too - graphics vendors because of old 
video modes (they check pixel clock etc)
And BIOS vendors because of SMM usb keyboard emulation, which is tricky 
because of A20 stuff etc etc. I have
some legal obligations so I can't tell if there is any chipset datasheet 
mentioning DOOM ;)

Well on the other hand Asus server boards are tested with major 
enterprise Linux distros.

Rudolf

OT: I just can't believe it

[Torsten Duwe]

On Wednesday 23 January 2008, Rudolf Marek wrote:
> Hi all,
> > It appears to be funny. But it's true.
>
> Well most of them run DOS games too - graphics vendors because of old
> video modes (they check pixel clock etc)

When was the last time you actually _played_ a DOS game on a current machine, 
without emulation? Where did you get the sound drivers from?
This makes it even sader: those use cases are irrelevant by now.
In the PC world, hacks seem to live forever.
Intel announced a "legacy-free" initiative[1], but they are still sticking to 
their A20 gate; even the macbook has one. "Bit for bit, bug for bug."

Forunately the DOOM engine is now open source :-]
> Well on the other hand Asus server boards are tested with major
> enterprise Linux distros.

Good to hear that some try to make a difference.

Torsten

[1] http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/speeches/pg021500.htm