linuxbios on geode gx1 with sst-39SF020A and CompactFlash [PMX:#]

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 10:47:38PM -0800, ramesh bios wrote:
> I noticed you mentioned reading the nsc reference
> drivers to get further understanding. Are these
> available somewhere?

NSC offered the BLDT, BootLoader Development Toolkit, without an
agreement of exclusivity and without licensing fees. The BLDT was a
stripped down version of the XpressROM, which was NSCs in-house BIOS
for embedded systems. And that in turn was a subset of Insyde
Software's full Geode BIOS.

The BLDT had code for initializing RAM, VGA and more, but pretty much
no interrupt services at all. All of it is in assembler, and it gives
an interesting glimpse of what commercial BIOS development is like.
I'm glad I don't do that for a living. :)

I'm guessing that's the reference code Christer looked at, the BLDT
has useful comments here and there in the code and comes with some
general documentation as well. Unfortunately I can't say if AMD still
makes it available. NSC had a developer site where you just had to
register to get an account, and it could be downloaded from there.


//Peter