[coreboot] coreboot and embedded controllers, for example OLPC and its OpenEC code

[Peter Stuge]

Just a little tidbit..

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 01:22:47AM +0200, Frieder Ferlemann wrote:
> Yep, let's see what happens. OpenEC is GPL'ed so it is there
> to stay and it is waiting for a slightly better chance than
> OLPC turned out to be.

Me and Uwe ran into a desktop board with this SMSC superio..


> And OpenEC was written with portability in mind. While it
> specifically targets an ENE KB3700 (with its 8051 based core)
> the source is also compileable with gcc.

The superio included an 8051. The 8051 did not have it's own program
memory, it's program was stored in the BIOS flash.

When the board powered up, only the 8051 was running. It needed
software to do some stuff, and only then could it negotiate release
of the main CPU reset.

We found some PDF files and it did seem within our reach to get the
8051 to at least power up the CPU, but it was the heart of the
superio, so I believe most superio functions would be unavailable
until there was more 8051 code.

Not so much fun.


//Peter