From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 25 23:28:54 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCAD837B401 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:28:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net (stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.188]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3566C43F93 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:28:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from user-2ivfj2b.dialup.mindspring.com ([165.247.204.75] helo=mindspring.com) by stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19gIY0-0006vP-00; Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:28:53 -0700 Message-ID: <3F221F6B.F6A60C49@mindspring.com> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:27:55 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Shawn References: <20030723221109.GA790@dhcp01.pn.xcllnt.net> <1059051986.568.3.camel@CPE-65-26-140-154.kc.rr.com> <1059139343.50681.2.camel@CPE-65-26-140-154.kc.rr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a436fb8f85d42f79d1b504fe1f762ee236a2d4e88014a4647c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: fuword(), suword(), etc. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 06:28:55 -0000 Shawn wrote: > On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 01:42, Terry Lambert wrote: > > I do know that even if they remove the bridge, they are unlikely > > to provide enough documentation to boot and run natively on the > > hardware without having IBM code setting up the bus arbitration > > and other bits that are currently undocumented. > > Why would IBM try to hide this? Wouldn't they *want* people to take full > advantage of the processor for the best performance to help give their > product a good image? Adaptec didn't document their hardware to prevent people from cloning its interface in order to leverage the driver developement effort and advocacy it took to get their drivers into Windows. Diamond Multimedia didn't document their video cards because they had a hardware guy instead of a Real Software Engineer design their BIOS interface, and there was no non-Diamond-BIOS-accessible table of the PAL imputs vs. the video mode self-docmented in their BIOS, and they wanted to be able to change PAL and BIOS in tandem to add updated features to their cards, without changing their overall card design. There are a lot of comapnies who don't document their hardware for reasons of liability, when their documentation is incorrect and thus causes their hardware to fail, sometimes by cooking. Intel doesn't docuyment their full errata on their processors because then people wouldn't buy stock-on-hand, if they knew a stepping without a particular errata existed that didn't have the problem in question. How much of an excuse do they need? -- Terry