From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Feb 3 08:35:51 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id IAA09542 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 3 Feb 1996 08:35:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from etinc.com (et-gw.etinc.com [165.254.13.209]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA09537 for ; Sat, 3 Feb 1996 08:35:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from dialup-usr11.etinc.com (dialup-usr11.etinc.com [204.141.95.132]) by etinc.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA25194; Sat, 3 Feb 1996 11:34:41 -0500 Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 11:34:41 -0500 Message-Id: <199602031634.LAA25194@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.0.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Narvi From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) Subject: Re: Watchdog timers (was: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards) Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > > >On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Terry Lambert wrote: > >> Actually, if you are in a board-building craze, how about a PCI-only >> motherboard? >> >> 6 (or more) PCI slots >> No frigging ISA slots. >> No frigging IDE interface. >> Zilog UARTs, not Intel (sync serial, X.25, Appletalk, HDLC) >> NCR53C8xx SCSI on board >> DEC21040 or AM79C970 ethernet on board >> Motorola/Eagle MPC105 PCO Bridge/Memory controller >> FIFO'ed floppy controller >> S3964 PCI video(?) >> bidirectional stereo DSP (Gravis?) >> OpenFirmware boot ROMs >> Some good clock hardware >> Seperate keyboard and PS/2 mouse interface. >> Maybe a parallel port (IEEE 1284 bidirectional/level 3) > >You'll also need a good bios for allowing to select if you want to boot >from fd/hdd/network. And perhaps also some basic diagnostics (so if you >think you have bad RAM you won't have to boot dos to run the test :) > >Anyway - just build the board and I warrant I'm going to buy some! you forgot the on-board watchdog timer :-) This is a good antithesis of why PCs are so popular. One mans "dream machine" is another mans boat anchor. I wouldnt take this machine for free. "wouldn't use dumb sync uarts" "can't plug in my internal modem" "have to pay too much for a cd-rom drive" "too expensive to throw away next month when the new (whatever they are) processors become available" on of the reasons all-in-ones disappear so quickly. dennis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emerging Technologies, Inc. http://www.etinc.com Synchronous PC Cards and Routers For Discriminating Tastes. 56k to T1 and beyond. Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and X.25 for BSD/OS, FreeBSD and LINUX.