From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jul 28 19:08:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA24564 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:08:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA24513; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:08:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id LAA09417; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:37:54 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199707290207.LAA09417@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: SMBIOS/DMI etc In-Reply-To: <19970728233740.25649@mi.uni-koeln.de> from Stefan Esser at "Jul 28, 97 11:37:40 pm" To: se@freebsd.org (Stefan Esser) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:37:53 +0930 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, mo@uu.net, hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Stefan Esser stands accused of saying: > On Jul 20, Michael Smith wrote: > > The reason I ask is just to attempt to identify whether the BIOS32 > > thing ever took off; I can't find _diddly_ about it online, but it > > does appear to be reasonably widely implemented. > > All systems with PCI BIOS are supposed to have BIOS32 support. > I can check the PCI BIOS specs, but I'm quite sure that this is > not obtional, from the PCI point of view ... OK. Next question; is access to the PCI BIOS useful from the POV of FreeBSD's PCI code? ie. would you prefer to talk to the BIOS rather than deal with probing the hardware yourself? I ask specifically in the light of the problems you've had in the past wrt. chipsets which implement PCI autoconfig in, er, interesting ways. Regardless of how broken their hardware might be, the BIOS must work properly or the dreaded MS operating systems wouldn't work properly... > Regards, STefan -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[