From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jul 12 11:18:25 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net (hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.22]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2DB437B403 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:18:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from mindspring.com (dialup-209.245.133.118.Dial1.SanJose1.Level3.net [209.245.133.118]) by hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA28526; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:18:19 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3B4DEA0F.2FBB735C@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:18:55 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Reply-To: tlambert2@mindspring.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Andrew C. Hornback" Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Athlon MP / AMD 760MP Chipset (Athlon SMP question) References: <002401c109ad$f9fbb760$0e00000a@tomcat> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Andrew C. Hornback" wrote: > > Instead, AMD implemented the Intel APIC specification; > > I'm not sure if they did it by licensing the patent > > (Intel had a patent on the APIC design), or if it's > > just been long enough for it to come off patent (I > > seem to remember the external 386 APIC chips were out > > in 1984 or a little after that, which would put them > > after the 1998 date for 14 years from date of issue > > for the patents on them). > > Uhh... WHAT? > > The last I heard, the Athlon was using EV6-like > electronics. Underneath, yes. As far as FreeBSD is concerned, it is still programming APIC ID's. For this to work, you have to have the Intel patented stuff, even if the underlying coherency control logic is proprietary. In other words, the boards meet the Intel 1.4 MP spec., and doing so requires use of Intel patents. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message