Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:08:54 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov> Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, cjs@portal.ca, mike@smith.net.au, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AlphaBIOS documentation Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980601210438.2250A-100000@herring.nlsystems.com> In-Reply-To: <199806011946.MAA28219@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>
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On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Jason Thorpe wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:10:53 +0100 (BST) > Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> wrote: > > > >From what I understand, they are just untested in 64bit addressing modes. > > Personally, I think this is short term brain damage which will disappear > > when NT supports 64bit addressing. > > You understand wrong. It is silly to say "they are just untested in 64bit > addressing modes". The Alpha is _fundamentally_ a 64-bit architecture; all > addresses, as far as the hardware is concerned, are 64 bits wide. I was recalling a Usenet article from a DEC person which I found when I was trawling for ARC and AlphaBIOS stuff using DejaNews. I can't find the article again <shrug>. > > No, the unconfirmed rumor is that these chips are missing the piece that > allows the superpage to be moved. I.e. the KSEG is hardwired at > 0x80000000 (just where it lives on the MIPS; it is normally configurable, > and lives at 0xfffffc0000000000 in the OSF/1 PALcode). However, like I > said, this rumor/threat has never been confirmed. I've heard lots of > reports of "NT-only" systems running SRM consoles (and NetBSD :-) just fine, > if you can get the SRM image for the Digital UNIX version of the platform. > > There is another rumor that some of these NT systems have suicide logic > in the SROM that refuses to load anything other than an ARC console image. > > Who knows, really... Indeed :-) -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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