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Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 09:28:10 +0200 (EET)
From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee>
To: Steve Passe <smp@csn.net>
cc: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@main.gbdata.com>, freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: AMD K5 Pentium Equivalents 
In-Reply-To: <199703181752.KAA16020@Ilsa.StevesCafe.com>
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On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Steve Passe wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> > On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Gary Clark II wrote:
> > 
> > > Steven P. Donegan wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > 
> > > You can run only Intel chips in FreeBSD SMP due to the fact that the others
> > > (Cyrix and AMD) use a different standard for PIC usage.
> > > (Please correct if I'm wrong on this)
> > > 
> > 
> > This is a bit late reply, but still:
> > 
> > Could FreeBSD be made to run AMD chips in SMP mode? That is - are the SMP
> > motherboards capable of running the AMD (and Cyrix chips) in SMP, and the
> > only thing on the way is the software? Or are different SMP motherboards
> > required?
> 
> no, can't be done.  its a hardware issue, specifically the amd/cyrix chips
> don't have APICs (advanced programmable interrupt controller) on them.
> 
> amd/cyrix were developing their own hardware standard for this called
> Open APIC, but it has withered on the vine...
> intel patents the hell out of the APIC arch. so its very unlikely
> that the APIC functionality will be cloned by anyone.

Well, AMD has it's own chipset out now, starting to ship in the second
quater - I'll take a look whetever there is anything about OpenPIC
available...

	Sander

> 
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