From owner-freebsd-hardware Wed Nov 8 10:54:57 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (adsl-63-206-90-77.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.206.90.77]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D02C237B479; Wed, 8 Nov 2000 10:54:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mass.osd.bsdi.com (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id eA8J0MF03063; Wed, 8 Nov 2000 11:00:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from msmith@mass.osd.bsdi.com) Message-Id: <200011081900.eA8J0MF03063@mass.osd.bsdi.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: Andrew Gordon Cc: Mike Smith , spork@fasttrackmonkey.com, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Server-class mobo's In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 08 Nov 2000 16:41:26 GMT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:00:22 -0800 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > > Anyone have any ideas on who besides Intel uses this Phoenix BIOS that > > > integrates a full serial console (from power on to OS boot)? ... > > Note that most of these BIOS-serial designs are of the screen-scraper > > variety, so you still need a video card. Ugh. > > The version used in Intel's own 1U servers > (http://www.intel.com/network/products/isp1100.htm) is indeed a > screen-scraper, but you _don't_ need a video card installed: there's > no on-board video, but it still works. I guess that it maps in some of > the main DRAM using the same technique as used for shadowing the BIOS ROM > - but since it works without problems, I haven't investigated too deeply. As far as I can tell, it doesn't. If you check the documentation you'll find that the system BIOS is OK without a video card, but you're SOL if you want to use the BIOS on an add-in card. (Since there's only 1.5 slots, that makes things really awkward...) -- ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] V I C T O R Y N O T V E N G E A N C E To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message