From owner-freebsd-hackers  Wed Jan 31 12:32:42 1996
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To: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Watchdog timers (was: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards) 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:08:08 CST."
             <199601312008.OAA07401@brasil.moneng.mei.com> 
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:32:40 +0100
Message-ID: <5377.823120360@critter.tfs.com>
From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.tfs.com>
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I actually thought about this some time back, and have a suggestion
for a ISA card:

	The "FreeBSD gadget":

		Watchdog, can be set to timouts of 1s, 10s and 60s or
		something.  Will launch a RESET, NMI, or IRQ (jumper).

		10, 100 or 250 Mhz timer, with readable count,
		generates IRQ 20/100/250 (jumper) times a second.
		(For microtime)  (Maybe even with a 10/11 swallow
		counter along the lines the XNTP people suggest.)

		NVram for console.  64K of NVram (preferrably FIFO),
		for console-messages, not affected by reset.

		Optional:  A microcontroller to make a async console
		with the above nvram.  (incl modem handling and passwd)
		Possibly even with a BIOS-eprom to even make the bios 
		available that way.

		Optional:  NVram for acceleration of NFS &c.  sockets
		and a battery for 4-8 Mb ram.  Possibly with a little
		clock to do refresh so DRAM could be used. (cheaper)

Now, if produced in some decent quantity, the price might be right...

How many ISP's would buy one ?

I'm not going to make it, I'm SW only, but I'd buy a couple right away.

Any takers ?
		
--
Poul-Henning Kamp           | phk@FreeBSD.ORG       FreeBSD Core-team.
http://www.freebsd.org/~phk | phk@login.dknet.dk    Private mailbox.
whois: [PHK]                | phk@ref.tfs.com       TRW Financial Systems, Inc.
Future will arrive by its own means, progress not so.