stpc-consumerII

[Steve M. Gehlbach]

Hamish:

Part of my reasoning in posting an intro was to find out just what was going
on.  I half expected to get a reply that it was already done, here's the
link, etc...  But I would be happy to co-ordinate in any way that makes
sense.  I suspect you have done a much more careful job that I, but my main
interest was a video console, which does not seem to be a focus of the
linuxbios project due to its prime interest in large clusters.  My prime
interest is in custom motherboards for embedded systems, and for my project,
alpha vga is essential.  The VGA (IMHO) is the hard part. Most of the code
was lifted and massaged from ST and from and the original stpc/freebios
archive, and the linux vga console drivers.  My stpc implementation puts the
stack of code in assy language after protected mode, e.g., Config
(mainboard):

arch i386
mainboardinit cpu/i386/entry16.inc
mainboardinit cpu/i386/entry32.inc
ldscript cpu/i386/entry16.lds
ldscript cpu/i386/entry32.lds
mainboardinit cpu/i386/reset16.inc
ldscript cpu/i386/reset16.lds

mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_chip.inc
mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_ram_init.inc

option SMC_BASE=0x370
mainboardinit superio/SMC/fdc37b78x/setup_serial.inc

mainboardinit pc80/serial.inc
mainboardinit arch/i386/lib/console.inc

mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_ioinit.inc
mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_memsize.inc
mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_framebuffer.inc
mainboardinit cpu/stpc/consumer2/stpc_cache.inc

# this links in stpc vga through displayinit() and VIDEO_CONSOLE option
option VGA_HARDWARE_FIXUP=1

northsouthbridge stpc/consumer2

nsuperio SMC/fdc37b78x com1={1} floppy=1  lpt=1 keyboard=1

cpu stpc/consumer2

object mainboard.o
-----------

Not sure of the best way to go about it, but obviously two different
approaches pulling at each other in the archive is not good.  In fact, it
may be that it is best for me to hang on to what I have and let you go ahead
since you have been working on it for some time, and my implementation is
restricted to the consumerII only.  Or I could send you a tarball of my
source tree.  I do think it is important to get something in the archive in
the near term so others can benefit, rather than waiting until it is perfect
(my philosophy anyway).

Any approach that makes sense is fine to me.  I just wanted to make sure I
contributed what I had in the event someone was interested.

-Steve





> I have done a lot of work for LinuxBIOS with all of the STPC
> devices and am
> in fact just waiting for the latest cloud of changes to filter
> through, and
> for Ron to tell me things are relatively stable before comitting. What I
> have been working on is a generic STPC support (there are now about 9
> devices in the STPC family), which basically provides a small layer which
> virtualises any STPC device (after initialising super-I/O's or built-in
> devices to the same level) with a final jump vector in protected mode to
> LinxBIOS code.
>
> This little filter layer is accomplished in a maximum of about 4k
> of binary
> code and includes pre-initialisation of the PCI stuff, so a PCI routing
> table is not required.
>
> Your inputs though are really welcome, maybe we should pool our efforts!
>
> Regards
>
> Hamish