[coreboot] Athlon XP discussion

[Joseph Smith]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:47:27 -0500, "Corey Osgood" <corey.osgood at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 9:03 PM, Joseph Smith <joe at settoplinux.org>
wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:44:49 -0500, "Corey Osgood"
> <corey.osgood at gmail.com
>> >
>> wrote:
>> > On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Joseph Smith <joe at settoplinux.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Just curious, with all the support from AMD, how come no one ever
>> > ventured
>> >> down the Athlon XP road? Athlon XP setups are very cheap these days,
>> >> possibly making development cost effective???
>> >
>> >
>> > The Athlon XP, and most/all chipsets supporting it, are EOL, therefore
>> not
>> > a
>> > good option from a manufacturer design standpoint, so I wouldn't
> expect
>> > someone to contract a port any time soon. AMD is making the best of
> their
>> > available resources by supporting the K8 and AMD690 chipset, which had
>> not
>> > reached EOL when work started on the port but I think it may have now.
>> > Also,
>> > the K7 datasheets are not publically available (last I looked),
> probably
>> > because of details about whatever made them kick P4 ass back in the
> day
>> :D
>> > The datasheets on Via KT333/400 chipsets are available online, but not
>> > from
>> > Via, so I'm not sure of their legallity (you would almost certainly
> not
>> > get
>> > that datasheet from Via themselves). I don't know if AMD has any of
> their
>> > K7
>> > chipset docs available online.
>> >
>> That's too bad. I have a few of these kicking around and your right,
> they
>> did kick P4 ass back in the day.
>> Hmm, although we spend alot of time with discontinued Intel chips that
> have
>> limited to null support,
> 
> 
> You mean 440bx, i810, etc? Those have publically available docs for the
> processor, north, and southbridge, and SDRAM init is, comparatively,
> extremely simple. And i945 is still being used on some embedded boards.
> 
You got a point.
> 
>> why not a discontinued AMD chip? I'm sure a few of
>> the AMD developers on board have some knowlage in this area.....
> 
> 
> IMO, I'd much rather see them working on the latest K8 chipset then K7
> stuff, no offense. I'd much rather put coreboot on my next desktop then
my
> last one.
> 
Yah me too. But you have to admit that it would be cool to see a Athlon XP
board booting coreboot (gives me tingles just thinking about it) :-)

-- 
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org