| From: | Thomas Frieden |
| Date: | 17 Dec 99 at 16:11:37 |
| Subject: | Re: [warpup] Something about G3/G4 cards |
Hi,
On Thu, 16 Dec 1999, David LAROCHETTE wrote:
> Thomas Frieden wrote:
> > > The last news from Phase5 is that they will use the same PCI/Memory
> > > controller as IBM (including AGP) and that LinuxPPC will be available
> > > for this cards shipping 1st q 2000.
> >
> > I just don't see what AGP has to do with Linux..
> LinuxPPC will provide some support for AGP gfx boards using the same
> controller as the card from Phase5, so he supposes that is could help
> having the same support on Phase5's G4 board with that controller.
It will require substantial work nonetheless, so this is no argument for
or against it.
> > > I also think that it is possible for P5 to make a standalone mainboard
> > > instead of a accelerator card (something like the new Mac's with no
> > > serial/parallel port). since the board provides USB, it will be no
> > > problem to make a ATX-sized mainboard out of it with more PCI-slots
> > > and standard SDRAM- DIMM -slots.
> > I don't see what USB has to do with ATX, PCI or SDRAM..
> USB can handle many peripherals such as kb, mouse, zip, serial,
> parallel, printer, scanner, etc. So it can reduce the motherboard size
> as we don't need any serial, parallel, floppy drive, etc, controller.
> This reduction helping fitting the board in an ATX sizeed box.
Neither keyboard, mouse, printer or serial devices use up a PCI slot. In
most cases, these devices are handled by just one chip. This won't save
you too much, as it will be replaced by the USB chip. If you want more
PCI, drop the stupid ISA slots...
> > That's why most developers settle for WarpUp, it doesn't need a P5 dongle
> > to run.
> Right, and WarpOS is the only kernel to have a sufficient HAL to
> handle all those boards without any change in the API, unlike what
> we'll see if those board get available whithout WarpOS.
It's designed to be that way, while PUP was always designed to be for P5
hardware (which was of course viable when these boards came out).
> In fact, I don't condamn there way to do, but what I condamn is Phase5
> not willing to give any G4 board prototype to H&P for no sufficient
> reason at all.
To be honest, what I hate most about this whole situation is that P5
designed some aspects of their boards to specifically target the use of
WarpUp. For example, why put the ppc.library on the blizzards rom ? Why
were they so hard-headed about the software at all. A good solution for
the software would have sold them more boards. And this repeats now :)
For developers, this is a nightmare.
CU,