Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:52:32 -0700 From: Steve Passe <smp@csn.net> To: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> Cc: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@main.gbdata.com>, freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AMD K5 Pentium Equivalents Message-ID: <199703181752.KAA16020@Ilsa.StevesCafe.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:22:05 %2B0200." <Pine.BSF.3.95.970318161851.873A-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
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Hi, > On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Gary Clark II wrote: > > > Steven P. Donegan wrote: > [snip] > > > > You can run only Intel chips in FreeBSD SMP due to the fact that the others > > (Cyrix and AMD) use a different standard for PIC usage. > > (Please correct if I'm wrong on this) > > > > This is a bit late reply, but still: > > Could FreeBSD be made to run AMD chips in SMP mode? That is - are the SMP > motherboards capable of running the AMD (and Cyrix chips) in SMP, and the > only thing on the way is the software? Or are different SMP motherboards > required? no, can't be done. its a hardware issue, specifically the amd/cyrix chips don't have APICs (advanced programmable interrupt controller) on them. amd/cyrix were developing their own hardware standard for this called Open APIC, but it has withered on the vine... intel patents the hell out of the APIC arch. so its very unlikely that the APIC functionality will be cloned by anyone. -- Steve Passe | powered by smp@csn.net | Symmetric MultiProcessor FreeBSD
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