Of course mask ROM (or its modern equivalent) is still used. All the embedded microcontrollers in CPUs, chipsets, and IO controllers at least have bootloaders if not default firmware.
Agreed. I can bootstrap a complete OS and software stack, even cross-compile it to multiple hardware platforms, but I can't do the same thing at the hardware level. I'm stuck with multiple levels of proprietary hardware and firmware. I can't get HDL to my RasPi.
I want the ability to bootstrap a complete hardware design (physical circuit boards, RTL, and ALL platform firmware) between multiple independent hardware and silicon vendors. True multiple-sourcing. If I had the facilities (board manufacturing, fab process) I could do it myself. I expect FPGAs to grow good enough to handle this in my lifetime, but they are still tied to proprietary toolchains, and designs for the FPGA silicon itself is not Free or Open.
CPU microcode still exists even if the blobs aren't included. You're just limited to the version that's included with the stepping of your CPU. I believe the management engine (ME) on the chipset is the same way. (On the server side, at least, the chipset won't allow the CPUs to boot without an ME blob.)
Just because your software doesn't include any blobs doesn't mean that there aren't any blobs on the hardware.
sounds familiar. I had an 80GB early intel SSD (INTEL SSDSA2MH080G1GC) in a macbook pro, which gave me the OSX blue screen equivalent while I was working on it one day without any warning. it wouldn't even boot. Disk utilities under OSX (run from another system, obviously) were unable to even fsck the filesystems, so I replaced the disk. (I had the foresight to make backups, so I didn't lose anything.)
I moved the failed SSD to another machine to take a look at the SMART parameters, which still showed a 96% lifetime left, although it did show read errors after a captive self-test. an email to intel tech support indicated that a secure delete might bring it back to life, and indeed it did. after the secure delete, the drive was reformatted, and I now use it as storage for a couple VMs, and so far so good, although I'm careful not to have anything critical on it.
so no, not graceful. sudden and catastrophic. I'm wondering what a subsequent failure will look like, now that I have smartmontools keeping an eye on it.
Itanium (IA-64) is/was Intel's 64-bit roadmap before AMD did the x86-64 hack. I'm not sure if this is a benefit or a curse. It arguably got 64bit to the masses, but it's a 64-bit hack of a 32-bit hack of a 16-bit hack to an 8-bit CPU...
(disclaimer -- I work for Intel, but the views expressed are my own.)
Intel has supported socket-connected FPGAs for years now. A few vendors (including xtremedata and nallatech) offer(ed) FSB-attached FPGAs. Pactron (with Altera FPGAs) and Xilinx are offering QPI-attached FPGAs on the Nehalem/Westmere -EX platform and have announced support for Sandy Bridge.
you could build in a serial interface or shared memory interface for printing status or debugging, or debug over JTAG by tapping the signal flow inside the FPGA with signal tap (altera) or chipscope (xilinx).
intel still owns perpetual rights to the ARM architecture. they choose not to exercise them. the ARM lines were sold to Marvell a few years ago. for better or worse, it's "IA or the highway" at chipzilla these days.
I was under the impression that intel's answer to hypertransport was QPI, introduced with Nehalem and continued in Westmere and Sandy Bridge.
Intel may employ me, but I still root for AMD and wish I could buy a quad-core VIA.
all the things you cite (LPs, film, and fountain pens) are still produced new, albeit with limited availability. niche markets for all of these items still exist.
Slashdot Mirror
modern x86 hardware is a binary blob these days. even if you don't load any microcode on your CPU, default microcode is present in mask ROM.
Of course mask ROM (or its modern equivalent) is still used. All the embedded microcontrollers in CPUs, chipsets, and IO controllers at least have bootloaders if not default firmware.
Just like RMS has with his Loongson laptop, right?
How's that cloudless life working out for you?
Agreed. I can bootstrap a complete OS and software stack, even cross-compile it to multiple hardware platforms, but I can't do the same thing at the hardware level. I'm stuck with multiple levels of proprietary hardware and firmware. I can't get HDL to my RasPi. I want the ability to bootstrap a complete hardware design (physical circuit boards, RTL, and ALL platform firmware) between multiple independent hardware and silicon vendors. True multiple-sourcing. If I had the facilities (board manufacturing, fab process) I could do it myself. I expect FPGAs to grow good enough to handle this in my lifetime, but they are still tied to proprietary toolchains, and designs for the FPGA silicon itself is not Free or Open.
OS X may not generate SMIs, but are you also asserting that SMM handlers are never run on Apple hardware running OS X?
what are these SMB drivers? how do they affect existing SMM code which is provided in BIOS?
Illumos is still under active development, so you can still get your solaris fix.
CPU microcode still exists even if the blobs aren't included. You're just limited to the version that's included with the stepping of your CPU. I believe the management engine (ME) on the chipset is the same way. (On the server side, at least, the chipset won't allow the CPUs to boot without an ME blob.)
Just because your software doesn't include any blobs doesn't mean that there aren't any blobs on the hardware.
Why put a microscope online? How else are you going to do deep packet inspection?
The only real reason x86 hasn't competed with ARM so far in very-low-power is that no one has tried hard enough.
I wonder what VIA would say about that. it seemed like they had the atom-level market carved out before the atom appeared.
sounds familiar. I had an 80GB early intel SSD (INTEL SSDSA2MH080G1GC) in a macbook pro, which gave me the OSX blue screen equivalent while I was working on it one day without any warning. it wouldn't even boot. Disk utilities under OSX (run from another system, obviously) were unable to even fsck the filesystems, so I replaced the disk. (I had the foresight to make backups, so I didn't lose anything.)
I moved the failed SSD to another machine to take a look at the SMART parameters, which still showed a 96% lifetime left, although it did show read errors after a captive self-test. an email to intel tech support indicated that a secure delete might bring it back to life, and indeed it did. after the secure delete, the drive was reformatted, and I now use it as storage for a couple VMs, and so far so good, although I'm careful not to have anything critical on it.
so no, not graceful. sudden and catastrophic. I'm wondering what a subsequent failure will look like, now that I have smartmontools keeping an eye on it.
NetBSD has PCC working for a few ports. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_C_Compiler)
it's called NetBSD.
Itanium (IA-64) is/was Intel's 64-bit roadmap before AMD did the x86-64 hack. I'm not sure if this is a benefit or a curse. It arguably got 64bit to the masses, but it's a 64-bit hack of a 32-bit hack of a 16-bit hack to an 8-bit CPU...
(disclaimer -- I work for Intel, but the views expressed are my own.)
Intel has supported socket-connected FPGAs for years now. A few vendors (including xtremedata and nallatech) offer(ed) FSB-attached FPGAs. Pactron (with Altera FPGAs) and Xilinx are offering QPI-attached FPGAs on the Nehalem/Westmere -EX platform and have announced support for Sandy Bridge.
I work for Intel on these technologies.
you could build in a serial interface or shared memory interface for printing status or debugging, or debug over JTAG by tapping the signal flow inside the FPGA with signal tap (altera) or chipscope (xilinx).
Guess who Dave Ditzel is working for these days...
intel still owns perpetual rights to the ARM architecture. they choose not to exercise them. the ARM lines were sold to Marvell a few years ago. for better or worse, it's "IA or the highway" at chipzilla these days.
guess who dave ditzel works for now?
amd/intel64 allow the x32 ABI which gains some speed and power benefits from being between 32- and 64-bit. Pure 64-bit is seldom a win.
I was under the impression that intel's answer to hypertransport was QPI, introduced with Nehalem and continued in Westmere and Sandy Bridge. Intel may employ me, but I still root for AMD and wish I could buy a quad-core VIA.
all the things you cite (LPs, film, and fountain pens) are still produced new, albeit with limited availability. niche markets for all of these items still exist.
evaporated cane syrup is not as refined as table sugar. chemical composition aside, it does taste better than table sugar.