* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
[not found] ` <19980729090902.D1989@uni-koblenz.de>
@ 1998-07-29 15:40 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
0 siblings, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread
From: William J. Earl @ 1998-07-29 15:40 UTC (permalink / raw
To: ralf; +Cc: 4819, linux
ralf@uni-koblenz.de writes:
...
> You won't find any Indy hardware / firmware programming interfaces online.
> Myself and a few of other developers have received paper copies in exchange
> against the promise to not pass them on to other people. Maybe if the
> electronic versions still exist (?) SGI would agree to spread these
> documents - I expect more people to be interested in that documentation
> in the future as the number of installation grows.
...
So far, I have not found any of the electronic copies; Indy was
done before the software people persuaded the hardware people to be
religious about source control. :-)
I can generally answer specific questions. Also, I can arrange to send
a copy of the documentation to people who want to actively work on the
project. (The informal limited distribution agreement was the basis on which
the management agreed to let us release the documentation.)
People have asked about documentation for other products. In general,
I don't know where to find documentation for any of the SGI R3000-based systems.
I do have incomplete documentation for some of the MIPS systems. SGI will
probably be reluctant to release Challenge, Origin, or Octane documentation
anytime soon, although that might change if we persuade the management to
embrace linux officially (which might happen if the linux commercial server
business on other platforms continues to expand rapidly). I also have
not found much documentation for Indigo R4000, although it is fairly
similar to Indy and Indigo2. Indigo2 is very close to Indy, although
XZ and better graphics differ from the base XL/Newport graphics on Indy
and some low-end Indigo2 systems; Indigo2 and Indy run the same IRIX kernel
binary. O2 documentation is quite good, and the electronic versions are
readily available, but I do not have approval to release that documentation
at present; that might change if we agree to facilitate early linix ports
to our next generation workstations, and will likely change once O2 goes
out of production.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 15:40 ` sound, power button, volume buttons William J. Earl
@ 1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
1998-07-29 17:31 ` Richard Ingram
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: ralf @ 1998-07-29 16:50 UTC (permalink / raw
To: William J. Earl; +Cc: 4819, linux
On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 08:40:10AM -0700, William J. Earl wrote:
> I can generally answer specific questions. Also, I can arrange to send
> a copy of the documentation to people who want to actively work on the
> project. (The informal limited distribution agreement was the basis on which
> the management agreed to let us release the documentation.)
>
> People have asked about documentation for other products. In general,
> I don't know where to find documentation for any of the SGI R3000-based systems.
Do you think a ``Call for dusty Paper'' CfdP (TM) on the Usenet in groups
like comp.sys.mips or comp.sys.sgi.* might make sense? I bet there are
still people out there, maybe former SGI employees in the meantime which
have helpful data around.
> I do have incomplete documentation for some of the MIPS systems.
I'm currently doing some brain surgery on some OEM machine which identifies
itself as RS3230 and is running RISC/os 4.50 :-)
> SGI will
> probably be reluctant to release Challenge, Origin, or Octane documentation
> anytime soon, although that might change if we persuade the management to
> embrace linux officially (which might happen if the linux commercial server
> business on other platforms continues to expand rapidly). I also have
> not found much documentation for Indigo R4000, although it is fairly
> similar to Indy and Indigo2. Indigo2 is very close to Indy, although
> XZ and better graphics differ from the base XL/Newport graphics on Indy
> and some low-end Indigo2 systems; Indigo2 and Indy run the same IRIX kernel
> binary. O2 documentation is quite good, and the electronic versions are
> readily available, but I do not have approval to release that documentation
> at present; that might change if we agree to facilitate early linix ports
> to our next generation workstations, and will likely change once O2 goes
> out of production.
As I already wrote to Richard Masoner - it's not uncommon that people
write GPL software while being under NDA. The company reviews the code
when it is finished and gives it's ok to publish it but the documentation
(whatever it consists of - paper, code, electronic files, drawings ...)
will stay undisclosed. In many cases this is a way to keep both sides
happy.
Since you mentioned the various graphic subsystems above - do you think
the implementation of a ARC firmware text only based console might be
sensible? I've got several requests for Linux from people who have a
XZ graphic which we don't support yet - and there is quite a number of
graphic options for SGI's out there so this might be somewhat helpful.
Ralf
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
@ 1998-07-29 17:31 ` Richard Ingram
1998-07-29 18:19 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
2 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Richard Ingram @ 1998-07-29 17:31 UTC (permalink / raw
To: ralf; +Cc: linux
On Jul 29, 6:50pm, ralf@uni-koblenz.de wrote:
> Do you think a ``Call for dusty Paper'' CfdP (TM) on the Usenet in groups
> like comp.sys.mips or comp.sys.sgi.* might make sense? I bet there are
> still people out there, maybe former SGI employees in the meantime which
> have helpful data around.
>
> > I do have incomplete documentation for some of the MIPS systems.
>
> I'm currently doing some brain surgery on some OEM machine which identifies
> itself as RS3230 and is running RISC/os 4.50 :-)
Some bits of documentation are out on the WWW for MIPS R4000 boxes, but not
very technical - stuff like the 680MB CD-Rom users guide and ARC PROM commands
guide. I downloaded them from the Internet Technical Documentation Archive.
I also have some docs for the RC3x30 series - I'll mail the titles tommorrow
(if I remember to dig them out!), I was going to make them available to the
ITDA.
Richard.
--
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
1998-07-29 17:31 ` Richard Ingram
@ 1998-07-29 18:19 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
2 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: William J. Earl @ 1998-07-29 18:19 UTC (permalink / raw
To: ralf; +Cc: William J. Earl, 4819, linux
ralf@uni-koblenz.de writes:
> On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 08:40:10AM -0700, William J. Earl wrote:
>
> > I can generally answer specific questions. Also, I can arrange to send
> > a copy of the documentation to people who want to actively work on the
> > project. (The informal limited distribution agreement was the basis on which
> > the management agreed to let us release the documentation.)
> >
> > People have asked about documentation for other products. In general,
> > I don't know where to find documentation for any of the SGI R3000-based systems.
>
> Do you think a ``Call for dusty Paper'' CfdP (TM) on the Usenet in groups
> like comp.sys.mips or comp.sys.sgi.* might make sense? I bet there are
> still people out there, maybe former SGI employees in the meantime which
> have helpful data around.
I doubt it would. The behavior of the machines are documented in
the IRIX source (for IRIX 5.3 and earlier; support for R3000 systems
was dropped after that), but we cannot in general release that due to
our license agreements with the providers of some of that source.
With management approval, we might be able to release certain parts which
show the hardware interfaces and which only have an SGI copyright. I
will see what is possible.
> > I do have incomplete documentation for some of the MIPS systems.
>
> I'm currently doing some brain surgery on some OEM machine which identifies
> itself as RS3230 and is running RISC/os 4.50 :-)
I don't have much on that one, other than the RISC/os source,
although I did work on the RS3230. The Magnum and Millenium 4000
systems are ARCS machines, with many PC-compatible parts, and I have
more information about them, but I gather that linux already runs on
them.
...
> As I already wrote to Richard Masoner - it's not uncommon that people
> write GPL software while being under NDA. The company reviews the code
> when it is finished and gives it's ok to publish it but the documentation
> (whatever it consists of - paper, code, electronic files, drawings ...)
> will stay undisclosed. In many cases this is a way to keep both sides
> happy.
I will offer that option to the management; that might make it
easier to make the documentation (especially the relevant
SGI-copyright-only IRIX source) available.
> Since you mentioned the various graphic subsystems above - do you think
> the implementation of a ARC firmware text only based console might be
> sensible? I've got several requests for Linux from people who have a
> XZ graphic which we don't support yet - and there is quite a number of
> graphic options for SGI's out there so this might be somewhat helpful.
Yes, I think one could use the same firmware interface as the
PROM. I believe that it is even possible to do X that way, with limited
performance. I am not familiar with the details of the PROM firmware interface,
but I will check it out when I have a bit more time.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
1998-07-29 17:31 ` Richard Ingram
1998-07-29 18:19 ` William J. Earl
@ 1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
1998-07-29 22:37 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 23:41 ` ralf
2 siblings, 2 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Alistair Lambie @ 1998-07-29 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw
To: linux
ralf@uni-koblenz.de wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 08:40:10AM -0700, William J. Earl wrote:
>
>
> > I do have incomplete documentation for some of the MIPS systems.
>
> I'm currently doing some brain surgery on some OEM machine which identifies
> itself as RS3230 and is running RISC/os 4.50 :-)
>
Just in case some people don't know it (although I'd guess most people
do!) MIPS shipped the source of most of the driver code with RISC/os.
Doesn't help with the memory subsystem and the like of course.
Every machine shipped with an OS license, so even if you didn't get a
copy of the OS with your machine you are entitled to it...getting a copy
may be the difficult bit :-)
Alistair
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
@ 1998-07-29 22:37 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 23:41 ` ralf
1 sibling, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: William J. Earl @ 1998-07-29 22:37 UTC (permalink / raw
To: Alistair Lambie; +Cc: linux
Alistair Lambie writes:
...
> Just in case some people don't know it (although I'd guess most people
> do!) MIPS shipped the source of most of the driver code with RISC/os.
Yes, we sometimes had to lean on vendors to be able to ship the
driver source, if it was based on code supplied by the vendor. SGI
did not have the same view; MIPS was more OEM-oriented.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: sound, power button, volume buttons
1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
1998-07-29 22:37 ` William J. Earl
@ 1998-07-29 23:41 ` ralf
1 sibling, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: ralf @ 1998-07-29 23:41 UTC (permalink / raw
To: Alistair Lambie, linux
On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 03:04:11PM -0700, Alistair Lambie wrote:
> Just in case some people don't know it (although I'd guess most people
> do!) MIPS shipped the source of most of the driver code with RISC/os.
> Doesn't help with the memory subsystem and the like of course.
>
> Every machine shipped with an OS license, so even if you didn't get a
> copy of the OS with your machine you are entitled to it...getting a copy
> may be the difficult bit :-)
The problem is probably more like with a license for what version did the
machine ship? Several desperated people have already asked me for copies
of RISC/os and since I didn't want to get into that trap I never gave
somebody a copy.
(Or: Free Software is so much more convenient than warez :-)
Ralf
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1998-07-29 23:43 UTC | newest]
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[not found] <Pine.BSI.3.96.980729001735.24028A-100000@shell.mdc.net>
[not found] ` <19980729090902.D1989@uni-koblenz.de>
1998-07-29 15:40 ` sound, power button, volume buttons William J. Earl
1998-07-29 16:50 ` ralf
1998-07-29 17:31 ` Richard Ingram
1998-07-29 18:19 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 22:04 ` Alistair Lambie
1998-07-29 22:37 ` William J. Earl
1998-07-29 23:41 ` ralf
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