Re: systimer01.patch available for review.

[Enemy God <jasse@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday 27 January 2004 17.17, Dave Cuthbert wrote:
> Enemy God wrote:
> > What's the point to support those old relics? (I mean the 386 and 486)
>
> The 386EX is still in substantial use for embedded devices.  Whether
> this is something DF wants to target, though... <shrug>

I can suggest some more suitable choices for those devices,
and I think you can do it as well.

> > I own one of those antics that even has PCI slots and onboard IDE
> > controller, but I can't boot from the (IDE)CD so I can't install DF on
> > it.
> > (Had to "sacrifice" a newer machine to try it. ;-)
>
> Take a look at:
>
> http://www.i386.com/default.asp?c=6&k=12
> http://www.bootdisk.com/
>
> These have links for booting over a network; I also see a few for
> booting a *specific* type of CD-ROM and OS, but nothing generic (e.g.,
> for DFBSD).

Well, I don't need a boot floppy, but others might do.
The sacrifice runs just fine.

> Hm... I have the feeling that this is out there, but I just can't find
> it.  Maybe GRUB has a solution?  Anyway, I'll take a look and see what I
> can find...
>
> Dave

That was not my point. Maybe I should have used other words.

[including the last part of Matt's original post]

    I am not entirely sure if it's legal to use the 8254 in SWSTROBE mode on
    all platforms.  I'm a bit worried about old 486 platforms which might have
    8253's intead of 8254's.  If it doesn't work I'll switch to using
    RATEGEN mode.  I might do that anyway.

[end of include]

My point was:

If the (SWSTROBE && 8254) stuff is much better/faster/cooler than the
(RATEGEN && 8253) stuff, why not scrap the latter once and for all.

Does it make sense to support old and almost useless stuff forever?



        Read ya, Jasse, the sacrificier of old stuff