Subject: Re: sound, power button, volume buttons

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:40:10 -0700

[email-masked] 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.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 18:50:07 +0200

> 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

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

---

From: Richard Ingram <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 18:31:18 +0100

> 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.

--

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 11:19:48 -0700

> 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.

 > 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.

...
 > will stay undisclosed.  In many cases this is a way to keep both sides

     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.

 > 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.

---

From: Alistair Lambie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 15:04:11 -0700

> 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

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 15:37:20 -0700

Alistair Lambie writes:
...
 > 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.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 01:41:12 +0200

> 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