From: shite@sinkhole.unf.edu (Stephen Hite) Subject: Re: Warning about Diamond Speedstar 24 Date: 4 Aug 1992 22:00:35 GMT
In article <1992Aug1.085134.23757@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> roell@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Thomas Roell) writes:
>The ultra new boards like the DS24 have a new problem. Guess what ?
>Yeah, 16 clocks are not enough. This time they made it right. They
>choose a programmable PLL syntesizer. clock0 is a 25.175MHz, clock 1
>is a 28.322MHz frequency. Clock 2 is reserved for an external input
>(via feature connector) and Clock 3 is freely programmable. The only
>problem is that you have to know which PLL is there, and how to
>programm him. That's all.
>
>Hope this clears up things and will avoid unecessary discussions and
>some black magic ;-)
>
>- Thomas
>
I'll bet you know how to do it, Thomas. ;-) So far, Diamond Computer
has made it known that they're not going to provide anyone with the
information on how to set the clocks.
However, I wouldn't expect you to share your in-depth knowledge on this
subject because of your commercial ties to X386.
As far as black magic, disassembling the BIOS and figuring out how
Diamond is setting the clocks is not a fun time from people I've talked
to that have done this sort of thing before.
The real solution to this problem is to deal with vendors who are willing
to work with you rather than put you off with an IBM mentality. S3, Inc.
is a great company...they're happy to send developer's free programming
specs on their chip because they know it will help them to sell more
chips. IMHO, X386 1.2E users not buying DS 24 cards or Stealth cards
because of this "proprietary" clock programming method isn't going to
make a dent in their sales. So...if you cannot afford to buy X386 from
SGCS, black magic sounds like a pretty good approach to me. ;-)
There's too many good programmers in comp.os.linux to not eventually
figure this clock programming problem out...too bad Linus doesn't
have a Diamond Speedstar 24 or Stealth card. ;-)
Steve Hite
shite@sinkhole.unf.edu