Re: Some discussion points open source friendly graphics [was: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable?]

linux-os
2004-10-27T19:09:43Z

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Daniel Phillips wrote:

> On Monday 25 October 2004 18:45, Timothy Miller wrote:
>> My intention is to include a bit of logic in the FPGA which can be used
>> to reprogram the prom. You would then cycle power to get the FPGA to
>> load the new code.
>
> Power cycle the whole machine, or software-reset the card?
>
> Regards,
>
> Daniel

The FPGA requires a physical reset-pin toggle to load new
bits into the gate-array. This could be software-toggled,
but that would require at least one external gate. This
is because the power-reset needs to reset the chip before
its bits are loaded plus some pin, after loading, needs to
be an output to its reset pin also. Therefore, you need
the external gate that is always present.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.9 on an i686 machine (5537.79 BogoMips).
Notice : All mail here is now cached and reviewed by John Ashcroft.
98.36% of all statistics are fiction.