Found a decent use for a PC...

From: Yowza! <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Mon Feb 23 14:54:54 1998

On Mon, 23 Feb 1998 jpero_at_cgo.wave.ca wrote:

> Early high end Dell series (I think!) had this dot matix that glows
> yellow and rare motherboards that had POST display built in.

That reminds me of a product idea. I'm pretty sure I won't get around to
this one, but if you do, mention me in the prospectus :-)

If I'm not mistaken, all modern Pentium CPUs have a secret ICE mode. You
need an NDA from Intel to get the info, but this capability allows things
like in-circuit emulators to get all sorts of good information about the
chip, disable caching, stop the CPU while the clock keeps clocking, etc.
It even gives you access to microcode (which is one reason why Intel
doesn't tell you about it).

All of the smarts are on the chip, so all you need is a relatively simple
debug port on the mobo to get to this stuff. I don't know of anybody that
has actually built this port into a standard PC mobo, but I would buy one
if they did. You could use another PC as the "front-panel", so the
expense burden of such a diagnostic tool would be shifted to those that
needed this capability.

-- Doug
Received on Mon Feb 23 1998 - 14:54:54 GMT