Re: Multiplatform & UDI

[Matt Kaufman <mek@caldera.com> (by way of Daniel Weaver <dan.weaver@znyx.com>)]

Not sure whether PCI-SIG will bounce this reply or not, but here goes.
no spam wrote:
> Hi
> I want to ask about multi platform capability of 
> PCI cards (multi CPU type):
> 
> 1. Is there any PCI specification for cards with 
> multi platform capability? 
> (ie: a single PCI that card can be used on PC, PowerPC, Alpha etc)

PCI is PCI and is platform independent. PCI cards work on any platforms with
a PCI bus - be it Intel IA architecturre, Power, what have you.
> 
> 2. If there is a BIOS software on Read Only Memory 
> / ROM chip on the card, is it possible to put
> multi platform software on the ROM? 

The PCI spec supports this.
> 
> 3. What is the relation between UDI project and 
> PCI-SIG? Can UDI support multi platform capability 
> on PCI bus?  

Uhh, well, I'm a member of both if that helps. UDI is an architecture for
software drivers (www.project-udi.org.) PCI is a bus architecture. You can
certainly write UDI drivers for devices on a PCI bus, or any bus for that
matter (Sbus, EISA, ISA, ....)
> 
> 4. Is there any software that make it easier to write
> multi platform / multi CPU BIOS for a PCI card?

That's something one of the BIOS vendors would have to answer. There's
something
call OpenBoot for firmware but I don't believe it's very prevalent in the
PC space.
> 
> 5. Is there any "Platform specific" PCI card that
> cann't be used on system with non X86 CPU?

Hopefully not :-)
> 
> 6. There are several PowerPC based motherboards such
> as APPLE, BEBOX, AMIGA ONE, PEGASOS etc. Is there any
> guarantee that PCI card for one PowerPC board will
> be compatible with other PowerPC board?

It's 100% guaranteed. 
> 
> Thank you.
> 
Hey, how about a real e-mail return address?
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Matt Kaufman
Caldera Int'l, Murray Hill, NJ