The Deskstation Raptor 21164 system uses system logic designed by Deskstation
- it doesn't use Digital's ALCOR chipset. This means that, in comparison to
the 21164 stuff in the existing kernel, the following things are likely to
be different:
-- interrupt mapping
-- address map
-- memory controller setup
-- method by which the CPU accesses the I/O sub-system.
Basically, you will have to rewrite most of the low-level initalisation code.
Once that's done, you may also have to tweak various device drivers. You may
need support from Deskstation for this (technical info. on the low-level
behaviour of the board).
As I recall from having seen one of these systems with its lids off, the
memory and I/O controller are implemented using programmable logic and the
baseboard has a Digital PCI-PCI bridge chip on it - much of the I/O *might*
sit behind the bridge.
One particularly nice feature of the Raptor is that it can support the 21164A
processor, of which the fastest announced version is (about) 417MHz.
Something else that you should note is that the Windows NT ARC and HAL are not
descended from Digital's Alpha ports; they were done independently by
Deskstation. As I understand, Deskstation are historically a MIPS house and
their WNT stuff was descended from their MIPS versions. I don't know what
consequences this might have.
I expect Eric T. can comment on whether RedHat supports this machine....
Neal.
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