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SubjectRe: [OT] Documentation for PC Architecture
On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 11:27:43AM +0200, Paolo Ornati wrote:
> Hi,
> (sorry for the OT but I think here someone will relpy :-)
>
> Problem: I'm interested on PC architecture and looking for documentation I've
> found al lot of good doc for the CPU (Intel manuals...) but about the basic
> hardware that surround it I've found only a lot of "pieces of a puzzle"!
>
> IOW: there is an (un)official document spoking about general PC architecture?
>
> In this document I want to find some basic things about PC hardware and
> especially about these themes (from the logical point of view):
>
> 1) communication between CPU, memory, I/O devices:
> Example:
> If I write byte 'A' to physical address 0xb8000 how does this go to video
> memory instead of RAM?
> I know about memory mapped I/O but I don't know who "decides" WHAT must go
> WHERE.
> Since the CPU can't know if it's writing to memory or some memory mapped I/O
> device I suppose that is the "BUS CONTROLLER" (PCI BRIDGE in case of a PCI
> BUS) to write the byte 'A' to the right device.
> But how does the "BUS CONTROLLER" do this association?
> For now I think in this simple way:
> - all the devices are on the BUS and anyone has his own memory mapped I/O
> addresses;
> - if no devices own the address that the CPU ask for the request go to real
> memory.

google for 'IBM' 'PC' 'architecture' ...
and variants of 'Upper Memory' 'Shadow' 'VGA' ...

(for example ...)
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/ram/logicOverview-c.html
http://www.infokomp.no/techinfo/doc/DosMemory.htm
http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/rants/pc.html

> Curiosity: since the memory addresses from 640KB to 1MB are reserved for
> memory mapped I/O (video memory) and BIOS ROM... the corrispondent range in

uh oh ...

> the REAL MEMORY isn't usable and so we lost 384KB of memory. Is this right?

for DOS, withouth upper memory manager yes ;)

> And what about the I/O address space (IN, OUT x86 instructions)?
> I know this is a separate address space but...
> - how are the addresses assigned? In a static way?
> - for these instructions the CPU uses the same address (and data) lines that
> when it try to acces to memory, how does this work?

there is a line (signal) telling if it is memory or I/O ...

> 2) Compatibilty issues:
> for example something about A20 line... is it possible that I found
> information about this only in unofficial docs?
> I didn't know about it before. A day I've found on a web page something like
> "enabling A20 line" and I've said: "A20 line? What is it?" ;-)
>
> ...
>
> Must I search info for any "piece of the puzzle"? This is OK for me but I want
> to know AT LEAST which are the pieces!

HTH,
Herbert

>
>
> Bye,
> Paolo
>
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