i/o asic = bad dos support????

[dbarton]

In regards to a Asus p4b266, I saw a comment about "i/o ASIC = bad DOS support".

I still run a few important DOS programs so what does this comment mean to me?

Will news board still work with DOS programs or is there some new issue I am unaware of?

 

[CoDerEd]

ASIC = Application Specific Integrated Circuits

if you don't use that program on one of your DOS program than you have no problem.

 

[Peter]

That's APIC not asic. Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. The board's BIOS is supposed to fire up the board with the APICs (those on the board and those in the CPU(s)) initialized properly, but with the system running legacy PIC mode.

The outcome is that legacy software, including OS bootloaders, add-on card ROMs, and old OSes like DOS will work like there's no APIC - and once an APIC-aware OS has been loaded, the latter can kick the system into APIC mode and continue from there.

So yes, an APIC-enabled board can run non-APIC-aware operating systems. This inherently means no multiprocessing, but it works.

regards, Peter

 

[dbarton]

Still a little confused, but is the gist of it that I will be able to run DOS programs basically as I have been with my win98 on a p3 450 combo?

I run one comm program that is DOS only, and a few important utilities.

Want to get p4b266 1.8

 

[Peter]

Well yes, in less technical terms, the system will use the good old 1977 standard PIC (programmable interrupt controller) until the operating system flips the switch to APIC mode.

DOS doesn't, so your old programs will not have to handle something they don't know about.

regards, Peter