augustus108

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Sep 9, 2003
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Would someone be able to tell me, when writing a driver for 64-bit processor, would you need to write differently for EMT64 and Itanium?

System Integration...yeah right, thanks to marketing, more confusion
 

endyen

Splendid
One generally writes drivers for the os, not the chip.
Since there is no os that supports bothe chips,(unless linux supports IA) independant drivers would be required.
 

P4Man

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Feb 6, 2004
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>Would someone be able to tell me, when writing a driver for
>64-bit processor, would you need to write differently for
>EMT64 and Itanium?

There are some differences, but compilation aside, they are relatively minor. If you do the work for one, porting to the other should be straightforward.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

pat

Expert
Ok, but why do we need drivers for an interface? I dont need drivers for my USB cable nor my speaker wire... I need drivers for USB controller or sound card. And since SATA is only the interface, what is the purpose of the SATA cable drivers. Isnt instead controller drivers?

Ahhhhhh. That SATA confusion...

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>
 

imgod2u

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Jul 1, 2002
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You need drivers for your USB controller not to mention devices connected to it. You don't need drivers for your speakers because it's a one-way, analog signal being constantly outputed. No communication is neccessary, analog audio signals are all the same.

As for drivers, they're required because the OS itself does not know how to communicate with a device. Think of them as OS-plugins, so yes, they'd be different for IA-64 vs x86-64 since just like any other program, they run code that's either x86-64 or IA-64 (the binaries are different).

As for how they communicate with the device. If it's the same device, you wouldn't need to change your C code assuming everything else in the system is the same. A simple recompile should do.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.
 

pat

Expert
No.. you are all wrong. There is no SATA drivers. SATA is the interface between the controller and the device. All you need is a controller driver. The OS talk to the controller which talk to the drive.

This is why we see so many confusion about SATA HDD. If your controller has native support from the BIOS or the OS, then you dont need drivers. But, if it is onboard, like Sil or Promise, then it needs controller driver. No matter if it is SCSI or IDE, it needs driver. SATA drivers should have been called "third party IDE drivers" because it's what they are.

Now, I wont hijack this thread anymore ... Ned will have me banned and I will be miserable...

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