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   🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑 (brouhaha@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Jul-2026 13:52:46 JST 🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑

   I just created EDA devices/symbols/footprints for Socket 7, as used by 90+ MHz Pentium, Pentium MMX, some Pentium Overdrive, and some other vendor's processors, based on the spec in Chapter 17 of the 1997 edition of Intel's _Pentium Processor Family Developer's Manual_ (order number unknown).
   I'm thinking about making a homebrew Pentium (P54C or P55) system, by which I mean, not using a purchased motherboard or an Intel chipset.
   #retrocomputing

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     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Jul-2026 13:52:45 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     @brouhaha I wrote boot/monitor code to boot a Cray clone, and rewrote Compaq's bootup code for a video game box that wound up being a big screen TV instead. Neither were open source. It has been many years. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

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     🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑 (brouhaha@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Jul-2026 13:52:46 JST 🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑

     in reply to

     Initially the only I/O will be a serial port or two, but I'll add an interface for an SD card if I can get as far as booting from flash into a monitor.
     Has anyone written an open-source x86 (386 or newer) 32-bit protected mode boot/debug monitor for bare metal?
     There won't be any secret motherboard/BIOS vendor binary blob code doing sneaky stuff in System Management Mode, and they didn't have the secret Management Engine (ME) crap back then either.
     #Pentium #x86 #boot #debug #monitor

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     🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑 (brouhaha@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Jul-2026 13:52:46 JST 🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑

     in reply to

     I might eventually try to get FreeBSD 1.1.5 or a tiny Linux running on it. The first iteration will likely have only about 4 MiB of fast (10 ns) static RAM.