BIOS, ports, addresses, etc

Pupkov

Dear All,
I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC. Let's
assume I am able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup disk. In
order to be able to control the hardware of that PC, I realize that one has
to know addresses of various devices on the mother board, video memory
address, etc. Also, there must be a certain protocol to communicate with
the IDE disc controller, etc. In addition, knowledge of the BIOS functions
is necessary. Where can one get such information from? It seems I looked
all over the Internet and the hardware-related information is unavailable.
(I imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the
addresses of the motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its
controllers.)
Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
Many thanks,
Alex.

Tom Lake

"Pupkov" <pozhit@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:fvd4bh$mtd$1@gnus01.u.washington.edu...
> Dear All,
> I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC.
> Let's assume I am able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup disk.
> In order to be able to control the hardware of that PC, I realize that one
> has to know addresses of various devices on the mother board, video memory
> address, etc. Also, there must be a certain protocol to communicate with
> the IDE disc controller, etc. In addition, knowledge of the BIOS
> functions is necessary. Where can one get such information from? It seems
> I looked all over the Internet and the hardware-related information is
> unavailable. (I imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that
> defines the addresses of the motherboard devices and protocols to
> communicate with its controllers.)
> Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?

Some great sources of BIOS functions are IBM's Technical Reference manuals.
They have an entire commented BIOS listing. You can usually pick up one
cheaply on eBay.

Tom Lake

George Orwell

On Thu, 1 May 2008 14:05:27 -0500, "Pupkov" <pozhit@u.washington.edu>
wrote:

>(I imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the
>addresses of the motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its
>controllers.)
>Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?

Go to the intel website and search for their technical publications. They
print several I/O technical reference manuals for their chipsets. When I
was working for a motherboard manufacturer, these manuals were frequently
used by the BIOS and hardware engineers.

Seeing that you're posting from a university, perhaps one of your
professors or a professor in the electrical engineering or computer science
department may have additional leads.

Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
non corrisponde ad un utente |message is not related to a real
reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
di un sistema anonimizzatore |anonymous system
Per maggiori informazioni |For more info
https://www.mixmaster.it

Pupkov

"George Orwell" <nobody@mixmaster.it> wrote in message
news:4f9d73af67e770eb76c2d0c0e2142790@mixmaster.it ...
> On Thu, 1 May 2008 14:05:27 -0500, "Pupkov" <pozhit@u.washington.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>(I imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the
>>addresses of the motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its
>>controllers.)
>>Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
>
> Go to the intel website and search for their technical publications. They
> print several I/O technical reference manuals for their chipsets. When I
> was working for a motherboard manufacturer, these manuals were frequently
> used by the BIOS and hardware engineers.
>
> Seeing that you're posting from a university, perhaps one of your
> professors or a professor in the electrical engineering or computer
> science
> department may have additional leads.
>
> Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
> non corrisponde ad un utente |message is not related to a real
> reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
> di un sistema anonimizzatore |anonymous system
> Per maggiori informazioni |For more info
> https://www.mixmaster.it
>

I figured out that on the computer I'm going to do the experiments (DELL
Optiplex GX270) I have an Intel® 865G Chipset. Looking at the Intel web
site for this chipset, I found lots of technical documentation:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...umentation.htm
Does it look like you were talking about? I'm going to check most of these
documents. If you know, which of them should be most relevant to my
qustions, please indicate if possible. Thanks.

Yousuf Khan

Pupkov wrote:
> Dear All,
> I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC. Let's
> assume I am able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup disk. In
> order to be able to control the hardware of that PC, I realize that one has
> to know addresses of various devices on the mother board, video memory
> address, etc. Also, there must be a certain protocol to communicate with
> the IDE disc controller, etc. In addition, knowledge of the BIOS functions
> is necessary. Where can one get such information from? It seems I looked
> all over the Internet and the hardware-related information is unavailable.
> (I imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the
> addresses of the motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its
> controllers.)
> Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
> Many thanks,
> Alex.


Many years ago, when DOS was the dominant Microsoft OS, there was a book
published, which I can't fully remember right now. I think it was called
the "PC BIOS and Interrupts Guide" or something like that, written by a
guy named Dave something or another.

It's wierd that I can't remember this book so much, because I was
personally given a small acknowledgement in the thank-you page (no
royalties, mind you). Anyways, it'll mostly be still relevant these
days, though a lot of extensions to the BIOS and the PC in general have
come since those days. In the meantime, you should see if you can gleen
some info out of this:

BIOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

Yousuf Khan

Bob Bailin

"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:48207f18$1@news.bnb-lp.com...
> Pupkov wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC. Let's assume I am
>> able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup disk. In order to be able to
>> control the hardware of that PC, I realize that one has to know addresses of various
>> devices on the mother board, video memory address, etc. Also, there must be a certain
>> protocol to communicate with the IDE disc controller, etc. In addition, knowledge of
>> the BIOS functions is necessary. Where can one get such information from? It seems I
>> looked all over the Internet and the hardware-related information is unavailable. (I
>> imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the addresses of the
>> motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its controllers.)
>> Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
>> Many thanks,
>> Alex.
>
>
> Many years ago, when DOS was the dominant Microsoft OS, there was a book published,
> which I can't fully remember right now. I think it was called the "PC BIOS and
> Interrupts Guide" or something like that, written by a guy named Dave something or
> another.
>
> It's wierd that I can't remember this book so much, because I was personally given a
> small acknowledgement in the thank-you page (no royalties, mind you). Anyways, it'll
> mostly be still relevant these days, though a lot of extensions to the BIOS and the PC
> in general have come since those days. In the meantime, you should see if you can gleen
> some info out of this:
>
> BIOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

Another good title to look for is "The Programmer's PC Source Book" which
has numerous tables detailing hardware ports, BIOS interrupts, connector pin-outs,
etc.

Bob

Pupkov

"Bob Bailin" <72027.3605@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:BYZUj.2152$ah4.319@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
>
> "Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:48207f18$1@news.bnb-lp.com...
>> Pupkov wrote:
>>> Dear All,
>>> I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC.
>>> Let's assume I am able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup
>>> disk. In order to be able to control the hardware of that PC, I realize
>>> that one has to know addresses of various devices on the mother board,
>>> video memory address, etc. Also, there must be a certain protocol to
>>> communicate with the IDE disc controller, etc. In addition, knowledge
>>> of the BIOS functions is necessary. Where can one get such information
>>> from? It seems I looked all over the Internet and the hardware-related
>>> information is unavailable. (I imagine that for a PC, there must be a
>>> standard that defines the addresses of the motherboard devices and
>>> protocols to communicate with its controllers.)
>>> Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
>>> Many thanks,
>>> Alex.
>>
>>
>> Many years ago, when DOS was the dominant Microsoft OS, there was a book
>> published, which I can't fully remember right now. I think it was called
>> the "PC BIOS and Interrupts Guide" or something like that, written by a
>> guy named Dave something or another.
>>
>> It's wierd that I can't remember this book so much, because I was
>> personally given a small acknowledgement in the thank-you page (no
>> royalties, mind you). Anyways, it'll mostly be still relevant these days,
>> though a lot of extensions to the BIOS and the PC in general have come
>> since those days. In the meantime, you should see if you can gleen some
>> info out of this:
>>
>> BIOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
>
> Another good title to look for is "The Programmer's PC Source Book" which
> has numerous tables detailing hardware ports, BIOS interrupts, connector
> pin-outs,
> etc.
>
> Bob
>

Great!
It sounds about right. For the past several days, I have been reading
technical documentation for the Intel chipset installed in my PC.
Certainly, I learned a lot about the design of the entire thing: it somewhat
reminds the nervous system of vertebrates, having a CPU as the "head" but
not as the "center" of the system :-) :-). (According to my microcontroller
experience, the MCU is in fact a "center" of the circuitry). Still, it is
quite difficult to read because of the abundance of abbreviations and the
need to have some fundamental knowledge about the PC. Most astonishing was
the fact that the technical documentation did not provide base addresses of
the ports. I am wondering, where is this "secret knowledge" kept...
Perhaps, although the book mentioned by Bob is quite old, port addresses and
hardware communication protocols are kept unchanged until today.
Alex.

Pupkov

"Bob Bailin" <72027.3605@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:BYZUj.2152$ah4.319@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
>
> "Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:48207f18$1@news.bnb-lp.com...
> > Pupkov wrote:
> >> Dear All,
> >> I am trying to conduct some low-level experiments with a regular PC.
Let's assume I am
> >> able to put my own code into the MBR of my startup disk. In order to
be able to
> >> control the hardware of that PC, I realize that one has to know
addresses of various
> >> devices on the mother board, video memory address, etc. Also, there
must be a certain
> >> protocol to communicate with the IDE disc controller, etc. In
addition, knowledge of
> >> the BIOS functions is necessary. Where can one get such information
from? It seems I
> >> looked all over the Internet and the hardware-related information is
unavailable. (I
> >> imagine that for a PC, there must be a standard that defines the
addresses of the
> >> motherboard devices and protocols to communicate with its controllers.)
> >> Does anyone know where can I learn those things from?
> >> Many thanks,
> >> Alex.
> >
> >
> > Many years ago, when DOS was the dominant Microsoft OS, there was a book
published,
> > which I can't fully remember right now. I think it was called the "PC
BIOS and
> > Interrupts Guide" or something like that, written by a guy named Dave
something or
> > another.
> >
> > It's wierd that I can't remember this book so much, because I was
personally given a
> > small acknowledgement in the thank-you page (no royalties, mind you).
Anyways, it'll
> > mostly be still relevant these days, though a lot of extensions to the
BIOS and the PC
> > in general have come since those days. In the meantime, you should see
if you can gleen
> > some info out of this:
> >
> > BIOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
>
> Another good title to look for is "The Programmer's PC Source Book" which
> has numerous tables detailing hardware ports, BIOS interrupts, connector
pin-outs,
> etc.
>
> Bob
>
>

In my previous post I wrote "Most astonishing was the fact that the
technical documentation did not provide base addresses of the ports." I
must admit I was wrong. In fact, the technical documentation does provide
addresses for specific configuration registers of the Graphics and Memory
Controller Hub. I think I'm getting close to cracking the thing open!
Still, lots of stuff remain to figure out.
Alex.