PCI Specification revision 3.0

[kernel_journeyman]

Some wag has uploaded the very expensive PCI specifications for everyone to download for free... not mentioning any names

http://www.geocities.com/freepcispec/

[Pype.Clicker]

link already seems to be dead

[Perica]

..

[Brendan]

Hi,

Do the PCI Specifications actually cost money to obtain?

Yes. The earlier specifications were free, but now that the industry has fully adopted PCI (now that there's a good monopoly) PCISIG is charging heaps:

http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/order_form

In addition to charging heaps they are putting out a much wider range of standards, so for all of the PCI related information you need to get each one (lots of heaps - $1500 US for a CD).

Alternatively you can get the standards at a much reduced rate ($75 for the CD) by paying them heaps for membership ($3000 per year). This might be a good option if you want more than 2 CD's per year???

Any way you look at it (IMHO) they are thieves.


Cheers,

Brendan


BTW I probably haven't tried the link, but are you sure it doesn't work? Geocities isn't too reliable, so try it with a good FTP downloader (something that can handle broken downloads, e.g. GetRight).

[tom1000000]

Hi,

Did anyone actually manage to get the file?

If so you should stick it on Kazaa or someother P2P service.

Then post a message here and it will spread quickly .

[gaf]

Hi kernel_journeyman,
Great link - and just in time. I'm currently working on some PnP/PCI stuff and I badly needed these docs.

If somebody has problems downloading the files I can send it to him as an attachment (cosmo86.trion AT gmx DOT de - 3.25 MB).

thanks,
gaf

[DennisCGc]

Hey,

I only could download the power management interface...

Anyway, I sent an email to Gaf....

IMO it's TOO expansive for such a standard, and I'm really not suprising you can get it via P2P, etc!
(come on, $1500 for a CD!)

[Pype.Clicker]

i don't know what the specification completely contains, and so far whyme_t and I have been able to enumerate and get information about available PCI device without a single check at that specs.

Also keep in mind that
- PCI has a lot of electrics characteristics (connectors, signals, etc) that is unlikely to interrest you
- PCI has a lot of things to do to manage the bus interface, (starting cycles, transfering bursts, etc) which basically doesn't interrest us either (unless you're dev'ing a PCI controller chip or something)
- PCI has a lot of things to do to set up devices, configure everything, give bus and devices numbers, etc, which basically doesn't interest us either since the BIOS will do it for us (on PC at least )

So, after having checked drivers/pci in linux kernel and the WikiFAQ ("where do i find information about PCI"), do you still need those mysterious specifications that badly ?

[confused]

The link is not dead, but perhaps there has been a spurt of traffic and Geocities throttled the bandwidth.

In any case, I have them and I'll create a few more free accounts and upload them all over the place, and post links here.

I agree, they are thieves. They don't make standards for the warm fuzzy feelings. It's supposed to be an "open" standard. ("Open" depending on how able you are to piss away thousands of dollars.)

[Pype.Clicker]

finally got it from another source (2 secs of googling was enough. lol) and checked it ... over 90% of the specs are mechanical/electrical/bus protocol specs as expected. Only chapter 6 (configuration space) seems to be of interest, and most of the 'really interesting' things overthere are things you can get in the SouthBridge manuals from intel (PIIX4) ...

[kernel_journeyman]

Pype: can I get everything I need from the PIIX manual? I noticed that most of the spec was irrelevant for programmers, but it's the only source that describes it in a way I could understand it. Everything else I read glossed over the details and made me more confused than ever. Also reading sources clouds the picture. A lot is OS-specific and it takes a while to dig down and reduce it to the bare necessities. Registers, commands, etc.

Note that I have a VIA chipset. So maybe the PIIX is not a good source of information for me?

[tom1000000]

Hi,

" PCI has a lot of things to do to set up devices, configure everything, give bus and devices numbers, etc, which basically doesn't interest us either since the BIOS will do it for us (on PC at least "

Hmmmm IIRC should you decide to create an ACPI OS isn't the OS supposed to assign all the PCI resources? Relying on the BIOS only works because the "PNP OS" option is set to false.

If you want a truly PNP OS then you don't rely on the BIOS.