A Central Hardware Documentation Resource

[whowhatwhere]

Abstract:
I've found finding documentation for hardware on almost all levels is hard to find on the internet. It is there, but the information is in
various places and even then it is scattered through books that people may or may not have access to. I'm not talking just about putting
an x86 CPU into protected mode, but specifications like ACPI and things involving reverse engineered information for hardware that
doesn't have documentation released. (See the Nouveau project for example. They have documentation, it's just hard to find and interpret.)

I got the idea to create a MediaWiki for just low level hardware documentation. Not tutorials for 'creation of a TCP/IP stack' or 'setting up
a cross compiler', but a Wiki for documentation of hardware, it's defaults, and what is required to manipulate it. Not just for the
PC-compatibles, but for PPC, ARM, and all the other obscure architectures. Think 'AVRFreaks Wiki', but expanded to include everything. This
way there is a single central resource with just the information and notes about various hardware and leaving all the implementation details
onto the user. It also would mean that projects like Nouveau, as I mentioned above, could host information reverse engineered from their
video cards in a much more publicly accessible format the scouring and interpretation of source code. This applies also conversely for AMD
for the reverse engineered information and the released documentation.

It would also include bibliographical links to the books that contain the information themselves. Each page would also have images of the
discussed hardware itself and each page can take advantage of MediaWiki's categorization features to be easily accessible.

Point:
The OSDev wiki is great but it's meant to help people get their own operating systems started all with roughly the same principle and
implementation. I want to focus on just the hardware at a level focused at advanced developers and those with the technical know-how.

What do you think? Would you be willing to help out?

[ucosty]

I suppose it only really needs to reach the critical mass of useful information that will attract more people to read and contribute to it.

[Masterkiller]

And how do you plan to document undocumented vendor-specific (or worse: device-specific) information?

[JackScott]

I believe this can be (and already is) implemented in the wiki. Just create a new page without the tutorial bit in it. Somebody else could add the tutorial bit later if it was needed. Simple solution right there.

[whowhatwhere]

@JackScott: True, but like I said before, the OSDev Wiki is geared more towards new developers that want to set up an operating system for a hobby, and not so much for a general resource.
@Masterkiller: I don't plan to document undiscovered things. After all, if it's not known you can't really document it can you? You can only record anomalies, give warnings, and hope for the best until the quirk is eventually worked out.
@ucosty: I completely agree. However, it's a massive task to populate a Wiki, and I am only one person.

Making a generalization here: most of the people visiting the wiki are looking for tutorials. They want an easy to explain, down to earth article and possibly some code that they can copy and paste into their editor of choice and compile. By no means do I mean to detract from the OSDev wiki. It's good for the niche it feeds and that is always a good thing. The wiki serves that purpose quite well.

What I am talking about is a way to store information about the hardware specifically without implementation details so it can be used as a reference point for other projects including OSDev and the rest of the open and closed source development community. Instead of people having to drown themselves in thousands of lines of source code, they can learn specific details on those specific pieces of hardware without having to re-engineer someone else's implementation.

[JackScott]

So you've described the wiki as it is now. Why not put this information into it, and turn it into what you want it to be as well? I don't see how having a seperate data store makes anything better or easier.

[whowhatwhere]

So you've described the wiki as it is now. Why not put this information into it, and turn it into what you want it to be as well? I don't see how having a seperate data store makes anything better or easier.

No I think you missed my comparison almost entirely.
The OSDev wiki is mostly tutorials for people serving a single small niche.
The one I am talking about is generalized and meant to supplement the OSDev wiki as a quick-to-access reference documentation point, like OSDever's cottontail, except in a wiki form so one doesn't have to go about downloading the individual books on their own computer. It would cover all architectures instead of just x86.

[Troy Martin]

@OP: What you have here is a collection of theory pages in a wiki. By theory I mean "little to no code, and if such, it's pseudocode." Easily implemented in the OSDev.org wiki.

[oscoder]

Since the trouble is finding info that's already on the net, rather than collecting it, might I suggest something simpler like, a links database? Much easier (+ efficient)!

Actually why not create a page like this on the wiki?

[JackScott]

Umm... Resources

Does nobody even read the wiki?

[VolTeK]

yes, thanks for the overview page. this goes on my desktop