> If you compare your Windows / Control Panel / System > / Devices IRQ settings you will notice the same IRQ > settings being used and base addresses, for backwards > compatibility, so it's more of a HW MB Hardware > implementation issue related to BIOS in repect to how > latest version of PC HW AT standards are implemented > from very old Intel 8086 interrupt handling from a > long long time ago of only 15 usable interrupts.
Most systems nowadays have an APIC / IOAPIC, so they can use more than 16 fixed interrupts. > with > all these USB , SATA3, 1394 firewire and PCI ports, > and soon to be coming is next version of SATA PC-X > and USB standards and others that the kernel will > need to support. this is why there is SPARC and PPC > Architectures, I86pc is the cheapest commodity. MSI interrupts are intended to solve this problem. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
