Re: Advice or experience with VIA epia h/w?

[Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>]

> Thus spake Damian Gerow (dgerow@afflictions.org) [01/03/05 12:55]:
> : the VIA naming scheme I've always found confusing.  I, too, would
> : appreciate any light people can shed on this.
> 
> Just found this link, which may be helpful:
> 
>     <http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/specs.jsp>

Unfortunately it is more complicated than that.  The processors
are made by Centaur, a company owner by VIA.  Now Centaur could
have done good names for their processors, and cranked their
revision ID register values when they added new features, but it
seems as if VIA tied their hands, unaware that this would now
create a mess of deciding which rev, subrev, and special bits
found in special registers... together mean "this has RNG" and
"this has AES".  It is nasty, the kernel to decide.