News - Secret debug mode uncovered in AMD CPUs

[Spud1]

"modern english" isn't prescriptive like you seem to think it is - so whilst you may be traditionally correct, in the modern language many irregular forms are allowed and acceptable.

Anyway, to get back on topic..what will this debug mode allow people to do with these chips? Anything really fun/cool for the end users?

[miniyazz]

Chatting to the professional editor next to me, we're both agreed that

a) "Athlon XP" is a proper noun: it is the name of a family of processors, and is always capitalised.
and b) even if it wasn't, common usage would allow "Athlon XP" to be used as a noun, particularly in contexts where it would be easily understood (e.g. on a technology news & reviews website).

Agreed.

As to the actual content of the article, I'm not sure there is a lot to say really. Are there practical benefits to enabling a debug mode in your processor? Does it have any real world usage scenarios? It's a kind of interesting miscellany, but apart from that...

Could it theoretically allow you to unlock the multiplier, for example?

[Noxvayl]

I take it then that you would be grammatically (if not stylistically) satisfied with

"all AMD chips starting with the Athlon XP processor have a firmware-based developer mode built in."

Unfortunately I wouldn't. Having "the" in front of "Athlon XP" and adding "processor" afterwards gives you 2 referents to the same thing in the sentence, why? "AMD chips" already gives you that referent, all you need after "starting with" is a portion of an AMD CPU name, nothing else.

I would be happy with: "all AMD chips, starting with Athlon XP, have a firmware-based developer mode built in."

"AMD chips" being the referent, "starting with" referring to a part of the name of the referent and then "Athlon XP" being the partial name referred to previously. Simple, clear and concise.

Going even further if you restructured the sentence it would be even better; "all Athlon XP AMD CPU's have a firmware-based developer mode built in."

Chatting to the professional editor next to me, we're both agreed that

a) "Athlon XP" is a proper noun: it is the name of a family of processors, and is always capitalised.
and b) even if it wasn't, common usage would allow "Athlon XP" to be used as a noun, particularly in contexts where it would be easily understood (e.g. on a technology news & reviews website).

As to the actual content of the article, I'm not sure there is a lot to say really. Are there practical benefits to enabling a debug mode in your processor? Does it have any real world usage scenarios? It's a kind of interesting miscellany, but apart from that...

Fair enough, I didn't think of it possibly being a proper noun... missed that

Would be interesting to find out what you and your professional editor think of my versions of the sentence compared to Hexus's initial version.

As for your response to the topic, I agree. Doesn't look like there is anywhere for it to go, then again I have limited knowledge of what the debug mode could help with.

[jim]

Phrased in that way, it just sounds wrong to me I'm afraid.

[Stoo]

Anyway, to get back on topic..what will this debug mode allow people to do with these chips? Anything really fun/cool for the end users?

I wonder if it can get people closer to the CPU microcode?

I guess if people can get access to, or have an understanding of the microcode, then they could say, get internally decrypted DRM keys by monitoring some of the hidden registers, or perhaps a more nefarious individual might discover a method of hard-crashing the CPU via a microcode bug/virus/etc?

Perhaps write and load new microcode onto the CPUs? Hack "intel only" features into older AMD cpus? I dunno, I guess we'll have to wait for sharper minds to mull it over..

[Noxvayl]

I wonder if it can get people closer to the CPU microcode?

I guess if people can get access to, or have an understanding of the microcode, then they could say, get internally decrypted DRM keys by monitoring some of the hidden registers, or perhaps a more nefarious individual might discover a method of hard-crashing the CPU via a microcode bug/virus/etc?

Perhaps write and load new microcode onto the CPUs? Hack "intel only" features into older AMD cpus? I dunno, I guess we'll have to wait for sharper minds to mull it over..

Tying this in with another Hexus article(http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27464), that would be a nightmare for AMD customers if they were targeted by viruses.

With viruses running outside the OS we could be in for some pretty horrible hardware solutions to try combat it. I do hope we are still a long way from that being possible.

[Mattus]

I would be happy with: "all AMD chips, starting with Athlon XP, have a firmware-based developer mode built in."

Going even further if you restructured the sentence it would be even better; "all Athlon XP AMD CPU's have a firmware-based developer mode built in."

I don't follow you. Those two sentences do not mean the same thing.

The first one means "The Athlon XP and subsequent AMD chips have a developer mode". The second one simply implies that every chip in the Athlon XP family has a developer mode. It says nothing about AMD chips released after the Athlon XP.

I think you've misinterpreted the original sentence. 'starting with Athlon XP' in this context means that the Athlon XP was the first AMD chip to have the feature. It doesn't mean that all chips whose names start with 'Athlon XP' have the feature.

[miniyazz]

By the way, you shouldn't have an apostrophe in "CPU's". "CPU's" is either possessive or "CPU is", neither of which is correct; it should be CPUs

"all Athlon XP AMD CPU's have a firmware-based developer mode built in."