used any of computers special micro controllers to do some calculations or non-specific tasks for you in your program (just like normally people use math coprocessor and cpu).

I mean in some undocumented or unusual way, not just programing them to perform normal duties, but something fun and crazy???

if you did, please tell.

cheers mates!
Posted on 2010-03-28 04:56:40 by Turnip
Turnip,

Like mem-to-mem copy via 8237?
Posted on 2010-03-29 01:44:42 by baldr

Freezer cartridges (action replay etc), switchable silicon-based operating systems and hardware kernels etc.
I worked at a company called Dolphin in South Australia which made a number of products, some of them legally questionable, but all intelligent in design, it was quite educational, and a whole lot of fun.

Posted on 2010-03-29 02:23:30 by Homer
Homer
well thats great no doubt, but its complicated electronics requiring welding and stuff, what i
rather hoped was some tricks about using undocumented microcontroller features in pe or elf executables in 32 bit protected mode. 

baldr
yes i meant that kind of stuff, like using dma controller to copy memory to memory.
is this hard?
the guy here
http://www.osdever.net/tutorials/pdf/howto_dma.pdf

wasn't very good at it himself, apparently.
Posted on 2010-03-29 03:47:54 by Turnip
Turnip,

That wasn't hard. Using CUDA to factor numbers is much funnier. But nothing compares to custom microprogram update of CPU.
Posted on 2010-03-29 05:46:13 by baldr
tell me all.
preferably with some code examples.
for ia32 in protected mode.

if its not too much to ask
Posted on 2010-03-29 06:07:47 by Turnip
Turnip,

Sorry, licensing issues. I've sold that code in a whole. Google is your friend.
Posted on 2010-03-29 10:38:13 by baldr
What? you are talking about dma?
Posted on 2010-03-29 12:15:56 by Turnip