@digitaldisaster
> ...would have to get access to the PCI-SIG docs and that means a huge subscription fee.

http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/order_form

Do you begin to see why minator thinks this will cost some tens of thousands of dollars to make a motherboard sellable? :) Do you have an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, CAD software, verification/testing software, etc? Do you have ROM programmers to write whatever BIOS code gets put on your board? (I have a Willem 3.1 progrmmer which can be used fo this, send me blanks and code and I'll write the chips for you - http://www.az-electronics.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=4 I don't currently have any extra adaptors yet but plan to get some of them)

I don't know how much it cost, but Forefront ordered a CDROM with PCI docs a few years ago from the PCI-SIG. There's also a number of decent books that might be more managable:

PCI Express System Architecture
PCI System Architecture
PCI-X System Architecture (With CD-ROM)
PCI & PCI-X Hardware and Software, Fifth Edition
HyperTransport System Architecture

etc. from a quick search on amazon. I have older editions of a couple of these and they are very good. The Mindshare one is good for initial reading up on PCI, and the PCI & PCI-X Hardware and Software book I think is an updated version of another I have (mine was before it had PCI-X I believe) goes into a lot more detail but is a harder read.

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