Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!convex!bcm!rice!fontenot From: fontenot@ravl.rice.edu (Dwayne Jacques Fontenot) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: new boot roms Message-ID: <Bu10op.75I@rice.edu> Date: 3 Sep 1992 23:46:00 GMT References: <183c4vINNfit@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University Lines: 25 better yet, why doesn't somebody figure out how to make it work with those flash BIOS machines (Dell, etc.). That would be totally cool! In article <183c4vINNfit@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> brtmac@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett McCoy) writes: >Okay, here's a thought. Why doesn't someone write up some new boot >room code that would make a PC act a lot like a Sun when you turn it >on. Get rid of all the gunky MS-DOS support. Put in a nice little >monitor to examine memory and various registers and i/o ports and >allow easy booting from any device and any partition on that device. > >This would effectively disable the machines ability to run MS-DOS, but >that wouldn't be a great loss anyway. It might be possible to dump >the ROM code before replacing the ROM's, and store it on the last >couple, or first couple, tracks of a hard disk. Then the new boot >code could, upon detecting an MS-DOS boot, load the old ROM code, >twiddle a few bits and bytes and jump to the old code and let it >finish loading MS-DOS and provide the BIOS support that it needs. > >This is far, far beyond any skills I have, but it seems like it might >be worthwhile and would solve a lot of the problems and workarounds >that people are having and using now. Maybe someone should get on >AMI's or Phoenix's back and get them to add some support for other >OS's than MS-DOS in their boot code. > >++Brett;