It doesn't. Basically most flasher programs use some kind of data structure the look for in the bios memory, that contains pointers to functions like "map flash to memory", "disable write protection", etc. This is at least the case with AMI and Award, probably Phoenix as well. These are 16bit calls, which makes it kind of hard/impossible to really use directly. It's possible to search for this structure and look at the code. However, this is likely to be illegal in many countries.
Not in Canada. :-)
Yeah this does sound kind of ugly. Especially since the Orasis BIOS won't boot up in Bochs, as it seems to end up hanging due to some PIT simulator inconsistencies.
Especially after the first non-vendor-written flashers appeared, many people were scared of viruses destroying the flash data and such. Security by obscurity...
Well, if worse comes to worst I can just cut the trace and wire those pins to +12. The datasheet for the chip says that it operates normally under those circumstances, except that all "soft" boot block protection is disabled.
Regards, Andrew