July 1999 - OpenBIOS - mail.coreboot.org

What OpenBIOS should contain
by s.jacobson＠xtra.co.nz Aug. 8, 1999

Aug. 8, 1999

Hello all, I see it's been busy, even if not on track ;). The basic requirements that I would have from a BIOS are as follows: 1) The ability to chainload to another bootloader ( the most basic function ), after enough hardware setup (a little RAM testing etc). The state of the processor on hand over should be a runtime option (ie protected or real mode). No dabling with V86 mode. There really isn't any need, and it gets ugly quickly. 2) A nice simple (though powerful) built in bootloader. Something like grub mainly 'cause it's got a command line which is REALLY USEFUL when you've got a system you couldn't boot otherwise. 3) The ability to boot from many media (network, cd, floppy, ide etc). Network booting would be nice but the network card support may be a bit cumbersome. 4) Some cool utilities like a nice format for common filesystem types (FAT, VFAT, ext2 etc). I think we should look to Linux for the filesystem drivers. Sam. - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Why protected mode?
by AndreasHofer July 28, 1999

July 28, 1999

Nachricht geschrieben von INTERNET:openbios@elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de > On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Brian Hurt wrote: > Unless I'm missing something, the linux boot sequence uses IBM-PC BIOS > functions. I found a number of int 0x13 (diskette services) and int 0x10 > (video services) calls in arch/i386/boot/setup.S. Even Grub makes heavy > use of BIOS services- a quick grep revealed 23 different BIOS calls, using > services 0x13 (disk), 0x10 (video), 0x1a (RTC), and 0x16 (keyboard). That's not a problem -- these are not mandatory and even now there are some people that run Linux on ia32-based embedded systems. They have no BIOS and the kernel is started from flash memory. Hi, Brian, that is exactly what I was looking for all the time --- just booting Linux on a bare machine whithout any BIOS. Could you give me some pointers on that? Andreas - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Documentation on the format of the ROM?
by Brian Hurt July 28, 1999

July 28, 1999

Is there any documentation on the format of the ROM kicking around somewhere? -Brian - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Other ISA port 0x80 reads (?)
by Phil King July 26, 1999

July 26, 1999

At 10:27 AM 7/7/99 +0200, you wrote: > >Hi people! > >Does any know of any commerical sold ISA cards that >reads and displays information written to ISA I/O port >0x80 ? > The minimal ISA POST card I use is available here: http://www.megacode.com/ I've been happy with it. They also have some other diagnostic tools. Cheers! Phil King pking(a)netschools.net - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Treasure Trove of Quality Tools
by William Meyer July 23, 1999

July 23, 1999

> I have just come across a treaure trove of excellent > tools WITH sourcecode at http://www.fnal.gov/fermitools/ Some interesting stuff is there. Unfortunately, it requires registration to download, and I can't find the registration document they reference. William Meyer - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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feel free to use any of BIOS from bochs
by Kevin Lawton July 17, 1999

July 17, 1999

Almost forgot to offer... It might be of limited help, but feel free to snarf anything from the BIOS I wrote in bochs. -Kevin - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Use of BIOS calls in modern code (Was: Re: [OpenBIOS] Why protected mode?)
by Timothy J. Massey July 16, 1999

July 16, 1999

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:54:01 +0200 (CEST), Matthias W�chter wrote: >Currently we have the same BIOS interface as the 8086 (except >for the INT16 Bios extensions which are not used by some OSes, sadly, >Linux too in opposition to NT and Win98). Linux can't really take advantage of *any* BIOS routines (OK, outside of the loader and such), even when Win98 can. The reason is simple: Linux is cross-platform. Alphas don't have the same BIOS as PC's, which don't have the same BIOS as Macs which don't have the same BIOS as a Sun. So how could Linux use a BIOS routine that isn't commonly available. Now, there is a way that Linux could make use of BIOS calls (if they really wanted to) without losing cross-platform objectives: let the C compiler libraries use BIOS calls. But there, you run into the same problem. The C compiler used for Linux (GCC) is cross-platform, too. So, they don't want to use the BIOS, either! In any kind of portable OS, any feature that isn't available on all systems is a liability. It's something that will either increase the difficulty of porting the code to a system that doesn't support some feature, or requires additional effort to add that functionality to a particular port. Basically, the BIOS in a modern computer is a hardware configurator and boot loader. Personally, I think that that's fine. I'm not looking for a BIOS to do anything more. Tim Massey - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Why protected mode?
by Matthias Wächter July 16, 1999

July 16, 1999

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote: > You haven't read Intel processor specifications, have you? No, I have not. But thanks for clarifying! Sehr Wus, - Matthias -- Bunt ist das Dasein und granatenstark. Und: Volle Kanne, Hoschis! aus: "Bill und Teds verrückte Reise durch die Zeit" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Why protected mode?
by Timothy J. Massey July 15, 1999

July 15, 1999

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 17:47:57 -0400 (EDT), Kevin P Lawton wrote: >Well, it would have been a much different situation making >a move between 8086 and 286 and doing it right from the >beginning, than ramming all that IA32 stuff into a >new VLIW architecture. Woof. Two things: 1) I see your point. 2) I don't want to offend anyone else by continuing this increasingly off-topic thread! :) You win... ;) Besides, I never liked the 286 anyway! :) Tim Massey - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Why protected mode?
by Timothy J. Massey July 15, 1999

July 15, 1999

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 15:03:45 -0400 (EDT), Kevin P Lawton wrote: >Should have dropped real mode, had the CPU start >out in protected mode, and today we'd all have >protected mode only BIOSs. Oh well, such is life. And how would these computer have run DOS? Or Windows? The only OS available before 1994 or so that didn't use real mode code was OS/2. Did everybody switch over to OS/2? So how could Intel drop real mode? In fact, people's biggest complaint with OS/2 in the late 80's was OS/2 Compatibility Box: the way that it ran real-mode DOS programs. If people weren't willing to use an OS that allowed them to run a decent percentage of their old software, why would they use a computer that allowed them to run *none* of their old software! Think about the difficulty that IBM caused for itself when they dropped ISA in favor of MicroChannel. The decision to go MicroChannel was made for almost identical reasons that you would have wanted Intel to change designs with the 286: a better way of doing things. I think the marketplace voted on which way they wanted to go... One other point to run this into the ground: look at the success that Intel has had so far in changing their architecture with IA-64. We've been waiting for, what? 3 years now? And with what result? In an environment as loose as the PC (as the author of Bochs I'm sure knows), anything that isn't 100% backward compatible is horribly frowned upon. Companies like Apple can change CPU designs with success because they control every detail of the hardware, OS and software. In the PC world, we aren't too open to that level of control. Tim Massey - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

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