I think it should DEFINETLTY need to be seperated.
Why?
Too Big. Each chipset got it's own data and specs (don't forget we're talking about 386, 486, LX, BX, VX, FX chipset and they got lots of differences) - combining them all together will give a binary file that will probably won't fit into the flash (not mentioning other features we want to have).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Hetz Ben Hamo ISDN Net Ltd.
On Sun, 29 Nov 1998, M Carling wrote:
There seems to be some disagreement over the issue of whether or not OpenBIOS should provide for possibility to compile into a single binary support for multiple chipset types to be autodetected at run-time.
For OpenBIOS to be successful, it needs to become more attractive to the MB manufacturers than the alternatives. I don't know whether such a feature would be attractive to the MB manufacturers or not. I suggest will begin by compiling a list of the advantages and disadvantages of this feature. Having done that (so that we understand it ourselves as best we can) we should then ask the manufacturers. (This will be a good step toward getting free hardware from them for development.)
When we ask them, we should also ask any other questions about their needs. In effect, we need to do some market research.
Here are the advantages and disadvantages that I can think of. There are probably others.
Pro:
It's cool.
It would allow manufacturers to have one BIOS ROM that supports all their MB products.
The autodetect code might also be useful for diagnostics.
Con:
Extra complexity--something else to go wrong. Bug free code is *really* important in the BIOS.
Extra complexity--more difficult to test.
What other questions would we like the MB manufacturers to answer for us?
M