Award BIOS Source code

[Masoud Sharbiani]

Hi,

My Name is Masoud Sharbiani, and I am working for OEone corporation 
(www.oeone.com), a software developement company which is located in 
Hull, Quebec, Canada. I am interested in the Award BIOS source code for 
developing Power management aware appliactions and I have to have the 
BIOS source code.
I would be very grateful if you can either send me the tarball you 
mentioned, or give me a pointer where I can download it.

Best Wishes,

Masoud

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[Ross]

Same here just give the damn address and we can get it ourselves
remember AMI has written tons of books own how its bios works.
and they are not out to sue some body for mere reference. As long
as like eagle computers back in the 80's they copied the IBM bios verbatim
even with IBM sigs in the their roms and the court order a injunctive relief
to stop eagle computers from using the rom code.

/// Ross
----- Original Message -----
From: Masoud Sharbiani 
To: 
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 9:50 AM
Subject: [OpenBIOS] Award BIOS Source code
> Hi,
>
> My Name is Masoud Sharbiani, and I am working for OEone corporation
> (www.oeone.com), a software developement company which is located in
> Hull, Quebec, Canada. I am interested in the Award BIOS source code for
> developing Power management aware appliactions and I have to have the
> BIOS source code.
> I would be very grateful if you can either send me the tarball you
> mentioned, or give me a pointer where I can download it.
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Masoud
>
> To unsubscribe: send mail to [e-mail]
> with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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[Gavin Robert Brewer]

Ross wrote:
> Same here just give the damn address and we can get it ourselves
> remember AMI has written tons of books own how its bios works.

If you know where those books are, I want to see them...
> and they are not out to sue some body for mere reference.

Yes they are. They are greedy bastards..like the rest of the corporate
fraternity.

Okay, If you are right about these mythical AMI-BIOS reference books,
then I would buy them tommorrow, and refuse the copy of the source code.

Alternatively I could buy the AMI-BIOS source code, but that is a
Bill-Gates trick, and I dont have the sufficient capital.

Gavin.
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[Stefan Reinauer]

> Okay, If you are right about these mythical AMI-BIOS reference books,
> then I would buy them tommorrow, and refuse the copy of the source code.
>
> Alternatively I could buy the AMI-BIOS source code, but that is a
> Bill-Gates trick, and I dont have the sufficient capital.

Better get yourself an IEEE-1275-1994 specification - you'll be amazed 
how nice the concept is compared to what you know about the official 
ia32 firmware apis. Look at how easy Linux can communicate with OpenFirmware 
on Suns or Apples. It has a clear API, is completely enhancable and due to
the fcode backend, "binary" drivers are completely CPU independant without
recompile. The big chance for complete interoperability and transparency.

Best regards,
   Stefan

ia64: how do we do BIOS? EFI?

[Ronald G Minnich]

The Intel ia64 is planned to ship with EFI. I have had some very
depressing converations with some Intel people which inevitably end with:
"we don't care what you want to do, EFI is the best, you have to use it".

In other words, Intel is playing the Monopoly card again and has no
intention of telling us how to write BIOSes for the ia64.

Has anyone looked at this? this issue is crucial to both openbios and
linuxbios. What should we do? I am downloading EFI now and it really looks
like crap. It even includes a non-redistributable FAT-32 driver (courtesy
microsoft).

I'd be interested in any thoughts on this.

ron

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ia64: how do we do BIOS? EFI?

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Ronald G Minnich  [010828 00:15]:
> The Intel ia64 is planned to ship with EFI. I have had some very
> depressing converations with some Intel people which inevitably end with:
> "we don't care what you want to do, EFI is the best, you have to use it".

Since the Alpha died an unhonourable death I have heard quite a few rumours 
like that. ;-> I even heard sometimes signing an NDA does not provide you
with the necessary information to get you any further ;-> I don't mean to be
vague but sometimes one works on a project for a company which he can't openly
disuss....it seems to be like this at lots of companies :->
> In other words, Intel is playing the Monopoly card again and has no
> intention of telling us how to write BIOSes for the ia64.

They intend that the quality of the firmware be at least as
good/suboordinate/noncompliant as the quality of the hardware.
> Has anyone looked at this? this issue is crucial to both openbios and
> linuxbios. What should we do? I am downloading EFI now and it really looks
> like crap. It even includes a non-redistributable FAT-32 driver (courtesy
> microsoft).

Let's just wait for the next generation of Alpha^H^H^H^H IA64 hardware
and how things evolve. If this hardware should at some time become close
enough to certain competitors they bought (not to mention Alpha) there 
might be a small chance to reuse the information we already paid so dearly
for with our blood, sweat and tears. Maybe it's just another rumour but I
have heard that the hardware is not exactly what they want it to be and that
things have to change if they want to keep that architecture alive.

Best regards,
    Stefan

ia64: how do we do BIOS? EFI?

[Ronald G Minnich]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Let's just wait for the next generation of Alpha^H^H^H^H IA64 hardware

I don't buy this one. I think this is being pushed by the same company
that took such good care of the alpha. From everything I have seen the
alpha is dead, never to reappear, esp. as IA64 take 2.

It is true IA64/Merced has big problems, but I doubt they'll solve them by
dumping the IA64 architecture. Intel is no stranger to taking a bad
architecture and making it fly somehow -- that's why we all use IA32!

I think we are stuck with figuring out how to make this crazy IA64 work --
unfortunately. I think we need to figure out how to make SAL call our
bios, build a combined SAL/our bios, get it loaded into FLASH, and just
dump all that EFI nonsense on the floor. That's what I'm going to work on
anyway. After that we can write our own SAL.

Oh yeah the real good news: this EFI junk only builds on NT.

ron

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Eric Project, and it's Firmware basis..

[Gavin Robert Brewer]

Folks,

I know this is a tad O/T but could someone do me a BIG favour?

We at Eric would like to get in contact with Linus Torvalds; we would
like him to take a look at the site below:

I dont know whether he will thank us, or damn us for what we are
doing...the question is, does he share our vision of Open-Source,
Mac-quality software for all?

Thanx guys,
    	Gavin.

[Gavin Robert Brewer]

> Better get yourself an IEEE-1275-1994 specification - you'll be amazed
> how nice the concept is compared to what you know about the official
> ia32 firmware apis.

I'll look into it, but even $30 is too much for me to spend. Can I get
this spec. on the web? When I bought the POSIX guide it cost me darn
near $100 to get it out of the US...

Thanx anyway man. I'd like to apologise for the numerous flames and
'robin-hood' ideas, but frankly, I am just a poor downtrodden student
with his back against the wall.

On the other hand, I dont see why the 'redistribution of wealth' concept
should be considered childish at all. So long as you dont break the law.
Linux does a great thing in this respect, but is too monolithic in it's
overall structure to continue to grow indefinitely.

I personally think that the rich should be made poor and the people as a
whole richer. It is my opinion and I am entitled to it. Linux aint quite
user-friendly enough to totally cause chaos in the PC sector, which
ideally would be what I want.

I almost have no respect for the current Silicon Valley monopolies, or
the men-in-suits who control them. As a student with no money, I see
them as nothing other than a bunch of dismissive, fifty-something
oppressors.

Any whiff of legal bollocks gets my back up faster than you can say
'Bill'. (Something from a past life, I must think). I really get a bit
frustrated with people who overreact when someone just releases a bit of
(probably public) source code with a view to *educational* usage.
> Look at how easy Linux can communicate with OpenFirmware
> on Suns or Apples. It has a clear API, is completely enhancable and due to
> the fcode backend, "binary" drivers are completely CPU independant without
> recompile. The big chance for complete interoperability and transparency.

Linux is certainly strong on the assembler side...interoperability and
transparency are critically important in any modern OS.
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