Anyone here ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hi,

I suscribed to this mailing list one week ago, but i didn't not receive
any message. Is this a technical problem ?
I read about OpenBios in a French magazine, called "Linux Mag". Your
project seems to be very interesting, that's why i suscribed to this
mailing list.
Am I really suscribed ?

Thanks to answer me through the mailing list and by private mail.

Thank you very much

Thomas, from Paris, France

[Wendell Craig]

Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I suscribed to this mailing list one week ago, but i didn't not receive
> any message. Is this a technical problem ?
> I read about OpenBios in a French magazine, called "Linux Mag". Your
> project seems to be very interesting, that's why i suscribed to this
> mailing list.
> Am I really suscribed ?
>
> Thanks to answer me through the mailing list and by private mail.
>
> Thank you very much
> Thomas, from Paris, France
>
> PETAZZONI Thomas & Maxime   E-mail : [e-mail]
>  ICQ : 34937744              KOS-web : http://www.comports.com/kos
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to [e-mail]
> with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

There seems to be some of who 'lurk' here, waiting for something
interesting to happen - and it does every few weeks.

The list will be completely quiet for a while, then a brief flurry of
activity, then silence again.  I'm not sure, but I think the folks who
are interested in this list are the type who hammer on their keyboards
for lengthy periods without a lot of socializing.

Whenever they do pop up, I always find it worthwhile to pay attention.

> There seems to be some of who 'lurk' here, waiting for something
> interesting to happen - and it does every few weeks.
>
> The list will be completely quiet for a while, then a brief flurry of
> activity, then silence again.  I'm not sure, but I think the folks who
> are interested in this list are the type who hammer on their keyboards
> for lengthy periods without a lot of socializing.

I'm lurking here myself, trying to get a handle on where
things are headed with openbios, with an interest in using
it for the freemware project. (http://www.freemware.org)
We need a BIOS for that project.  One option would be to use
the one from my other project, bochs.  Rather than have lot's of BIOSs
floating around, I thought it'd be good to have a unified
one and perhaps work with the openbios team.

I would like to hear people's reaction on this.

-Kevin Lawton
http://www.bochs.com
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[Niklas Ekström]

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Kevin P Lawton wrote:
> I'm lurking here myself, trying to get a handle on where
> things are headed with openbios, with an interest in using
> it for the freemware project. (http://www.freemware.org)
> We need a BIOS for that project.  One option would be to use
> the one from my other project, bochs.  Rather than have lot's of BIOSs
> floating around, I thought it'd be good to have a unified
> one and perhaps work with the openbios team.
>
> I would like to hear people's reaction on this.

First, I'd like to say that I think your Freemware project looks really
interesting. I'm looking forward to not having to reboot my machine to
take advantage of the best features of both Linux and Windows (and
perhaps other OSs as well).

I am currently doing some work on a 32-bit BIOS, that is _not_ IBM-PC
compatible. It will work together with Linux and other free, open source 
OSes. Although, since Windows is 16-bit, this BIOS will not be able to
support it. Ofcourse this can be a big drawback for the usability of
this BIOS, but I still think it is the way it should be done, since if 
you want a 16-bit (old and crappy) IBM-PC compatible BIOS, you just keep
the one that is in your computer right now.

So because of this I believe that your project won't benefit from my work 
since you will need an IBM-PC compatible BIOS, right?

Regards,
Niklas Ekström

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> I am currently doing some work on a 32-bit BIOS, that is _not_ IBM-PC
> compatible. It will work together with Linux and other free, open source=20
> OSes. Although, since Windows is 16-bit, this BIOS will not be able to
> support it. Ofcourse this can be a big drawback for the usability of
> this BIOS, but I still think it is the way it should be done, since if=20
> you want a 16-bit (old and crappy) IBM-PC compatible BIOS, you just keep
> the one that is in your computer right now.
>
> So because of this I believe that your project won't benefit from my work=
> =20
> since you will need an IBM-PC compatible BIOS, right?

Actually, for booting a 32-bit OS, your BIOS may work.
I have no problem having an optional 32bit only BIOS.

We definitely a 16-bit one though for MS stuff though.

Actually, please join the developers list for freemware,
and post something there about it.  16-bit stuff complicates
our development, since we first have to virtualize 16bit stuff,
then move to 32-bit.  If we had a 32bit BIOS, perhaps we
could start right out with the good stuff!  Then work
backwards.  Just a thought.

-Kevin
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Architecture

[Tim Small]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a general book which covers
x86 assembly, with a decent overview of x86 system architecture.  I've previously
only used 680x0 assembly.  So far, I've found this book in my local book shop:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387985301/

Which looks quite good, but isn't exactly cheap!  I downloaded the PPro reference
manuals as PDFs from Intel, and although they seem pretty well written, they're
only really useful as a technical reference.

Kevin P Lawton wrote:
> > this BIOS, but I still think it is the way it should be done, since if=20
> > you want a 16-bit (old and crappy) IBM-PC compatible BIOS, you just keep
> > the one that is in your computer right now.
> >
> > So because of this I believe that your project won't benefit from my work
> > since you will need an IBM-PC compatible BIOS, right?

Well, not necessarilly.  As I've said - I don't know very much about the i386
architecture, but this is what I was thinking:

. Do minimum required in 16bit mode
. Switch to 32bit mode
  . Machine setup
  . Options/setup menu option
  . Insert your must-have feature here ;-)
  . Boot strap operating system

Wouldn't it be possible to add 16 bit support as a module which gets loaded at
bootstrap stage?  Either as a replacement 16 bit BIOS which is loaded by the
32bit one, how about trying to provide a 16bit interface with the 32bit BIOS
(although I'm not sure this is possible (32 bit disk drivers for DOS?), I don't
really know a lot about the x86, outside of 32 bit userland!).
> Actually, for booting a 32-bit OS, your BIOS may work.
> I have no problem having an optional 32bit only BIOS.
>
> We definitely a 16-bit one though for MS stuff though.

Yes, I agree - I seem to hit an average of about 2 irritating problems a week
caused by old and buggy PC BIOSs, and this is the only way I'll be able to flash
the lot into oblivion!  ;-)
> Actually, please join the developers list for freemware,
> and post something there about it.  16-bit stuff complicates

Hmm, development tools.  Can anyone see any obvious pitfalls in using software
like Bochs, and vmware for development and debugging?

Tim.

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Architecture

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Mon, 5 Jul 1999, Tim Small wrote:
> Which looks quite good, but isn't exactly cheap!  I downloaded the PPro reference
> manuals as PDFs from Intel, and although they seem pretty well written, they're
> only really useful as a technical reference.

In fact you should find out almost everything about ia32 by studying
Intel's "Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual" vol. 1 through 3.
The remaining information is scattered across various documents and hard
to find even though many of them are available from Intel on-line.

Beware, also, some statements in Intel docs are incorrect.  It's still
unknown whether these errors are intentional or not (see
http://www.x86.org/ and http://www.sandpile.org/ for a discussion) but
you'd better verify everything with a real chip (I don't mean "reserved"
areas here;  these are to be documented features).

Architecture

[James Oakley]

Tim Small wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a general book which covers
> x86 assembly, with a decent overview of x86 system architecture.  I've previously

One of my old textbooks may be of good use (it's not actually old, just
a year ago). It severely goes over x86 architecture, hardware design,
and assembly. I really like it, the contents are quite practical. The
author also has designed a plug-in prototype card available at
Electronics Express which is referenced in the book. Both the book and
card are available (kit or pre-built) at Electronics Express, and the
book itself is available most anywhere (it's Prentice-Hall). Oh yeah,
the book's name (oops) is "The 80x86 IBM PC and Compatible Computers:
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing" by Muhammad Ali Mazidi &
Janice Gillespie Mazidi.

Another book to take a look at is Horowitz & Hill's "The Art of
Electronics." They're kind of like the Kernighan & Ritchie of
electronics, the book goes over *everything* electronic in very good
detail, including microprocessors and architecture, but not specific to
any one (x86, Motorola and Zilog among others are covered).

But the Mazidi book is *highly* recommended. I referenced it while
designing the OpenBIOS development card, which I should throw on a
site... I'll probably do that tonight.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask, there's a lot more
people on this list than one might think, who can answer.

James Oakley
[e-mail]
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[Thomas Petazzoni]

Kevin P Lawton a écrit :
> > There seems to be some of who 'lurk' here, waiting for something
> > interesting to happen - and it does every few weeks.
> >
> > The list will be completely quiet for a while, then a brief flurry of
> > activity, then silence again.  I'm not sure, but I think the folks who
> > are interested in this list are the type who hammer on their keyboards
> > for lengthy periods without a lot of socializing.
>
> I'm lurking here myself, trying to get a handle on where
> things are headed with openbios, with an interest in using
> it for the freemware project. (http://www.freemware.org)
> We need a BIOS for that project.  One option would be to use
> the one from my other project, bochs.  Rather than have lot's of BIOSs
> floating around, I thought it'd be good to have a unified
> one and perhaps work with the openbios team.
>
> I would like to hear people's reaction on this.

Of course this is a good idea ... but i think you'll wait a long time
before having the openBIOS....

see you later
> -Kevin Lawton
> http://www.bochs.com
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to [e-mail]
> with "unsubscribe openbios" in the body of the message

[Wookey]

On Fri 02 Jul, Kevin P Lawton wrote:
> > There seems to be some of who 'lurk' here, waiting for something
> > interesting to happen - and it does every few weeks.
> I'm lurking here myself, trying to get a handle on where
> things are headed with openbios, with an interest in using
> it for the freemware project. (http://www.freemware.org)
> We need a BIOS for that project.

I'm another lurker. Aleph One does hardware-based x86 Emulation for
RISCOS (ARM-based) machines. We have a (mostly) 16-bit BIOS too. We are
looking at new projects that we might be able to help with, with a view
to eventually having something we could help market or support (and thus
make a living :-)

We would be happy to make useful parts of our existing emulations (eg
NE2000, BIOS, IDE/ATAPI) or technologies (HPC comms mechanism - might be
useful for bits of freemware from reading Kevin's paper (perhaps we
should talk in more detail kevin?)) freeware if it seemed that it would
be mutually helpful.

We have manufacturing experience which could be useful for the OpenBIOS
stuff as that needs hardware for some of the proposals.

I was hanging around to see how far this project had got, and whether we
had any relevant technology before sticking my head above the parapet,
but this seems like a good time to come out of the woodwork. Hopefully
the group wouldn't find 'sponsorship' from Aleph One to be a problematic
idea? Having someone being paid to work on the project ought to be very
helpful.

So, if anyone thinks that our BIOS would be useful, or our other
PC-emulation technologies, or just our knowledge in these areas, then
feel free to comment on this list, or email me personally.

Wookey

[David Harvill]

I (as you) subscribed after seeing the list mentioned in the article (USA
name: Linux Magazine).  Yours is the first posting I've seen.

-dave

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 [e-mail]
 http://www.cs.umb.edu/~dlh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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