[OpenBIOS] User-extentions (was Re: More comments and a proposal...)

[Jim Morris]

Chris Arguin wrote:
> 
> I belive someone mentioned that there limits to how many times you can
> flash most chips. If so, then we definitly don't want to do it every
> bootup, especially if we are supporting DOS/Windows :)

Most EEPROM or FLASH devices (the "Flash" device on my motherboard is
actually EEPROM) have 10,000 write cycles guaranteed by the
manufacturer.  Some FLASH or EEPROM devices can go as high as 100,000
writes - but more often than not, 10,000 is a safer bet.

So, how long would it take to reboot a PC 10,000 times? ;-)  Personally,
I would prefer NOT to see my BIOS device written to on every system boot
- although I assume this is what the Award BIOS does when it says
"Updating ECSD tables...".  Actually, Award only rewrites these
PNP-related tables when they see a change in the ISA PNP card
configuration...
-- 
/-------------------------------\
| Jim Morris  |  jim at morris.net |
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