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Date:      Tue, 27 Jun 1995 20:30:05 +1000
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        bde@zeta.org.au, rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org, wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu
Subject:   Re: 2.05R reboot hangs
Message-ID:  <199506271030.UAA04080@godzilla.zeta.org.au>

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>> >jmp 0xffff:0xfff0 is deadly on some machines unless a hard reset has
>> >just occured.  Many BIOS writers only expected to start executing
>> >from that location on a hard reset and do not do full CPU chip
>> >initialization.
>> 
>> I think at least [3-4]86's can be initialized sufficiently in software.

>There is a world of difference between ``can be'' and ``are'' in the
>world of PC bioses and the folks who write them!!

You initialize it before jumping to the reset vector.

>> Page 0 is free and normally mapped to 0xf0000000.  You just have to
>> map it to 0 too.

>Ewwwweeeee... page 0, the BIOS data page.  You want me to try and
>call the BIOS from the BIOS data area??  Are you SICK :-) :-) :-)
>Bong... try again...  oh.. wait, doesnt the BIOS data area end
>at 0x500?  So I could do what I wanted in say 0x500->0x1000 right??

The whole page is garbage after cold boots.  It might be safer to
leave 0x400-0x4ff alone in case the BIOS is broken.  The interrupt
vectors will be corrupted after a dosboot to FreeBSD so you have to
rely on the BIOS reinitializing them.

Bruce



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