From owner-freebsd-hardware Fri Oct 31 22:53:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA04484 for hardware-outgoing; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 22:53:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware) Received: from sendero-ppp.i-connect.net (sendero-ppp.i-Connect.Net [206.190.143.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA04475 for ; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 22:53:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from shimon@sendero-ppp.i-connect.net) Received: (qmail 24223 invoked by uid 1000); 1 Nov 1997 06:53:33 -0000 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.2-beta-103097 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 22:53:33 -0800 (PST) Organization: Atlas Telecom From: Simon Shapiro To: Charles Mott Subject: RE: Booting off PCMCIA Flash EEProm Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi Charles Mott; On 01-Nov-97 you wrote: > What is the possibility of getting a PC (either > a laptop or conventional chassis) to boot off of > a PCMCIA card? > > The first problem that is apparent is that the > rom bios looks to a conventional hard drive or > floppy for the boot record. How feasible is it > to hack a bios, or are there new bios implementations > which will boot off of an flash ATA virtual hard > drive? That is already available, from various vendors. Popular thing amoung industrial computers people (noise, dust, vibrations, corosives, you know... An EXPENSIVE source for these is ICS (Industrial Computer Source) form San Diego, CA. they have few which look like IDE drives, few that look like floppies, etc. If I remember right (wrote a couple of drivers...), most PCMCIA FLASH disks can be had either as memory or as IDE. Some are pretty clever about write operations, so flash ``wear'' is not as bad. --- If Microsoft Built Cars: Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car. Sincerely Yours, Simon Shapiro Atlas Telecom Senior Architect 14355 SW Allen Blvd., Suite 130 Beaverton OR 97005 Shimon@i-Connect.Net Voice: 503.799.2313