From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 28 13:36:40 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9225C16A469 for ; Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:36:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ed@hoeg.nl) Received: from palm.hoeg.nl (mx0.hoeg.nl [IPv6:2001:610:652::211]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5691813C4A7 for ; Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:36:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ed@hoeg.nl) Received: by palm.hoeg.nl (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6B5EF1CC1E; Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:36:37 +0100 (CET) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:36:37 +0100 From: Ed Schouten To: Bill Vermillion Message-ID: <20071028133637.GC5411@hoeg.nl> References: <20071028081634.722CF16A547@hub.freebsd.org> <20071028124604.GA43062@wjv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="IhRHiOJhC/7Q+39k" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20071028124604.GA43062@wjv.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-09) Cc: FreeBSD Current Subject: Re: New bus-unit wiring via hints.. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:36:40 -0000 --IhRHiOJhC/7Q+39k Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Bill Vermillion wrote: > Hmm. I started running Xenix systems on Intel systems [SCO's > Xenix, and Altos systems] back in the 1984 era. >=20 > At that time as I recall it the BIOS was ONLY used to get > the information to boot the system, and everything else in the BIOS > was ignored. This caused a lot of confusion for people who had > come from a DOS oriented world and saying things such as "well it > works in DOS so *i*x must be broken. >=20 > So - have things changed where the OS looks at the BIOS [in the > *i*x world - or is it like this old fart remembers where BIOS was > only used to find the HD and boot the OS? A good example is FreeBSD on the Microsoft Xbox. The Xbox has no PC-style BIOS and yet it's capable of running a (slightly patched) FreeBSD kernel. A disadvantage of the Xbox is that it doesn't have a VGA BIOS interface, which means the port uses a custom framebuffer driver to make the console work. --=20 Ed Schouten WWW: http://g-rave.nl/ --IhRHiOJhC/7Q+39k Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFHJJBl52SDGA2eCwURAtFEAJsEwdlyD2gfEqcWmrNl+j1v1HNskgCeKdYr uI2d6QtLV08r8+Hq41xly24= =qzWp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --IhRHiOJhC/7Q+39k--