From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu May 7 23:02:58 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA27862 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 7 May 1998 23:02:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bugs.us.dell.com (bugs.us.dell.com [143.166.169.147]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id XAA27834 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 23:02:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tony@dell.com) Received: from moth (moth.us.dell.com [143.166.169.152]) by bugs.us.dell.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA09549 for ; Fri, 8 May 1998 01:02:15 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980508005947.006ba3b4@bugs.us.dell.com> X-Sender: tony@bugs.us.dell.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 00:59:47 -0500 To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG From: Tony Overfield Subject: Re: ISA-PnP w\o BIOS support? In-Reply-To: <199805072325.RAA22750@harmony.village.org> References: <3.0.3.32.19980507095816.00689420@bugs.us.dell.com> <199805070251.TAA00511@antipodes.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Warner Losh wrote: >In message <3.0.3.32.19980507095816.00689420@bugs.us.dell.com> Tony Overfield writes: >: I'd be very surprised if any new system built in the last >: three years didn't include PnP BIOS support. IMHO, anything >: older than that is approaching obsolescence anyway. > >Ahem. there are boatloads of perfectly good 486 boxes out there that >will likely never have PnP. These are in use every day serving web >pages, routing mail, etc. They are no where near obsolete like, say >most 286 boxes are.... > >Warner I don't mean to start a religious war. The point is that most PC boxes support the PnP BIOS. This is a simple matter of numbers. For the last three years, IMHO, all new systems have had this support. For most manufacturers, the number of PC boxes built in the last three years probably exceeds all the boxes ever built before then, even if they were all still in service (and they aren't). I do realize that the older systems are still very functional, with *BSD (and NetWare) in particular. I agree completely with this point. In fact, I run *BSD on systems which I consider to be obsolete. This harsh opinion of the older systems is justified, in my mind, because the "state of the art PC" (please excuse the apparent oxymoron) is quite simply far more powerful than any "perfectly good 486 box." I never meant to say that obsolete PC boxes aren't useful. It doesn't matter anyway, because adding PnP BIOS support should not cause systems without PnP BIOS to break. - Tony To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message