[rescue] This might make you smile (was THIS. MAKES. ME. SICK.)

[Dan Debertin]

On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, G W Adkins wrote:

> mmm, methinks that this will work with *any* motherboard that has serial
> ports supported under the serial drivers in the OS.  Unless you are
> referring to the POST output going to the serial port...  In which case I
> know that the 440GX Intel OEM board supports it, and I think that most of
> the high end (if anyone can call an x86 machine 'high end'...) server class
> (if anyone can call x86 hardware 'server class'...) motherboards support it
> if set up in the BIOS.  Although you'll still have to run it with a video
> device (framebuffer) in it to get it to post...

Yeah; what they're talking about is the BIOS/PROM output, not the OS
output. It works quite well on the 440GX boards, where it's referred to as
"console redirection".

Still, there is no FORTH interpreter, and no equivalent of Stop-A/BREAK.

The thing I always liked about OpenBoot was that the OS kernel was just
another program it runs, which just happens to be called "unix" ;). It's
interruptible, killable, debuggable, etc.

There are some high-end Intel-based NetApp machines (F800, maybe?) that
incorporate some sort of OpenBoot, aren't there? It'd be nice to see some
mainstream x86 motherboards incorporate something like that....

Dan

--
Dan Debertin
airboss at nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org