25 Jun
2010
25 Jun
'10
4:34 p.m.
On 6/25/10 11:51 AM, Robert Borsuk wrote:
Oh? So an Adaptec card with an OpenBoot ROM would work in either,
say, a SPARC machine or a PCI-equipped Apple (like one of the G3
machines)? Is it really that "independent"? If so, that'd be cool.
Well , kind of. The OpenBoot rom contains a set of openfirmware codes (methods) that
allow a driver a more universal way to access the card.
I use to design video cards for the early powermacs so I've written a bunch of
F-Code. You still needed a driver on top of the openfirmware rom.
Yes, I should've mentioned that this is in the context of
OpenFirmware. Nearly all of the machines I ever touch use OpenFirmware
(Mac destkops, Sun servers) so machine without it are pretty unusual in
my world. It's really amazingly good stuff. And it made Forth one of
the most widely-deployed (but largely invisible) programming language
implementations ever. :)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
... Adaptec
PCI SCSI card that should just drop in...
*might*... have to find a SPARC boot ROM...
Not a "SPARC ROM", but a standard OpenBoot ROM. They are
platform-independent.