H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Intel pushing != becoming ubiquitous. They have been trying to get rid
> of ISA for years. It isn't happening.
Well, I notice that I have a lot less ISA in my new PC than what I used
to consider normal not too long ago. It's happening, but slowly.
> The PC platform is over 20 years old, and if there is any evidence it
> isn't going to go through such a fundamental change any time soon.
> Perhaps by 2010 something will happen. I'm not holding my breath.
In any case, there's no need to rush with using new BIOS features. The
usual timeline seems to be roughly:
t=0 Major player or consortium releases draft specification for
new BIOS/BIOS-supported feature
5min BIOS developer downloads specification, implements feature
detect function to indicate "we support it and are fully
compliant"
1day Press release by BIOS vendor about leading the industry, etc.
Product is let loose on mankind
3months Marketing decides that there is demand for this feature.
Project manager assigns as "my first assembler program"
training project to intern who walks in first that day.
4months Internal leaves, code is integrated "as is" into product,
shipped.
5months Revised and incompatible V2 specification is relased.
6months First work-arounds for V1 draft implementations become known.
1year Various conflicting BIOS revisions and work-arounds in
circulation. Regular development group at BIOS vendor starts
to get interested in feature. Latest Mission^WService Pack of
Windows adds broken support for feature, requiring
work-arounds from the BIOS side.
...
3years BIOSes with not too badly broken support for feature are
starting to ship.
5years Heroic developers may start to consider using BIOS feature for
regular work.
10years BIOS feature, which is now widely supported and almost
bug-free, is officially discontinued.
11years Other change in BIOS breaks feature, which never gets
repaired.
Oh well ...
- Werner
-- _________________________________________________________________________ / Werner Almesberger, ICA, EPFL, CH werner.almesberger@ica.epfl.ch / /_IN_N_032__Tel_+41_21_693_6621__Fax_+41_21_693_6610_____________________/- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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