> > The serial (and/or floppy) loading mechanism was intended, in this thread, to
> > allow fix a badly flashed rom, as a last resort when nothing else helps.
>
> in my case "the last resort" would involve taking the machine apart and adding
> a floppy drive *or* connecting another machine running some special software
> which would download the kernel with some special protocol.
>
> that means that the solution is not *self contained*
Now, how would you like to make it be self contained? If the machine you build
doesn't have a floppy, it doesn't need to have an LS120, or a CDROM or whatever
anyway, so no more luck than with a floppy ... you'd need to take the machine
apart again.
Even NOW, when the kernel is on the harddrive, and you build the machine floppy/
CDROM/LS120/ZIP-less, you can't bring it back to life if the kernel images on
the harddrive are corrupted without taking it apart ...
......
And, should you have two boot time selectable kernel images in the flash,
one for actually being run and the other as a backup for when eg. upgrading
the kernel, a situation where you would need to re-flash the flash fully
would happen only very very seldom.
And I think that when this happens, it's worth to have the trouble with
using a second computer and a serial cable, instead of having support
for every device you can load the kernel from in the boot/kernel loader
part of the flash.
Vojtech
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