> Since we seems to be putting so much into the bios why should we need any
> interrupts for hard drives. Make the entire kernel reside in the bios.
Right, 1-2Mb of flash, and have done with it.
> Actually the only feature that I regret the PC bios makers of doing is
> forgetting or just not implementing an any drive boot scheme. Why just fd0
Just flash the kernel with the right drivers, NFS, CD whatever.
> I was also thinking once that maybe a special memory area specific to the
I don't think there's a point, the kernel handles all of memory anyway,
if it needs a special area, it can take one.
> USB seems like a good idea / concept but I am unsure weather I truly need
> Basic onboard video card (the old trident chipset maybe) for people who
Well, I think it's a question of whether you want to build a hacker
machine, or a commercially viable thingy. The problem with the former
is that you'd want to load it with everything and the kitchen sink, the
problem with the latter is that there are basically two markets: desktop
and server.
Desktop would require low noise, small footprint, limited
upgradeability. Server requires power and upgradeability.
Imagine if you could have a small motherboard with sockets for a couple
of low-power CPUs (StrongARM?), 2-4 DIMM sockets, 1-2Mb flash memory,
and probably built in 100Mbit networking. Add one or two PCI slots,
parallel to the MB. You now have a small, low current (and no fans),
and probably very inexpensive box.
Add a powerful graphics accelerator and a soundcard, hook up a monitor
and speakers, flash a mimimal kernel/rootfs, and get X over the net, and
you have a multimedia NC.
Alternatively, add a SCSI card, and hook up to an external cabinet with
disks, run a kernel with MD, and you have a nice file server.
The problem becomes upgradeability - what if you want ISDN in addition
to/instead of ethernet, and what if you want a CD-ROM or floppy[0] on your
NC? I'd like to keep things small and simple, is it possible to have an
external PCI backplane? Or build the MB so that it could fit into a
backplane?
> And remember, the more complex the computer world is the more I get paid.
Well, to some extent, but it really should be the more productive
computer technology is, the more computer people get paid.
~kzm
[0] silly example, you can hook those up to a soundcard with an IDE.
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