Re: MILO vs BIOS on Linux/Intel.

Miquel van Smoorenburg (miquels@cistron.nl)
11 Feb 1998 18:04:41 +0100

In article <E0y2c94-0001Ff-00@imladris.demon.co.uk>,
David Woodhouse <Dave@imladris.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>oleg@usm.uni-muenchen.de said:
>> I'm wondering how difficult it would be to
>> put MIniLOader in flash like it was done on Alpha instead
>> of that LILO/MBR mess ?
>
>There's not going to be enough room in with the normal BIOS. However, if
>you've got a network card with space for a ROM, you could put it in there.

Yep - in a former life, I once wrote a program that was put into an EPROM
and put into a ROM socket of the network card. It loaded (in assembly)
a small filesystem from the EPROM containing a few DOS TSRs (packet drivers
actually) and a master program (.COM format, bridging code). It also
mimiced enough of INT21 to let these programs run.. aah good old fashioned
hacking :)

Now, it would be doable to write some EPROM code that redirected INT10
(BIOS video functions) to the serial port adding VT100 escape codes. That
would get you a serial-console into the BIOS setup! Does anyone know if
a general BIOS setup screen uses INT10 or if it writes to video memory
directly?

Mike.

-- 
 Miquel van Smoorenburg |  The dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac lay in his bed
    miquels@cistron.nl  |  awake all night wondering if there is a doG


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