From owner-freebsd-current Sun Nov 1 12:11:04 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA28547 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:11:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from pinhead.parag.codegen.com (ppp-asfm08--202.sirius.net [205.134.241.202]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA28538 for ; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:11:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from parag@pinhead.parag.codegen.com) Received: from pinhead.parag.codegen.com (localhost.parag.codegen.com [127.0.0.1]) by pinhead.parag.codegen.com (8.9.1/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA17513; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:06:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from parag@pinhead.parag.codegen.com) Message-Id: <199811012006.MAA17513@pinhead.parag.codegen.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: Mikael Karpberg , mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith), current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New boot loader and alternate kernels In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 01 Nov 1998 16:01:00 +0100." <18026.909932460@critter.freebsd.dk> X-Face: =O'Kj74icvU|oS*<7gS/8'\Pbpm}okVj*@UC!IgkmZQAO!W[|iBiMs*|)n*`X ]pW%m>Oz_mK^Gdazsr.Z0/JsFS1uF8gBVIoChGwOy{EK=<6g?aHE`[\S]C]T0Wm X-URL: http://www.codegen.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 12:06:35 -0800 From: Parag Patel Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <18026.909932460@critter.freebsd.dk>, Poul-Henning Kamp writes: >The "Open" boot prom on Suns and the various spinoffs from that use >forth for that reason. It's compact, it can be made machine independent >and there is a standard (several actually) so you don't have to invent >the host plate and the deep water all over again. Well, that was the original intention, but if you look at the OpenFirmware standard (IEEE-1275), the added stuff greatly expands the size. Our C implementation (SmartFirmware) is actually smaller than their native Forth implementation, both in code size and run-time data size (which was a big surprise to us) but is still bigger than a traditional Forth implementation. IEEE-1275 adds quite a lot on top of the ANS Forth spec. I think the main reason they went to Forth is to support plug-in boot ROMs using a byte-coded Forth called Fcode. It's the best choice if you want to have a machine-independent boot ROM on a plug-in card. They could have gone with a byte-encoded Lisp or BASIC or anything else, but Sun has a tendancy to base systems around Forth for some reason (Openview, Java, etc :-). -- Parag Patel To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message