From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jun 1 12:10:48 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA06482 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 12:10:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nlsystems.com (nlsys.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA06358 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 12:10:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from herring.nlsystems.com (herring.nlsystems.com [10.0.0.2]) by nlsystems.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA01975; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:10:53 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:10:53 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson To: Terry Lambert cc: cjs@portal.ca, mike@smith.net.au, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AlphaBIOS documentation In-Reply-To: <199806011819.LAA02732@usr01.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Terry Lambert wrote: > > Falling back to SRM really sucks in most cases. For some motherboards you > > can't have both SRM and AlphaBIOS loaded at the same time so switching > > between NT and BSD would not be a good end user experience. > > > Switching from FreeBSD to NT is *never* a good end user experience. > > 8-) 8-). Much as I agree with you, I think this is what some people will wish to do. > > I don't want SRM and I don't want to run DU. I just want the palcode. > > Palcode != SRM. > > The product manager insists on charging for the OSF PALcode. Perhaps > he is a mole for Microsoft. This is not quite correct. There is a charge for the SRM console (which contains a copy of the OSF palcode). Freely distributable source of OSF palcode for several platforms is available. > > One thing to consider is that some Alpha processors are now physically > incapable of having the OSF PALcode loaded on them. >From what I understand, they are just untested in 64bit addressing modes. Personally, I think this is short term brain damage which will disappear when NT supports 64bit addressing. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message