From owner-freebsd-current  Fri Apr 14 19:26:14 1995
Return-Path: current-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id TAA22588
          for current-outgoing; Fri, 14 Apr 1995 19:26:14 -0700
Received: from Root.COM (implode.Root.COM [198.145.90.1])
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id TAA22566
          for <current@freebsd.org>; Fri, 14 Apr 1995 19:25:56 -0700
Received: from corbin.Root.COM (corbin.Root.COM [198.145.90.18]) by Root.COM (8.6.8/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA18347; Fri, 14 Apr 1995 19:25:48 -0700
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by corbin.Root.COM (8.6.11/8.6.5) with SMTP id TAA00711; Fri, 14 Apr 1995 19:25:48 -0700
Message-Id: <199504150225.TAA00711@corbin.Root.COM>
To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@ref.tfs.com>
cc: rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com (Rodney W. Grimes), cmf@ins.infonet.net,
        current@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: Interesting (and odd) effect in -current 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 14 Apr 95 19:19:41 PDT."
             <199504150219.TAA19083@ref.tfs.com> 
From: David Greenman <davidg@Root.COM>
Reply-To: davidg@Root.COM
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 19:25:48 -0700
Sender: current-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>> > >But I have digressed, if the BIOS didn't manage to get this write at
>> > >power on, you would get NMI interrupts no matter what OS you ran.  I
>> > >don't see a reason to add code to FreeBSD that really belongs in the
>> > >BIOS in the off chance that some really rare broken motherboard could
>> > >then work.
>> > 
>> >    I agree, but I think clearing memory has other merits.
>> 
>> Yes, setting it to 0xDeadBeef is a very good idea, that way you
>> can find out some times when you pick up a wild pointer by the
>> value in it :-).
>
>Except that in our case is should be 0x00coffee, "No coffee" :-)

   Seriously, 0x00coffee would be a poor choice since it would likely be valid
in the user address space.
   ...but I know you're not serious.

-DG