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Date:      Mon, 1 Jun 1998 07:38:11 +0100 (BST)
From:      Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com>
To:        Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
Cc:        Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: AlphaBIOS documentation 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980601073447.330J-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980531203202.4124W-100000@ascetic.portal.ca>

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On Sun, 31 May 1998, Curt Sampson wrote:

> On Sun, 31 May 1998, Doug Rabson wrote:
> 
> > I have spent a *long* time reading Linux and Milo source code and I really
> > want to avoid putting hardware drivers in the bootloader.
> 
> There's a lot more than hardware drivers in that particular
> bootloader. It also includes a complete set of PALcode. (PAL stands
> for `Privileged Architecture Library,' and is used to implement
> some very low-level, machine dependent functions, such as memory
> and TLB management.) This, of course, is different even from machine
> to machine with the same CPU, and thus the bootloader for the
> AXPpci33 is not the same as the bootloader for the Multia, despite
> the fact that they both use the same CPU and the are exactly the
> same machine type (that is, use exactly the same kernel code) under
> NetBSD.

Don't worry, I am fully aware of the PALcode problem.  I think it will be
a far easier problem to deal with the bootstrap installing PALcode than
for it to have a complete set of device drivers.  There is plenty of
PALcode source in milo.

--
Doug Rabson				Mail:  dfr@nlsystems.com
Nonlinear Systems Ltd.			Phone: +44 181 951 1891
					Fax:   +44 181 381 1039


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