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Date:      Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:28:11 -0700
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: BIOS extension format 
Message-ID:  <199810212328.QAA02805@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:12:20 %2B1000." <199810212312.JAA00857@cimlogic.com.au> 

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> 
> Does anyone know what format Phoenix uses for their ROM bios extensions?
> I know the bios checks for an 8-bit checksum over the entire block
> and it expects a magic number of 0xaa55. The user docs say that the
> bios gets the size of the extension from the "extension header". From
> the 3 bios extensions that I have, it's not obvious where that size
> is stored or what the entry address is. 8-(
> 
> I've tried asking (a) the board vendor (Intel); (b) the board manufacturer
> (Radisys); and (c) Phoenix.

Best guess is it's the format described in the PnP BIOS document, where 
the image starts with:

  offset length
----------------------------------------
  0x0      0x2		0xaa55 (signature)
  0x2      0x1          length/512
  0x3      0x4          initialisation vector
  0x7     0x13          reserved
 0x1a      0x2          offset to expansion header

The expansion header generic format is:

  offset length
----------------------------------------
  0x0      0x4          $??? (??? is specific to option type)
  0x4      0x1          structure revision
  0x5      0x1          length/16
  0x6      0x2          offset to next header (0 if none)
  0x8      0x1          reserved (? spec says 0xffff!)
  0x9      0x1          checksum
 0x10       ?           header-specific data

There's more specific information here on PnP devices intented to 
participate in the boot path (disk, screen, keyboard etc.) if this is 
looking promising.

The document you want is "Plug and Play BIOS Specification" (version 
1.0A); you should be able to get it from Microsoft under
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/respect/pnpspecs.htm
in Word format (*sigh*).

-- 
\\  Sometimes you're ahead,       \\  Mike Smith
\\  sometimes you're behind.      \\  mike@smith.net.au
\\  The race is long, and in the  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\  end it's only with yourself.  \\  msmith@cdrom.com



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