Subject: Re: ANNOUNCING Booter 1.9 Beta
To: Andrew Gillham <gillham@andrews.edu>
From: Allen Briggs <briggs@puma.bevd.blacksburg.va.us>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 12/15/1995 08:45:17
> IMHO it is more important to get NetBSD/mac68k to boot _native_ without
> requiring a MacOS license, or 'Booter'.

This would be nice, but the main hurdles that have to be cleared are:
	- dealing with 32-bit/24-bit/memory map issues
	  I don't know how bad this might be
	- dealing with re-locating the boot program so the
	  kernel can be loaded at address 0
	- dealing with various disk formats/machine configurations
	- getting the information that booter now passes to the kernel

> 	How could this work for a hard-disk where the ROMs expect to
> 	load a device driver from the disk?  The ROMs obviously have
> 	to be able to read blocks from the disk, so wouldn't the
> 	bootblock just use this feature to read the second-level boot,

I need to look over the docs again, but I'm not sure that this is a
problem.  If it is, we can certainly work with it, providing a minimal
partition map with a driver partition.  I am willing to cede that much
to the Mac ROMs...  ;-)

> 	Would the MRG code still work? (considering no ROM patching
> 	done by MacOS)

That's an issue now.  The ROM patches from the MacOS aren't loaded into
NetBSD.  (One of my arguments against using something like MRG in the
first place.)

> 	What would it take to have NetBSD/mac68k support "native"
> 	disklabels, which would be required for standalone?

Some sweat.  That's about it.

> The real question, I guess, is:  Does anyone other than me want this
> functionality?  I personally don't use the IIci for any "Mac" type stuff,
> so having the ability to use MacOS isn't necessary for me.

I'd like to see it.  It's just not a priority for me.  ;-)

-allen

-- 
Allen Briggs - end killing - allen.briggs@bev.net ** MacBSD == NetBSD/mac68k **
   Where does all my time go?  <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">Guess.</a>