On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Jonathan Short wrote:

> Could someone please tell me what kernel the new ADB kernel is taking the 
> place of?  Or is it just an added on kernel?


The ADBTEST kernels are based on the official kernel source, pulled down
on whatever day is listed in the description on the web page.

The main difference is that in the official source, the code that talks to
the ADB hardware is in the Mac ROMs. In the ADBTEST kernels, the kernel 
itself talks directly to the ADB hardware. Because of some inter-dependancy
in parts of the hardware, this may also affect the RTC and the PRAM.

Why do this? Well, calling the routines in the ROMs involves making sure
that certain things are properly set up in order for the ROM code to work
properly. This code can vary between machines, and each new machine has
to be investigated if the old code doesn't work. By contrast, accessing the
hardware directly will work on any machine that has that hardware. My
hope has been that there are less types of ADB hardware than there are
ROM versions. 

I thought I explained much of this on the web page, but on second thought
I suspect that I was perhaps too brief in my explaination. Working so 
closely on this has led me to forget that some do not know the whole
story. I will try to update the page so that the distinction between the
kernels is more obvious.

	--John
 
--
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 John Wittkoski				InSoft, Inc.
 Senior Systems Engineer                Phone: (717) 730-9501
 Email: jpw@insoft.com                  Fax  : (717) 730-9504
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