Henry B. Hotz wrote:
> 
> >Even with a minimal MacOS, a booter that ranks in at maybe 100k it going
> >to boot the machine faster than the 700k MacOS which still has to init
> >a bunch of managers and load the finder and the booter. This is a very
> >signifigant problem on slower 030 machines. Plus, it would be nice to
> >have a "free standing" OS alternative just for aesthetic reasons :)
> 
> Numbers aside I agree that a quicker-booting alternative to the current
> booter would be nice.  It should have some way to get back to MacOS for
> when we need it though.  For an example of how it can be done Norton
> Utilities creates some bootable floppies that contain NU, a special system
> enabler, and an empty, blessed system folder, but nothing else.

I've got instructions up somewhere on puma that describe how to create a
bootable NetBSD floppy for any machine.  Basically, I took the Apple
Network Access Disk, removed the networking control panels/extensions (you
won't need those anyway, right? ;-), added MODE32, removed the Finder, and
replaced it with a preconfigured copy of the Booter.  By default, the
System looks for a file named Finder with type 'FNDR' and creator 'MACS',
I believe.  If you simply change the Booter so that it looks like this, it
works pretty well.  Of course, the only drawback is that the Network
Access Disk is System 7.5-based.  If you really wanted a boot disk for the
older '030-based machines, you would probably want to use System 7.0.1 or
System 7.1.  With System 7.0.1 on a _tiny_ MacOS partition set up in this 
way, you could probably turn on the machine and be in multi-user NetBSD
within 1 minute, maybe 2.

> How hard would it be to create a MacBSD version of the startup disk control
> panel?

Probably not all that hard.  I think that there is simply a PRAM variable
which determines which SCSI ID to look at for the system.  I just wish
that MacOS had partition level granularity.  I run System 7.5.5 and System
7.1 on my IIci, but I have to have 7.1 on a separate drive in order to
recognize and use it as a startup disk.  Ah welll.....

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - MD6                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.