>I've been scouring the archive (was given Quadra 610,
>new to Mac world) and took note that having a native
>boot option has been discussed and worked on, with
>ROMs disassembled etc for SEVEN YEARS.

I don't know anything of this specifically, but you can sort of do this 
already with the Mac.

The mac Booter application has an autoboot feature. I have mine set to 
boot 5 seconds after starting the app, and the app has an alias in the 
startup items folder, so basically, 5 seconds after the Mac boots, it 
kicks over to NetBSD automatically. (I don't have it shorter than 5 
seconds, because I want the time to stop it should I have a need).

Since the Mac can boot from floppy, CD, external hard disk, and on newer 
Macs, LAN... I would think you could simulate a native boot simply be 
having a minimal system folder, and the booter app set to auto boot.

This of course won't work with LAN for any Macs that the mac68k port 
pertain to (well, at least not without further hardware/software to run 
something like "The Diskless Mac").

And depending on what OS version you are running, it might be an 
interesting challenge to fit the OS, the booter, and enough of NetBSD on 
a floppy, but it might be doable (there are ways to hack the Mac OS so 
that it doesn't require the finder, which will save you some space and 
let you drop directly into the Booter app).

CD would be a peice of cake.

-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>