On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Michael R.Zucca wrote:

> On Saturday, August 23, 2003, at 10:29  PM, Nyef wrote:
> 
> > If we want this working with other RAM sizes, we need to change the RAM
> > size paramter not to be hardcoded (and may need to write a RAM size
> > detector for 32-bit dirty systems).
> 
> Doesn't the ROM dump the RAM size into a low-mem global or does it only 
> give you up to a certain size?

Only gives up to 8 megs on "32-bit dirty" machines. I think I found the 
variable for this, and put it into my WIP copy.

> > If we want this working on any other macs at all, we need to figure out
> > how to get the MACHINEID values. The Gestalt manager is obviously not
> > loaded at this point, so I'm at a loss here.
> 
> I'm not sure about the SE/30 but I think most machines have a 
> pseudo-NuBus ROM at the end of the ROM space that describes the 
> machine. At least, some of the machines do.
> 
> I also seem to recall there was an older ROM-based API that identified 
> a machine as Plus, SE, SE/30, Mac II, or "Other". Perhaps the code can 
> check for the pseudo-NuBus ROM if it gets "Other".

I have my own suspicions here. Did you know that for some versions of 
System the LC II reported as an LC with a 68030, not as an LC II?

> > If we want this working on other II-series macs, we need to change the
> > video information to not be hardcoded (it's hardcoded for an SE/30 
> > right
> > now).
> 
> I think you can get some of this info from low-mem globals or ROM calls.

Indeed. I have this in my WIP copy as well (untested apart for an SE/30, 
but it should basically work).

> > No work has been done towards making a system boot from a hard drive.
> 
> In theory, shouldn't it be possible to put this image into a fake HFS 
> partition?

Yes, but you'd need to format the partition as UFS or USTARFS. Or write an 
HFS driver for libsa.

I did a little poking around with the hard drive on my LC II, and it looks 
like we may have to write a custom driver in order to boot from the hard 
drive without some kind of HFS partition hack.

> This is very cool!

Indeed it is.

> -- 
> ----------------------------------------------
>   Michael Zucca - mrz5149@acm.org
> ----------------------------------------------
>   "I'm too old to use Emacs." -- Rod MacDonald
> ----------------------------------------------

---------------------------
All programming can be viewed as an exercise.
---------------------------
Alastair Bridgewater
e-mail: nyef@softhome.net