In message <199911021729.SAA0000001954@zel459.zel.kfa-juelich.de>Matthias Droch
ner writes
>
>jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU said:
>> It would be really cool if NetBSD's bootblock treated left-shift as a
>> `keypress', and stopped the autoboot timer if it detected a keypress.
>> Is that doable? 
>
>Kind of hard because the bootblocks get cooked characters from
>the BIOS.

Doesnt LILO get shift state  from the BIOS too?

>(I prefer the space bar. It's easier to hit anyway:-)

Depends how short you make the timeout. LILO users here set the
timeout so short you press and hold the shift-key before you see the
prompt, or its too late. And you do it without generating lots of
input chars,m like spacebar would.  Neat trick.

> And what about serial consoles?
If you use the BIOS, is this a problem?

>> I also think it'd be great if the netbsd bootblock had a table-driven
>> timeout, so that it could be changed via installboot
>
>That's already there. (installboot -t)

<smack>. sorry. thats what I get for running a -release userland.