Subject: Re: Adding cd9660 support to the i386/amd64 BIOS bootloader
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@shagadelic.org>
From: John Clark <jclark@metricsystems.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 06/22/2005 10:03:46
Jason Thorpe wrote:

>
> On Jun 21, 2005, at 10:10 AM, John Clark wrote:
>
>> Uh? The El Torito spec uses the ISO9660 format. BIOS's for i386  
>> platforms have been using this
>> since 1995, or how do you think a PC boots off of a CD at all?
>
>
> El Torito uses floppy / hard disk emulation.  This is native CD  
> booting that does not require a separate floppy or hard disk image to  
> reside on the CD-ROM.


Ok, I did that for some 68K and PPC platforms and various OS's like RTMX 
(if anyone recalls...), OS/K, and a very ancient
pre-NetBSD BSD port... but I guess I had not really seen a reason for 
doing such for i386 becase El Torito existed, and
worked, with the exception of having to create the floppy/disk image.

What are the benefits to the i386 users, other than removing the need to 
create the floppy/hard disk image?

John Clark