Then, some interesting points of 'ARCS BIOS'.

The 'ARCS BIOS' (I name it because its magic numbers are 'ARCS' or
'SCRA') seems to have some interesting features.  Noriyuki Soda once
pointed out the 'ROM monitor' might be a derivative from SGI design
then hacked by unmentionalble company's programmers.  It's weird and
cumbersome we have no concrete information whether the 'ARC chipset
boxes' can do TFTPBOOT just like as some of modern generation of SGI's
*ARCS PROM* IP?? boxes.  I can remember here MIPS Co. R3000 'Magnum'
had a way to boot itself via TFTPBOOT, then why can not the 'ARC
chipset's do that after all? 

Another notable point is, 'ARCS BIOS' seems to provide ways for
operating system to identify hardware configuration in detail much
like OpenPROM/OpenFirmware do.  Configuration is supposed to be
organized in tree like structure.  If ARCS BIOS hardware inventory is
well designed and well maintained to reflect hardware interconnects
inside, NetBSD/arc might be able to utilize the information during
configure() process.  I have a plan to make whacked command line
monitor to dig out if ARCS BIOS itself has no command line mode,
making myself trained as disappointment-proof. 

Tohru Nishimura
Information Technology Centre
Nara Institute of Science and Technology