> > > AFAIK no Sun-3 has anything known as a bios (nor BIOS);
> > Well, I'm sure he means the Sun-3 boot PROMs.
> Which _is_ functionally equivalent to a BIOS.  AFAIK both NetBSD/sun3
> and NetBSD/sparc use the PROM device drivers to boot, just like NetBSD/i386
> uses the BIOS.  Perhaps a new term that means something like:
> ROM-code-that-is-used-to-talk-to-hardware-for-bootstrapping-my-machine

Back in the old days, when we used to program the things by clipping out
diodes with wire cutters, they were called "boot PROMs".  What an odd term.
(Ah, but there's nothing more satisfying than toggling the boot sequence in
on butterfly switches from memory...)

The BIOS in a PC contains more than just the boot code; it contains a whole
basic I/O system (hence BIOS).  Remember, classic MS-DOS was nothing more
than a program loader which used the BIOS for all I/O.  Once that scheme
fell apart, thanks to IBM's poor "planning", MS-DOS started growing drivers
of its own.

The Mac does this in spades; much of the operating system actually resides
in the ROMs, along with the I/O system for the specific hardware and (of
course) the boot sequence.  Of course, software being what it is, the first
thing the operating system usually does is replace all the trap vectors of
the buggy ROM functions with somewhat less buggy versions in RAM.

At any rate, I assume the sparc and sun3 ROM drivers are used only for booting,
even by SunOS, so the more encompassing term "BIOS" isn't really appropriate.
But the meaning was clear.