In a message dated: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 11:48:16 EST
Bayard Coolidge USG ZKO3-3/S20 said:
>Paul Lussier said:
>
>>> What makes the Alpha systems proprietary, I guess "commercial
>>> level" would be a more apropos description, is that it has
>>> things like EEPROMs.
>
>Well, I think we're in danger of getting into a semantic battle
>here,
Ayup. My fault, sorry :)
>but I'd like to clarify things a bit. The various implementations
>of Alpha-based systems, at least the ones made by DEC and now Compaq,
>tend to follow some rules regarding the console implementation.
That's exactly my point. The "real computer" vendors (vs. PC vendors)
follow very strict rules/guidelines. "PC" vendors usually, at best,
simply qual the hardware they are willing to support, but seldom add
any functionality to that package of hardware they're selling you.
Usually because they don't have the engineering capability that
companies like Compaq, Sun, HP, and IBM have, therefore can't add
anything. It's all they can do to qual hardware to begin with.
The other contributing factor is, PCs are cheap because they are
simple, widely understood, and easy to put together. So, how do I
justify to my customers that my PC for $5000+ is really a better buy
than Dell's or Joe's Garage at < $2000? I can't. Whoopeee, so now
I can boot from an PROM to do over the network installs. Compare
that with booting off a floppy, and I'll probably take the floppy and
save myself $3K per system :)
>(And, I'm hoping that Rich will jump in here and help me clarify this). Yes,
>it involves EEPROMS (or Flash memory, depending on the box/board),
>but can't the same be said for any Intel architecture-based PC
>motherboard? Can't you set things like the order in which boots are
>attempted between the 'C' drive, the CDROM and/or Floppy? My Asus P2L97DS
>certainly does. The Alpha mobos are a bit pickier about what i/o
>adapters are supported by the console subsystem for booting, to be
>honest (I can't boot off of an Adaptec 2940UW on my old PC164, for
>example). But, we do have bootp capability, and can MOP load (using
>the quasi-proprietary DECnet Maintenance Operations Protocol) console
>firmware, etc.
Well, the difference is that this is usually done in the BIOS setup.
You must configure the BIOS for the primary, secondary, and tertiary
boot devices. If for some reason you want to boot of a different
device, you must usually change this. There's no way to say, just
this once, boot off the net, but in the future always boot of the C:
drive.
With Sun's and HPs, and I would expect IBM's and Compaq's as well,
you can bring the system up to a "console propmt" and tell it which
device to boot off of "right now". This does not change the default
boot device however. This feature is what makes "over the net"
installs such a breeze on these types of systems.
No, granted, you can attain a similar affect by having your default
boot order be something like 'floppy, CD, HD, Net' or some such.
However, this now requires you to:
A) maintain a floppy for installs,
B) make sure there isn't a floppy in your drive when
you just need to reboot but don't want to install,
Most people probably don't feel that's a bad trade-off for saving a
huge amount of money. And neither do I. However, it's really
annoying to know that in Sun's I can:
- leave a floppy and/or CD in the drive *all* the time
and reboot as often as I like and not worry about it.
- say, this one time only boot off of device X, but revert
back to the default device after that.
and that this is not possible in your *average* PC because of the
fact that everyone makes them, no one really innovates in this area,
and every vendor needs to maintain some backward compatability with
20 years of bad design.
There's really no reason that PC's couldn't have had this feature
added by now, other than the fact that most PC's are in people's
homes, and there's no commercial demand for it. The average person
doesn't *need* to change their boot device.
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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