Joshua, Are you sure we can't find a fix for those problematic BIOSes which can't continue after returning from protected mode?
As you said expansion cards use this to provide a configuration menu prompt. This is exactly what I am willing to use gPXE, add CLI options to configure the card/gPXE. Do you happen to have gPXE assembly reference code on how to call real mode C functions? I would like to start dealing with it! Thanks, Itay On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:14 AM, Jonathan Andrews <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wed, 2010-03-31 at 17:00 -0400, Joshua Oreman wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Jonathan Andrews > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Excuse my ignorance .... I don't see HOW you would enter a CLI > before > > > POST. When I was programming against BIOS 20 years ago the "feature > ROM" > > > hook was not activated until after POST. Before POST interrupts > where > > > disabled - IRQ 1 (keyboard) and INT10(video)where simply not > available, > > > INT10H video hook was only active as the last stage in POST. In > short > > > pre-POST is zero video, zero keybaord as far as I know ? > > > > No one's doing anything before POST; this is during POST. > > > > Option ROMs have an "init" routine that is executed during POST. Its > > main job is to hook other interrupts so the work the ROM actually > > wants to provide (e.g. an additional hard disk or a network boot) can > > be executed after POST, but it's also possible to do things directly > > at that time. Some expansion cards use this to provide a configuration > > menu prompt. > > > I was always told the initial call was simply to allow the feature ROM > to participate in POST itself and if unused should just be a RET ? The > order of POST is not fixed - the list of tasks is similar but can you > can say little about the machine other than its has "some RAM" at this > point ? In the AT/286 days that was all that could be said here. > > Cheers, > Jon > > > > _______________________________________________ > gPXE mailing list > [email protected] > http://etherboot.org/mailman/listinfo/gpxe >
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