>It seems to me like writing the BIOS in user space instead of guest space
>would be a big win -- we'd have the BIOS's page be execute-protected, and
>have the monitor send a message off to the userspace program to let it do
>the whole operation in one go. I think this would be a huge win, not only
>because the code would execute much faster because we don't have to prescan,
>but also because we can use higher-level APIs.
I don't think it would matter that much. Modern systems make very little
use of the BIOS. Even most DOS programs will spend most of their time
outside the BIOS. Furthermore, prescanning shouldn't give all that much
overhead...
I think we're better off concentrating on optimising plex so that realmode
code will execute real fast --- that'll be a much bigger win. Writing an
external BIOS is just complicated...
-- Ramon
