On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Tony Firshman wrote:
> I would go for speed any time. The time and ram involved is small.
This raises an interesting question, and I'd like to just play this out so
people can see why I think it is interesting.
The QL and etc had the OS in ROM, and it was unlikely to be superceded. It
was loaded directly, and executed in situ.
The upgrade/expansions would copy the OS from (EP)ROM into RAM, then
execute it there. I believe the Q60 is like this too.
The Goldfire will have the OS in flash, and while using the same system,
at least if the OS is updated, the image that is loaded can be the current
one in all cases, and not 'load the default OS, then run a boot file and
load the current OS'
I therefore propose that an early objective of the SMSQ open development
team should be to create a bootloader version of SMSQ that only includes
the code necessary to access the desired storage device, and copy the OS
image into RAM, so a whole copy of SMSQ need not be committed to ROM or
flash. Obviously, this should have some degree of configurability, so the
actual OS image could be copied from a floppy/HD or flash, as applicable.
If it contained some code that would allow selection from multiple OS
images (eg: hold down F5 and it pops up a list of available OS versions
for you to select from) that might be very powerful and helpful too, and
also give some safety element in the event of a failed OS upgrade.
What do you think? How could the idea of loading an OS be made
consistent across platforms, and is the benefit sufficiently worth it?
Dave
