At 09:12 -0600 01/01/2003, Gary Gorbet wrote: >According to Ryan Rempel, the reason external FireWires are not >bootable is that card manufacturers do not use the Open Firmware that >is required for OS X. He says that he has a work around in mind that >he hopes to include in XPostFacto version 3. So my hopes remain alive >that I may someday be able to boot X from FireWire. It could also be >that some future cards will employ Open Firmware.
I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Ryan is a very smart guy, so he might manage it, but it seems unlikely. The reason is that at boot time all the computer has to work from is the information in its ROM, the information stored on the ROMs of any PCI cards, and the small amount of code which can be written into the NVRAM in the form of the NVRAMrc file. The machine ROM can't be modified--at least not without physically exchanging the chips on the motherboard. Firewire cards have no ROM on the actual card--which is why they are not bootable in the first place. So the only remaining way Ryan could make Firewire bootable on these machines is with an NVRAM patch. From everything I here, there isn't room in the NVRAM to squeeze in the stuff folks already want to put in there. I will be happily suprised if Ryan manages to sneak in an entire Firewire boot driver program. Adding a ROM to a firewire card would probably add less than $5 to the cost of the card (in large quantities, of course), but someone would still have to write the Open Firmware driver for it and that's where the expense comes in. Since users of older Macs (those without built-in Firewire) are the only market, it probably isn't going to happen. Jeff Walther -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
