> From: Jeff Walther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 02:21:04 -0600 > > 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 All good points and you are right Ryan is a very smart guy and a great code writer and a genius so far at keeping Apple legal off his back! He's seems very positive about the possibility of firewire booting and CD booting in OSX which isn't possible now except for the OSX CD for installing. He hopes to have both in XPFacto 3.0 and has said that he hopes to have a beta of 3.0 ready for MacWorld which I think is next week. I have been beta testing XPFacto 2.2.5 and it includes a new code trick which impresses me and is a step needed in order to include firewire booting. Lets see if I can describe what it is and how it works...
Jeff, just got this from Ryan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who will be doing Demos at MacWorld next week. I wish that was on the web or that I could be there. I'd like to meet the guy after all this emailing using his code etc. Oh ya the Ryan note. This is major news guys! > I'm planning to demo XPostFacto 3.0. It isn't finished, unfortunately, > but I have got the "booting from a Firewire device" feature working > (as of 10 minutes ago :-). > > I'm also planning to demo OWC Cache Config, which is the successor to > L2CacheConfig. It will detect cache settings automatically (instead of > requiring the GrabL2CacheSetting step), and it will support the L3 > cache as well as the L2 (hence the name change). > . Yeah, I must admit that I'm a little afraid of kernel panics during > the demos :-) > > I *may* release 3.0.0a1 during or after MacWorld--we'll see how it > goes. The problem is that it really is alpha-quality at this point--I > would like to have some comfort level that it won't misbehave too > badly before releasing it. So as you can see this guy knows his stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This from Ryan again: > I have fixed the way in which XPostFacto calculates how much NVRAM > space will be needed (and, thus, determines whether it needs to > abbreviate the Open Firmware names for devices). Somehow XPFacto( beta versions with limited availability) now sees in advance how much space the Hardware configuration will take up and if need be it will abbreviate names etc in NVRAM which conserves space and somehow still boots and runs! An example many people with full PCi slots were having problems with ATTO SCSI cards in OSX. It turns out these cards have long code names: pci1/ ATTO,ExpressPCIProUL2D@D,1/@0:6 Ryans new coding changes this to: pci1/@D,1/@0:6 and it still works while saving 22 lines of code space in NVRAM ! Wouldn't you know it this just in: The VST Ulta ATA PCi cards have an obscure bug in them which keeps them from working if the code name is shortened. So far they are the only card to have this issue which will keep him from being able to auto shorten all code names as the Vst cards require long/full names to work. Sorry if I'm boring people but a few people will be glad to know Firewiring booting is on it's way! I may buy a Firewire enclosure for an IDE CDRW drive I have that is really fast 24x much faster then the old work horse Yamaha that I have. I could hot plug it back and forth. OWC has the enclosures for $49.00 and $15.00 for the firewire PCI card. It also works with hard drives. I may spend $10.00 more and get the one that is Firewire and USB 2.0 . That way I wouldn't have to buy two firewire cards as both machines already have USB but 1.1 which has an apox 4x limit on CDRW. later Will S -- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------
