From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 31079 invoked from network); 31 Dec 2023 22:47:01 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 31 Dec 2023 22:47:01 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A18574220F; Mon, 1 Jan 2024 08:46:57 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-oo1-xc30.google.com (mail-oo1-xc30.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::c30]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5F95D40293 for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2024 08:46:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-oo1-xc30.google.com with SMTP id 006d021491bc7-5954d0f7484so570170eaf.0 for ; Sun, 31 Dec 2023 14:46:53 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20230601; t=1704062811; x=1704667611; darn=tuhs.org; h=in-reply-to:content-disposition:mime-version:references:message-id :subject:to:from:date:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=wLwPR3n2pactSuV+XwiExUj72JzujJi4G6/9NWozksc=; b=RLt3evkfjrIhsMp1de2zlqSHdQb4vlqVdYH2hXTxRqIO1sszfYZyguj9sLkb9/qRl/ 97f0atd29Y2zeTXFMbHgwt7QVg641Rk7PCJtQUHnCutf/lgQLvsU703YXgJkji9i6cF8 WG4RqtJfrmYXL4wxebx1Qf0aviQWuucGa07q/7wxkVJpXx6nUlYPUch13vU/ndHXLDsG UsoVwTakbN5nItSAp8okelibj1wRivIUm1xras1m61RBkI2hKYvnhhZ31c6yTqXbKg/P Mo2Ib0E7dOyIyr/G3REYHPzZDdFHn38MMCsSzEXYDNppMCcoLdrULjDTx2pdPRWHTdpn w4WA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1704062811; x=1704667611; h=in-reply-to:content-disposition:mime-version:references:message-id :subject:to:from:date:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=wLwPR3n2pactSuV+XwiExUj72JzujJi4G6/9NWozksc=; b=v50yTtkgisWi2eJiZY+cjRvhbpe1btjJzEvJKZftunnK7IJx+8/2MCOby3I2J5IGkb 2rOx+5NIHU6sKk+8TGNDg4CF3dfe0VkYQ/aqws8tSRl9aMlH7xtgFCPtQsNfD9R+Aobn 5l2LXF+sDQ0Topfiqn17qKuMwFPWOpVJX62EGpgiG5k435TiCcztyiVP+lp4HOGdjcqX T8+Ox0N/z7rMsLBiTbVrztnd6SjkiuFZ5v4Dny7u5XWXLd+Li15TIRTLHC3ZXS6TYwr/ dcHYTLiABzCF4vq6rnqMY70uZ09rq7VfP+S9SzYzw8iLsPni5aQfUKhb5W82HZMt/CEi 5+5w== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0YwbARFh7RNGX4QcCI7EdajyF2TsmVMttetds0WGpVPjcXn2Q4Xu cmB3VQcpo3Fk7GMwylxH8UygE3lSdCg= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IGdMPki6xxXFmDhUcJxhB+NpH7E6uiq6V6UHl05GbSl1N71wuO06GLxEPve/+ohgvxH5RnXQw== X-Received: by 2002:a4a:a9c1:0:b0:590:f5fc:df58 with SMTP id h1-20020a4aa9c1000000b00590f5fcdf58mr7280081oon.17.1704062811456; Sun, 31 Dec 2023 14:46:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from illithid (ip68-12-97-90.ok.ok.cox.net. [68.12.97.90]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id b39-20020a4a98ea000000b0059577aac5cbsm308896ooj.46.2023.12.31.14.46.50 for (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Sun, 31 Dec 2023 14:46:50 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 16:46:49 -0600 From: "G. Branden Robinson" To: The Unix Heritage Society Message-ID: <20231231224649.h45pogxycgkgs673@illithid> References: <6470c59f-a1e5-418f-803d-76bcd761f530@tnetconsulting.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="tu42aqfg46hokgpt" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Message-ID-Hash: ECWCJSUSE7UJOK4PVIVAVQDHHG4YCXRP X-Message-ID-Hash: ECWCJSUSE7UJOK4PVIVAVQDHHG4YCXRP X-MailFrom: g.branden.robinson@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Question about BSD disklabel history List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: --tu42aqfg46hokgpt Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline At 2023-12-31T16:31:00-0500, Clem Cole wrote: > Next (ney Apple) started with the Mach code base from CMU. There was > a push in the Valley in those days for something called OpenFirmware > [Warner help here -- I think that it was forth based IIRC, and Sun may > have had their hand in it also]. I'm not Warner but I owned and operated a few OpenFirmware based machines. > But the key is that it ran on 68K's. I don't think that's the case. OpenFirmware (OF) ran on SPARC and PowerPC hardware, at least. And since it was indeed Forth-based, in principle it could have been ported practically anywhere (assuming memory requirements for OF itself were met). The m68k "Old World" PowerMacs used a different firmware entirely; I assume boot ROM code descended from the original Macintosh (or even Lisa, maybe). The PowerPC "New World" PowerMacs, which immediately departed from the beige color scheme, did come in with Apple's acquisition of NeXT. This may have been the last good thing that Steve Jobs had a hand in. On Sun SPARC machines you could get to an OF prompt at any time by typing "Stop+A" (a.k.a. "L1+A"), using one of the funny left-hand side function keys on a generation or two (Type 4??) Sun keyboards. This was a lot like the "programmer's switch" on some m68k Macs, which was wired directly to an NMI that MacOS ("Classic") had a fixed vector for. Open Firmware was an excellent idea; true peripheral portability was achieved by having "option ROMs" on devices that needed them implemented in Forth like OF itself. A lot of flexibility here. I don't know how much of a performance price was paid--people did and do enjoy getting into bootup-time races--but even if it were competitive, the PC side of the industry would have stridently claimed it wasn't. A lot of non-x86 Cisco kit in the 2000s (some PowerPC, and _maybe_ some MIPS stuff too(?)) used some kind of cut-down descendant of OF called OpenHackWare. I'm not sure what its dimensions were; it may have mostly been just the conventions and format that we now recognize as "device tree" (DTS/DTB), which has perhaps been OpenFirmware's proudest legacy. It beat the hell out of the PC BIOS alternative for device enumeration, which always appeared to me to be pure binary chaos with no standard apart from whatever Microsoft wanted for Windows. By contrast, OpenFirmware was standardized in IEEE 1275. > By the time the Intel Mac's BIOS had begun to be replaced in the > WINTEL world by UEFI, Apple committed to using a flavor of it. Originally EFI, without the "U". I first saw these on first-generation Itanium machines--huge, hot deskside HP boxes whose innards appeared to use composite foam like that from aircraft wings for heat piping. The company I worked for was contracted to help achieve the Linux ia64 port. I was immediately horrified by EFI's huge step backwards in concept and implementation. All this technical progress just to return to unportable device driver ROMs and a C:\ prompt. The hatred of the Wintel duopoly toward elegance or cleanliness in any aspect of computing cannot be overstated. I'm weakly hopeful that the RISC-V community will rediscover OpenFirmware. It has to date had the good sense to avoid UEFI. A wise choice, as if they they hand Intel that much control over their ecosystem, they will surrender all independence, and possibly the architecture itself, at least in real silicon. 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