Hopefully it will take a long time to be adopted, since it already takes a very long time to
boot. He we have a bios that requires a fair amount of hard disk space and runs like a pig,
this is not something I want to see. Microsoft wants to speed up boot and install, yet this
monstrosity takes longer to get running than the current spec calls for the OS to boot.
I’ll be the first to agree that the current BIOS is a mess, with all the extensions that have
been added such as ACPI over the years. But what happens if we go to a new interface,
will all your PCI cards have flash roms to support the new model? Will Microsoft release
two versions of the NTLDR and the install program for the system? Will all of you with
SCSI devices that could run with NTLDR or be loaded with F6 run out and buy new
systems to add to your testing as well as keeping the old ones?
All that said, I think we should go to a new BIOS, but not EFI and not without a lot of
careful thought.
Don Burn
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting
----- Original Message -----
From: Jamey Kirby
To: NT Developers Interest List
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 3:57 AM
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
Yes, I got the EFI specification last week; all 1200+ pages of it. Any word on how before adoption?
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Paul Bunn
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 11:17 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
ah… proof that it’s not *just* great minds that think alike 
-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Frodsham [mailto:zeppelin@io.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 11:03 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
It already exists… 
At 04:50 PM 3/4/2003, you wrote:
Yep, my bad. EFI. Great stuff. No reason why Intel couldn’t come out with an IA32 version of EFI then, huh ?
All that they’d have to do would be to have an EFI program to provide all the Int services that legacy OS’s require to boot…
-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Frodsham [mailto:zeppelin@io.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 6:33 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
It is called EFI… Extensible Firmware Interface. It is stage one of a move away from legacy BIOS. It is mostly written in C and is quite modular and extensible. BIOS has always been a thorn in Intel’s side. There is quite a bit of politics that go on surrounding the issue, but the bottom line is that they are developing a standard.
-Justin
PS Nicholas, Should all machines boot DOS till the end of time? EFI can act like a thin OS to allow the machine to diagnosed / upgraded / installed in a OS independent way.
At 03:50 PM 3/4/2003, you wrote:
“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office”>
For a VERY advanced BIOS look at the Intel 64bit architecture. It’s a mini-OS all in itself. Can manage disks, run utilities, diagnostics, copy files, and a whole SDK available for running and developing ESI applications.
It’s only natural that the IA32 platform should get similar capabilities – VERY useful if you ask me, and Looooong overdue.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nicholas Ryan [mailto:xxxxx@nryan.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 5:19 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
Pardon my ignorance, but what’s the point of having a BIOS just as complex as an OS? I think Phoenix and Intel are having delusions of grandeur.
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Mesdaq, Ali
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 4:50 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: The future of the BIOS
I have a friend who is a senior qa engineer at phoenix and he was describing that they were finishing up on a bios that sounds very familiar to the one you described. This was about 2 years ago. I still haven’t seen it. But basically it was going to have networking capabilities and other “advanced” capabilities pre os.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jamey Kirby [mailto:xxxxx@storagecraft.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 10:26 AM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] The future of the BIOS
All,
I have been thinking about BIOS enhancements. From what I have heard,
Intel has a new BIOS specification that provides advanced services for
the BIOS such as: IP networking, graphical UI, etc…
Are there any folks here that are working on these new BIOS
technologies; I hear Phoenix also has a new architecture.
Some questions that I have:
- How close are we to seeing these new BIOS technologies surface in the
market place?
- Who is winning the battle of the standards; Intel, Phoenix, etc…
I am considering doing some research and development in this area, but I
do not want to waste my time on technologies that are not going to catch
on in the market place.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Regards,
Jamey Kirby
StorageCraft
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