Sam Kirk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Eric, > > I speculate that their code is obfuscated not because anyone wrote it that > way deliberately, but because of historical accident, i.e., their legacy.
Now and again I've disassembled small parts of their code to sparc ideas when I'm totally stumped. And their are code segments that can have no other purpose than to break automated disassemblers. They have code segments that look like. xor bp, bp jz foo mov $foo, sp ret foo: dw bar bar: nop > After as few as three generations of programmers have pounded on a body of > code, it can get ugly (as well as "obfuscated"). Only someone paid to work > on it fulltime could possible begin to deal with it after all that. Oh I don't doubt that they have that going on as well. > With the linuxBIOS, you're off to a comparatively clean, fresh start. > > Like I always say: forever compatible, forever backwards. That's the > downfall of legacy. > > But so long as they can make a buck on it, it'll be here to stay, until > that Great Day comes when they can't hire anyone to work on it. > > Or until something cheaper and better comes along. Hey we are working on it :) > Am I right? The old code base could easily be part of the puzzle, but it isn't the whole story. Eric
