Richard Zidlicky writes:
> > >it will break when harddisks are accessed in LBA instead of CHS mode. > > That is interesting. I thought Tony Tebby had always intended that the > > SMSQ code could be LRESPRed. > > you can allways lrespr it from floppy. Keeping HD full backwards compatible > with current versions of SMSQ would be probably a lot more work, as far > as I could judge this is one of the rather messy aspects of SMSQ. > I think most people would like to convert to LBA because that allows > - disks > 8GB (once a few other bugs are ironed out) > - safe HD image exchange with QXL/QPC Changing from CHS to LBA is an extreme example and that sort of issue is only likely to crop up once in a blue moon. > > I suspect the majority of users are now running with LRESPRed SMSQ. > > >Besides, what is the point to require the user to go through additional > > >hoops like this? The speed argument mentioned later in this discussion > > >is tripple nonsense and the authors of it should know better. > > You need to explain the 'triple' nonsense. > > - the code is in fast ROM and can be copied from there to RAM much > faster than from a HD to RAM, iirc SMSQ already does this. > - lrespr SMSQ involves a repeated HW initialisation, count another > few seconds on that > - it is much easier to screw up your HD than your ROM 1) The difference is maybe a second or two on a Q60 2) The bootloader could perhaps be upgraded to do this more intelligently 3) That will always be the case. At least, with a spare copy of the OS on a floppy youre not irretrievably sunk. In a situation where the OS is frequently being updated/upgraded (as we hope will be the case in the near future ;) it doesnt make sense to have the OS in ROM at all. The ROM need only contain a bootstrap. That way SMSQ would only ever need to be initialised once - namely from the most recent version on the hard disk. (A useful purpose for a ROM bootloader might be to search for available OSes on the hard disk and offer a simple menu for selecting which one to boot.) Per
