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A Motherboard That Doesn't Require An OS
An anonymous reader submits a link to this review of "motherboard that allows access to your multimedia devices via a special BIOS. No operating system required! Good for a home entertainment PC I guess." The review says that it will come bundled with a TV tuner card, too.
This Tom's HW Article talks about the MSI MiniPC that does the same thing.
Makes me wish I'd held off on buying my Shuttle.
Macintoshes have been able to play Pong in BIOS for years. This is nothing particularly novel.
Boy, are you going to get a lot of responses to that question.
No, BIOS stands for "Basic Input/Output System." That's right, Neal Stephenson got it wrong in Snow Crash. BIOS is one of many ways for a computer to organize its input and output devices so that it can be accessed by a proper operating system. I'm sure there are plenty of geeks here who can tell you more about it than me.
Apple and Sun don't use IBM style PC BIOS. They use OpenFirmware. Iduno what the other kids use.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
http://www20.tomshardware.com/howto/20040227/index .html
It doesn't say that it includes the TV capability. However, audio functions work without any additional hardware at all out of the box. No HD, Processor, or memory required...
Interesting idea if you really want to save power. I'd rather fork over a few more cents per hour and have the capability to actually do something with the media though at a moments notice.
... this project!
Seriously folks, I don't mean to get embroiled in the issue of semantics, but there are all sorts of devices in which their OS is lightweight enough to reside in ROM. If the boot code never hands control of the system off to a secondary module (loaded from a disk, for example) how is it not the OS?
The intended audience for this is obviously the living-room entertainment machine sort of application. For instance, rather than have to wait while the OS loads, and then use some software-based UI just to play a CD, you just have to push the on-button, drop in your mp3 or audio CD and it'll automatically start playing within seconds - no having to turn on the TV to check things are ready/you've pushed a button on your remote keyboard at the wrong time etc.
If you want to play standard applications - just boot into your normal OS and fire up your divx player, stepmania etc. If you have replaced your home entertainment CD/mp3/DVD player with this and just want to access one of those functions in a UI that you haven't kludged together, with no OS wait/booting screens etc - no problem.
My only major request would be that it plays xvid/divx encoded avis in the BIOS environment as well - licence issues aside, I can easily foresee this being a great addition to one of those hushpc computers.
And for those where only open source will do, check out OpenBIOS, a open implementation of OpenFirmware (IEEE 1275-1994). Note I believe that it is still a work in progress.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Here's google's cache of the same page. I know the site isn't completely slashdotted- as it runs fine at some moments, and VERY slow at others. As usual, google's cache is much more reliable.