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Phoenix to embed bootup ads in BIOS
quonsar writes "According to ZDNet, Phoenix today announced plans to embed bootup ads in BIOS by 4Q 1999. Take a look at the story:
Phoenix to sell Windows launch ads.
Phoenix has formed a subsidiary, ebetween,to sell the ads.
"
Possibly the most stupid idea I've heard of. And of course, as we can anticipate Gates and Co. buying the ads, everyone building for other OSes will use Award or AMI.
--- Bill
You put the card in, it simulates a hard drive during boot, but can't be "altered". Usually, it'd go after a specially-configured Novell server to load apps.
Now that you mention it I remember a similar project in the Etherboot distribution - you can build a "FlashCard" which resides in an ISA slot, and contains an EEPROM that can be flashed with a BootROM. It's meant for testing Etherboot before you burn it onto 20 EPROM chips but it'll work for anything that wants to take control after the motherboard BIOS, in the same manner as IDE controllers and so on get called to do their thing. My knowledge of prioritization and contention is sketchy here, tho... whoever goes first wins the privelege of booting or what?
They don't make money if you don't buy anything. You seem to think that they make money simply by forcing you to watch their mindless drivel of a marketing scheme. If you don't buy anything they don't make money. Anyway, it's only one manufacturer, so buy a different one. The power of the people. If no one buys it, it dies. Like someone said earlier. --R.I.P. DivX.
Rae
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed.
Blah I can't get my sig to work, it won't fit.
The ads that get to me, are the movie ads. I pay my good money and get to wait through 15 minutes of crap about things I care little about... And then I see a movie. Yah.
Same thing.
I have no problems with advertising open standards.. APM (Advanced Power Management's an open standard isn't it?) etc...
Will it be one beep to signafy no errors and 20 beeps + 1 for every day you haven't visited yahoo!...
ra
--- "If a man speaks in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?"
My toshiba DVD player has a big (ugly) TOSHIBA DVD Video logo that shows a powerup, and the LCD panel scrolls "Welcome to Toshiba DVD". Close.
Since adfu.blockstars is so slow at serving ads, I wonder if slashdot would be so kind as to allow us to pay a small fee to browse pages with the ads missing! :-)
According to the article Phoenix is looking for some way to increase their profits.
Translation: They will still charge the same price _and_ get money from spamming you. (Gee... glad both of my machines have AMI)
I can't wait for the first computer virus (via outlook express?) to make the rounds fucking with BIOS settings and putting script kiddie messages in the bootup screen.
--- polarbear
Two decades of PC has shown that the BIOS is one of the more common show-stoppers that one can run into, so the goal of future designs should be to minimize the BIOS to a high extent. I can't think of anything wrong with sticking the kernel right into the BIOS. How much does 8 megs of flash cost these days? That's plenty for the foreseeable future, including modules and OS bloat.
BIOS needs to be divided in half, both parts flashable. The first part is responsible for bringing the motherboard up into a sane state, and the second part loads the kernel from flash. We don't care about PCI and everything else since it's assumed that the kernel will take care of those devices. At least they've been brought into minimal sanity by the BIOS, which probably only needs to make sure that RAM is okay and a few other things.
So, BIOS1 runs and sanitizes the motherboard. BIOS2 copies a kernel from flash into RAM. If either of them fails, we fall back to a simple public-domain or copyleft BIOS that is smart enough to boot from a floppy or IDE HD. I'm not naive enough to suggest that the machine will be in any state to load a protected-mode OS with the memory controller in some kind of crazy acid trip and everything else, but we have BIOS1 to worry about the strange PC stuff.
BIOS2 might as well be 32-bit (i.e. BIOS1 does the dirty work and leaves with the system in nice, clean protected mode), and serves only to copy the next image from flash (into the flat memory we now have), which is either a kernel or BIOS3, a smart BIOS that runs in RAM from the start and acts like Open Firmware or whatever. This is completely optional and would be at the level of LILO on the usual PC. I'm thinking along the lines of sun* bootprompt (I'm fond of sun3's bootprompt, sick isn't it... =)
A couple of poorly thought-out things that just came to me.. I know the kernel-in-flash idea isn't new but maybe arranging it this way is.
whats that? your waiting for the V-Chip? ;)
Not surprising that there is no feedback path on the Phoenix website....
--- Bill
Actually, if you just have your TV hooked up to a VCR, DVD, computer (ie, Non-TV source), then you might never see an ad...
All of a sudden, in a reprogrammable flash (pun!) of inspiration, I see a new project just waiting to happen...
Open-source, free, Linux-enhanced (perhaps), user-supported, bla bla bla BIOS, flashable and usable on just about any motherboard.
If the OS is so important, why is the BIOS neglected? I make a point of updating mine every time I see a new patch on ASUS's site, but I'm convinced most people don't.
With new kernel features and add-ons like fan speed sensing support, various USB chipsets, boot devices ranging from A-first, C/D/E-first, SCSI-first, CDRom, etc. etc. etc., the BIOS should mesh with the OS at LEAST as much as the direct hardware drivers mesh the hardware to the OS. (am I rambling?)
With tight enough code, a Linux-enhanced BIOS could leave enough room for various bits of the kernel to be flashed in, additional plug-and-play support, security, or any number of features.
Who's to say that in a year, with a project like this, Linux distributions won't come with an rpm (or whatever dist. method) that updates your BIOS for you, based on what motherboard you select? I personally think it's a GREAT idea, but that's just me.
Sun has such tight support for its hardware, because it runs it's own chips, it's own os, and it's own BIOS.
Same thing with Macintosh (no OS/platform arguments, *please*, that's off-topic).
There are a number of BIOSes out there in the public or semi-public domain already. I remember having an old IBM PC/XT manual with the BIOS source code actually in it!!! (Talk about wonderful programming reference!)
What say everyone? Is this a worthy project? I'm not a programmer, (although I play one on TV) and I've barely even become familiar with CVS (I admit), but I'm sure someone is willing to pick up the ball and run with it.
Perhaps we should have a Slashdot Poll on the topic, with a lot of useful feedback?
mindslip
Hey, Postscript is based on Forth. It can't be that bad.
Hell, I wouldn't mind having ads on toilet paper, as if it wouldn't rock wiping my ass on Windows and AOL toilet paper... Think about it!
OK, you don't seem to have read what I wrote, so I wonder why this is labelled a response.
Your level of materialism, like you say, is your own to choose and more power to you.
Maybe my entire message could be summed up, 'Deceptive advertising is not redundant.'
Speaking is OK, lying is not.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
With Flash BIOS capabilities, you could write your own BIOS, and flash it to the chip. Good-Bye startup ads. An impressive amount of knowledge of the system would be necessary. Hey, anyone work at Intel when they designed the BIOS for the x86? Intel did come up with the BIOS originally...
As for the ad spae itself, Intel does that now with Intel logos (on Intel motherboards, of course) that the VAR can replace with their own logo. I'm sure we'll only see AOL and similar ads shipping on "Free PCs". It's a logical connection.
mindslip
Hit F10 while the blinky thing blinks in one of the top corners for a fun surprise (boy, it was worth every minute to fone tech support about that one...). Worked for my Compaq Presario 1230 that had the same probs as yours...
I will flash my BIOS with versions that does *not* display ads
I think his point is this: you don't pay to watch national stations like ABC and NBC, etc. So you would expect those to have many ads. But a motherboard is something you pay for so as long as A-trend intel and the rest have to sell mobos, if the customer wont buy them at reduced rates with ads, then they wont sell them. I expect if anything, it will be an option. Remember, bad technology can be thwarted: R.I.P. Divx
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
and hitting escape just as the screen comes in will let you see the phoenix bios messages as well.
check that it doenst have a phoenix bios. dead simple.
actually just run hdparm -S 20 or the equiv for SCSI to power down your drives and set apmd to sleep at 12:00 or whatever..console blaking is enabled by default anyway,
.. I will ditch PCs and buy a G3 PowerMac
I just got a new Dell system with Phoenix BIOS, and it displays the Dell logo and "www.dell.com" in the top-right corner of the screen every time I boot. In fact, the shipped configuration displays a full-screen Dell logo instead of the usual self-test and hardware detection information. Fortunately, there's an option to turn that off.
Anyone know how to replace that logo with the bitmap of my choice? The BIOS is flashable, so I imagine that it's not too hard.
Ads are fine, in their place.
1. I will not accept any telemarketing.
2. I will not pay people to flash ads in my face.
Telemarketers who get through to me get a minimally polite negative response, unless they try to insist. I pay for my phone service, and I do not pay to facilitate intrusive selling.
I pay for computers to do what I want them to do, not to see ads when I boot. And especially as Windoze requires reboot at the drop of a hat.
I will make plain to the companies with whom I do business that BIOS ads are a non-starter. Moreover, the company for which I work will not ship a PC which contains ads.
This smacks of MS and Compaq as the motivators. I have never bought Compaq, and never will. And I will shortly be a former Windoze user.
Hell will freeze over before I tolerate this kind of BS on my desktop.
--- Bill
This is ridiculous. Will the AOL/Yahoo/whatever icon come up on the screen no matter what OS you're running??
I'm not sure this is a big deal. It's not like you are doing anything important on your screen during startup. And if enough people don't like it, some company will give you the option of a non-ad BIOS.
:)
I would be more worried about how the content is delivered. Is it hard-wired into some kind of flash ROM? Is it stored on the hard drive? If it is going to be delivered over the 'net, that means that either the BIOS has to do built in TCP-IP, which I doubt, or that you have to run a client-side app to download the new images. If the latter is true, it should be easy to disable.
In any event, this is yet another reason to get a Mac. The "Mac OS" startup screen is a whole lot more attractive than a stupid flying window anyway
ahh..but you forget that ppl can stop buying from the motherboard manufacturers who buy bioses from phoenix in bulk. THAT will certainly toast phoenix if their OEMs quit buying from them and switch to a more popular bios i.e. ami.
A BIOS is specific to a particular motherboard. It's not possible to create a generic BIOS, because the job of the BIOS is primarily to initialize the motherboard hardware. Many of the chips on a modern motherboard are very compex, such as Rambus memory controllers and SuperIO IC's. These devices take thousands of lines of assembly code to initialize.
The OpenBIOS FAQ has some errors in it:
1. The FAQ says that the primary job is to boot the OS - this is false. Booting the OS is the last thing the BIOS does at startup, and this feature hasn't really changed in 15 years, with the exception the modern BIOS's can now boot CD-ROM drives and Zip drives. Only 1% of the BIOS code is allocated to this function.
2. The FAQ says that "proprietary BIOSes have usually been written with one operating system formost in mind." This is also false. For instance, when you shut down the computer, Windows will send a call to the BIOS to power down the machine. Windows itself can't do this, because each machine is different, but the BIOS provides an API which Windows can call. AFAIK, all of these specs are 100% open, so that any OS can call them. However, Windows is usually the first OS to use these API's as they come out, mostly because Microsoft cares a lot about this issue. I can tell you in at least one instance, an "enhancement" to the BIOS that Microsoft recommended was immediately dismissed because it would be incompatible with Linux.
In my opinion, OpenBIOS is doomed to failure. The rate at which new systems are created is way too rapid for any one team to keep up. There are only a handful of people with the skills necessary to write a BIOS, and none of them can afford (as individuals) the hardware necessary to debug their code - the ICE sitting next to me costs over $10K and it's the low-end model. Not only that, but most of the information needed is not publically available and would be impossible for me to get if I didn't work for a major OEM already. Look at the hardware that OpenBIOS currently supports: a 386 and a 486 system!! Talk about outdated!
Because the BIOS is specific to a motherboard, any OEM which makes its own motherboards (like Dell does for some of our systems) must have a customized BIOS. I can't speak for all Dell systems (I only work on the high-end desktop machines), but in our case we do our own customizations. The alternative is to ask the BIOS vendor (e.g. Phoeniz or AMI) to make the customizations. Your guess is as good as mine as to how often this happens.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Those fuckin' motherboards better be free if i'm gonna watch advertising while i choose my boot device and configure my hard drive. insane.
Speaking of which... have you noticed those little plastic inserts in men's urinals, usually from the Swisher corporation, that say "Just say no to drugs" on them? Don't you find it rather ironic that you can't avoid doing a number 1 on that slogan?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
In Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age," a character is mentioned who commits suicide after getting infected with a rogue nanomachine that played commercials for roach motels, in Hindi, in the lower right corner of his visual field, 24-7. I'd rather have BIOS ads....
Of all the ideas to slap ads on something this one disturbs me the most. I wonder how big (if any) of a backlash there will be from the motherboard manufacturers.
-Rich
"Two years after it's introduction, the iShirt(tm) Internet Enabled Shirt and it's many clones have become a natural part of everyday apparel. The ability to spontaneously change the design on the front of the shirt has appealed to young and old alike. Now, iShirt manufacterer Apple Corp. has decided to include a small advertisement on the breast pocket of the shirt to increase revenue.
Some users have had concerns that this defeats the purpose of the shirt, saying that chosing the design is half the reason for owning the shirt. When questioned about this, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "I'm confident that the advertisement will not interfere with the use of the shirt. The back of the shirt remains the territory of the user, as well as most of the front. Our advertising space is entirely limited to the breast pocket".
In other news, Microsoft is teamed-up with Honda to bring us the world's first internet-powered car. Microsoft says their new technology, Visual Highway, will improve fuel effeciency through it's new iEngine which is powered by 20% of the net profits taken from the ads displayed on the bumper. Honda's new Microsoft Accord will be unveiled in the third quarter of '06."
Granted, I think Phoenix's "idea" isn't gonna work, but it's still a sign of the times. This whole "every single thing in existance must become a part of the internet in some way, shape, or form" attitude annoys me enough. It makes no sense-- even Linus (as I recall, might've been someone else...) made some comment about giving your toaster an IP address. Am I the only one that things this ridiculous amount of internet integration seems like the perfect way to put an ad in the line of sight of every single person on the planet no matter where they look? Can't wait to see the iCondom...
I have a '93 486 mobo with a bios from them. I don't remember the specifics, since I rarely reboot it (it's my IP masquerading firewall now, video card-less, and it's a loooong time since it last had a monitor attached, for configuration purposes :), but there were a lot of cool things inside: choice of up to 8 IDE devices and 4 FDDs, the resources of which could be allocated in the bios, etc. It's a Hippo DCA2 from Octek.
Would it even be possible to disable this junk?
Come on, people. Stop whining. Ads are not so bad. Just look up at the top of this page. Slashdot.com does ad. I don't see you whine the ads here. You bunch of hypocrites.
Actually, to me the fact that it's yet more advertising isn't the big deal. The fact that it's going to add unnecessary bloat to their BIOS is what I'm worried about.
On a more vicseral level, the concept is so damned annoying! How would you like to have your dash display showing ads for Pennzoil or Texaco every time you started your car?
Life is not about being some "buying profile" or data statistic. Just because corporations and ad agencies want to be able to save a few bucks "by more effectively targetting our advertising" or "building brand recognition" doesn't mean I have to sit around like a sheep and take it.
(As for your comments about banner ads, they're a joke. There's a column at UseIT that says that clickthrough rates hover around 0.7% at this point, and other such articles say they decline by 25% every year. Slashdot might as well be getting free money from those companies for all of the benefit they're having...)
Jay (=
I think I caught wind of a project to create a free GPL'ed BIOS. Of course you'd have to have the equipment to burn the chip. Anyone know anything more about that?
My first reaction was one of irritation.
:)
Then I realized something very important.
Something the advertising folks overlooked.
Except for initial installs, checks, and
rebuilds, I almost never see the startup.
I switch things on and go do something
else while the machine does its thing to
get all up & ready. What do I care if a
chair or wall is exposed to an advert?
Advertising is only effective if it is seen.
And if it is annoying enough, it has opposite
the desired effect.
You need to download the SoftPaq for your machine. Then run it, and it will make four floppies for you (you probably ought to have four good, formatted floppies ready to go, because if one step fails, you get to do the whole thing over again). When you get the disks done, boot from the first one.
Now here is where my memory fails me slightly. At some point, you'll have to do an inventory-ish thing. The choice should be obvious, but if not, see Compaq's site for a FAQ (they have it somewhere, but I don't ahve the URL bookmarked). The deal will run, and you'll throw another of the disks in. When it's finished, you'll have what amounts to a complete, editable "snapshot" of the system. From this snapshot, you can change whatever setting you want. You just select the hardware and choose the resources you want. You also get to see a list of what's free, so it's pretty easy.
I have an old Compaq Deskpro PPro 150 that I figured would make a good gateway machine. The only problem is that I needed to put in an additional NIC (incidentally, Bay/Netgear makes a 10/100 card called the FA310TX which has the Dec Tulip chipset; it's a great card, low CPU utilization, lot's of status indicators, and only costs about $25.00). The machine already has an onboard AMD ethernet interface, but both cards wanted IRQ 5. So I ran the SoftPaq, told it where to stick its IRQ, and everything is happy behind my gateway/firewall now. If I want to add more hardware, I just run the disks again.
I agree that the floppies are a pain, and aren't as handy as a plain ROM BIOS in some cases (my battery goes dead and I'm covered). But that doesn't mean that the old Compaq sitting in the corner is useless.
Now, booting from a floppy I don't know about. I've never bothered with that before. I'm sure it's doable, but I don't recall the SoftPaq's screen menus/features that well. It's been a while.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Maybe this will be just what that Free BIOS project needs as a kick start. Does anyone know about that project? Did it die?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
My SPARCstation 5 and 20 as well as the Ultra 2 have nifty color logos. In fact the 5 and 20 logo is much cooler than the Ultra 2 logo. SPARC-Linux replaces it with a little penguin BTW.
Hopefully an end-user will hack this so we can display custom images as boot time. I kind of like the penguin image I see in the virtual console boot. :) Imagine seeing that as you boot to Windows!
Now, if only I could get the virtual console to work with 2.2.9 (vs. 2.3.6)...
æeee!
Methinks that the emminent philosopher mispoke!
^education^advertising
.. is that with Linux you only need to reboot when upgrading the kernel.
If the MB gets cheaper this way, I wouldn't give a damn...
Phoenix bought out Award Software like three months ago... DOH!
There will be no way to change it.
No company will pay money for an add that any idiot can change. Changing to boot/shutdown screens doesn't make you an 3L33T HaXoR, it means you can follow directions.
If companies are willing to pay to put adds on BIOS (Flash EEPROMs), though there are ways of changing it, few people will really want to write their own flash utilities, and you know that Phoenix certainly wont help you.
-Me
Well, most current BIOSes are software based, rather than actually burned in to the ROM chip. and if you clear the BIOS, you only clear what's in the temporary section of the chip. I personally think that the whole idea is bullsh*t anyways.
What happens if this actually makes it to market and AOL puts their clickable ad on your "desktop." Then the average M$ user clicks on the ad and signs up for AOL service, giving the BIOS manufacturer a kick-back for the reference.
Does the BIOS also have some kind of datafile that will tell AOL the type of hardware that you have on your system so they can accurately target you for return advertising?
This is a giant snow-ball effect and I don't like it. I will do it (pay extra), but I do not think we (/.ers) should have to pay extra for a normal "white box" mobo.
d9
So, you see, there's no hope but AMI. But for how long?
I'd love free toilet paper with ads!
McDonalds, MS, here's what I think of you... *wipe* *flush*... Bwahaha!
Typical flash which I use at work is about
10k write. This is probably a moronic idea
from some graduate from a Dogbert management
school.
They'd have to put the message on the hard disk
but it'd be interesting to see how they'd write
on an hopfs or ext2 partition since those morons
probably think that winblows is the only thing
that exists.
This @#@#$@ing sucks. That is worse then going to the theatres and seeing 30min of ads (note not trailers but @#$@ TV ads). I already bought the stupid product, why do I have to see an AOL add each time I boot up???
The Mac is showing its superiority with each passing day.
Right now the offical Phoenix bios distributor charges approx $70 for the firmware updates. Alot of hardware vendors will provide some bios upgrades for free during the warrenty period for issues the vendor considers important. But if you want to use hardware from a different vendor or continue to use new hardware beyond the warrenty period, you pritty much eventually end up forking the $70. If an advertized subsized firmware image came at a reduce (or preferably free) price then I might choose to accept the advertizing. However, I would prefer it be on the BIOS configuration menus than at boot since there would be incentive to add additional pauses in the boot if a boot image is displayed.
This is like those damn annoying Playstation identifiers that you have to watch every time you turn it on.
Oh, what, I'm playing a Playstation? I'd never have remembered but for your helpful reminder! Thanks Sony!
Whenever I bought a new motherboard, I always made sure that it came with an award BIOS, Because it was one of the most customiziable BIOS's out there. after they got bought out by Phoenix, i'm not too sure now, Especially after hearing this.
I guess it's time to switch to an AMI BIOS now
ooopppsss! It was supposed to be hpfs not hopfs ...
the o doesn't belong
Actually it's pretty slow. And the email to join is
:-)
:-)
majordomo@freiburg.linux.de
The list goes in spurts, but unfortunately gets caught up in planning. Everyone wants to do something different and nothing gets done. I'm working on a version of my own which I'll just put up and leave be, implementing ideas from the list and whatnot, but time is limited with the new family.
As for Mr. Timur's posts, I don't quite believe him. Yes there are a dozen different chipsets but a BX-supporting BIOS should support a BX chipset. an LX-supporting BIOS should support an LX chipset. Chip revs can be detected through testing for the faults. That's how Linux finds out about buggy controllers and the like. Also you can put the #IFDEFs in the source and have menu options, like how Linux works.
It won't be a mainstream project but for what I do it will be a worthwhile diversion. Lowlevel code, system init, et al, is my bag, baby!
yet another reason to avoid phoenix bios. Say, wasn't that a phoenix bios in that old Packard Bell 486 somebody gave me years ago?
--
It is a stunning comment that PC reboots have become so acceptable that Phoenix sees an opportunity to see ad space during POST Well, if you are running linux that shouldn't be nearly as often as the folks running M$ products. But I don't need to tell you that. d9
Don't you mean billboard? ;-)
Actually, putting an icon on the desktop is a rather trivial task, given that you can figure out the format of a shortcut file. This can get quite interesting; I've personally placed executables into the network neighborhood by copying them into the appropriate directory.
First toilet stall adversting, shopping cart advertising, and now this shit.
Nobody's mentioned that you don't see the ad unless you reboot.
This means even *more* incentive to write buggy code...
--
It's not like a BIOS has a built in browser to go on the net and get more information. I cant see how this Turd of an idea could even fly
Press Esc to End Memory Test. Press Del to Enter Setup. Press F1 To find out more about AOL, America's #1 Web Service.
I cant even imagine seeing the above without puking when I boot up my PC.
There's a Linux version. It acts as an HTTP proxy and simply ignores requests for image file from whatever domains you tell it to. Saves you d/l time since you don't bother to get crap you don't want to look at any way. Check it out at www.junkbuster.com if you don't want marketing puke all over your web pages.
A while back (last summer I think), I had heard/read about an effort to show ads in the
blank edges around the monitor image.
I'm not sure about the technical details here.
I had presumed that the limits of the monitor
image define the range of the electron guns
and that this could only be changed by the physical monitor controls. This scheme probably needs a software-changeable range or something like that.
Yumpee
It's not like a BIOS has a built in browser to go on the net and get more information. I cant see how this Turd of an idea could even fly. I cant even imagine seeing the below without puking when I boot up my PC.
Press Esc to End Memory Test.
Press Del to Enter Setup.
Press F1 To find out more about AOL, America's #1 Web Service.
Can you hardwire a link onto a windows desktop wihtout knowing how the software will be installed, where it might be located, what options will be turned on? I don't know that much about chips, but it doesn't seem possible.
--
RumorsDaily
Can you envision the day when PORN will be hardwired into chips so there will be no delay between clicking on pam&tom.avi and seeing pam&tom.avi? I mean... man! I just can't wait. I can't wait to get my Houston 500 chip.
--
RumorsDaily
It figures they'd find a way to do advertising,
but not to give us a real system monitor in the
rom.
With a system monitor, we would not need lilo
for instance.
Digital workstations, Sun workstations, all kinds
of other equipment has a monitor ROM, and this is
one thing that has always been lacking in Intel
hardware.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Take an OS design course.
Linux, and most 32-bit OSs, don't even USE the BIOS! It exists for compatibility. It also handles the setup code for the chipset and the CPU. This allows you to accually have a PCI bridge, for example. It also handles the initial bootstrap (loading the boot sector from the boot media). After that, it's up to the OS to decide how to handle it. DOS just uses the BIOS calls allready available.
The problem with BIOS comes when you move to protected mode. BIOS code is real mode code, so to call into it you must switch to real mode and back to protected mode for EACH call. A huge overhead. OS/2 had a disk driver that did exactly that for INT13 (the disk access BIOS service). It was used as a fallback for stuff like SCSI cards that were not supported directly, but it was slow as hell so nobody used it.
If you were to remove 90% of the BIOS code leaving the chipset setup code and place an OS kernel in ROM with that setup code you could boot a real OS without any BIOS services available. This could be done with the Linux kernel, for example. You would just have to modify the loader code, since it's designed to load the image from disk and decompress into memory.
You could disable the BIOS on that SCSI card, and not define the IDE devices in the BIOS on your motherboard and STILL boot Linux, BTW. You would just have to load the kernel from a floppy. I did this once accidentally to my IDE devices and booted Linux from a SCSI disk. I could use all my IDE stuff from Linux but wondered why I couldn't in DOS. DUH.
I'm sitting in front of a compaq presario 2256 right now, running linux. everything worked except the modem, and I just replaced that. I've booted of floppies plenty of times, and all the linux distros will boot of the cd
"I never got the F10 thing."
This is because the special Compaq partition was not present.
You have to install this (from the Compaq floppy) before you setup your hard disk.
However, you can always use the floppy to get into the BIOS setup. Don't expect much though...
Richard
Doesn't matter much to me. I'm so sick of seeing billboards, ads everywhere. I don't define myself as a pure consumer, I'd rather just not see all that stuff plastered everywhere. Some things in the world actually can exist without advertising attached, and I'm quite happy to pay to keep advertising out of my house.
Hey, I don't want my chair to be exposed to a Micro$oft ad.... I can just imagine it, I come back after booting to find a flying windows logo embossed into my chair... wouldn't that be scary :-)
It makes me laugh to see people buying things like brand-name aspirins, where on the shelf below is a bottle of aspirin sold at half the price. I can't understand why anyone thinks that aspirin is chemically different when sold by a company they've seen on the telly. Ditto almost every other product.
Actually I like to support those who developed the drugs. The cheap knock-offs do the same thing, but they are certainly not the ones dumping money into development of new drugs.
... Not that I take a lot of drugs. My total drug consumption for last year was six or seven pills. I tend to suffer through a headache than pop a pill at the slightest twinge.
I'm sure they're working on it as we speak.
--
RumorsDaily
It's at http://f-cpu.tux.org/.
Anyone got an url for this open cpu project?
The color logo goes back pretty far - my Sparc IPXes have a color logo at the bootup screen. Tux appears when the console framebuffer stuff starts...
Consider this: There's a section of the BIOS memory which is flashable. This is done automatically, because they are selling the ads, so they have to be changable. If they aren't changable, the company will be out of business in a week or two due to the incredible stupidity of throwing away such a great market.
So, since it is flashable, and flashable with a hardware call, you'll have to run their software to get the new ads. Since most computers will come with some sort of networking, (dial-up or ethernet) they will contact the central host when the network goes up. Once connected, it will download the new image and flash it onto the chip. Therefore, a few dozen geeks get together, and do the same thing for linux, except instead you get a pretty penguin logo which you will flash and forget about for months at a time, since you never have to reboot your computer.
Seriously though folks, isn't this a sign that most people reboot their computers often, and just sit and stare at the screen? When I want to reboot my computer, I set up an at or cron job to do it when I want it, that way I don't have to sit impatiently waiting for my computer to boot.
As you just pointed out, the BIOS "handles the initial bootstrap (loading the boot sector from the boot media)". Regardless of the OS the BIOS gets first control of the system. Unless you've invented a magic computer which can be boot-strapped from a disk without any knowledge of the underlying architecture of the system, including what kind of disk it is and where it is located, something will always get control of the system before the OS.
/. Phoenix with our politely worded opions. They may listen; but face it, their after the millions of people that buy PCs from the neighborhood clone builder.
This means that they can inflict ads on you before the OS has any control of the system. Your only options, as I see it, would be to buy non Phoenix BIOS m/b or to write your own BIOS.
The other option is to
-Jim
"Advertisements create revenue for businesses..." blah blah blah
Yeah, it also tells them "Hey, advertisements work really really well!!" next thing you know cars will come with ads all over them when you buy them etc etc.. Woohoo that sure sounds fun doesn't it?
"This is no different from any piece of merchandise you purchase that has the logo of the company on it...."
The company's logo is bad enough much less everybody else's logo, and yes that IS a big difference regardless of what you think.
"One big happy family right?" no.
"Everyone's so concerned about the boot-up time wasted with advertisements. Get a grip. It's 5 extra seconds.........."
5 seconds is too much, I want my computer booted up 10 seconds ago. Faster is good, I won't except slower it's just not one of the things I look for in a computer when I go out and buy one, get it?
Mind if I re-direct all my spam to you? You seem to love it so much. You wouldn't mind would you? It's only what? 10-30 spam's a day? Nah no big deal.. Spam is good isn't it? bah.
-----------------------
I don't watch TV either, but I'm willig to sed TV ads because that's the only way public TV can be FREE.
:D
PS: free as in "free beer" of course
Here's the text of the note I sent to the nimrods at Phoenix:
To whomever it may concern at Phoenix:
I would just like you to know that I personally will ensure that not one dollar of our multi-million-dollar hardware budget (for which I make acquisition recommendations) pays for a machine with a Phoenix BIOS if your ebetween debacle sees the light of day.
When I buy a PC, I do not grant rights to you to resell the facilities of that machine to advertisers. I fervently hope that when this fiasco turns into a backlash against your company from the corporate sector, the pea-brained marketing sludge that came up with this brain-turd will be LARTed into a lump-free paste.
At 3 A.M. you can see people's auras; at five you can see their contrails...
by phoenix.
Yes, that's right kids, AWARD WAS BOUGHT BY PHOENIX.
Great, ain't it?
UniCore software, the other "small bios" manufacturer, was also bought.
I thought there were very few people who didn't watch TV...but we should start an online community....anyoune has a server to host it?
freeoftv.org or something like it...I'm serious
If Coke decided to pays $X toward my car purchase in exchange for getting to install a coke-ad-odometer, the one thing I can count on is that the Coca Cola Company is not $X in the hole. The money has to come from somewhere. The price of Coke will go up, and (assuming that the ad isn't a total waste) the total amount of Coke purchased will increase a bit.
Does advertising really add to the the ultimate measure of the economy -- the Gross Universal Product? To some extent, it does, since it is genuinely useful for buyers to be informed about sellers. But let's face the facts: I have already heard about Coke. I am aware of the existence of that product. From this point onward, every single penny spent toward further informing/brainwashing me is net waste in the big economic picture. The Coca Cola Company may be able to increase its profits, but the amount of profit they make in the transaction is going to be a little bit less than the amount that I lose. In the long run, the waste just contributes to entropy.
What makes an economy strong is production, not money flow. That is why some aspects of the economy, while appearing to be healthy to the naive, due to the volume of money flowing, are in fact useless or even harmful. Examples: over-advertising, Windows tech support, oil spill cleanups, and anything else resulting in (or from) the destruction of capital.
TANSTAAFL.
I sincerely believe that if Rob solicited donations from Slashdot readers in exchange for dropping the ads, he would get the needed level of donations. Call me an optimist. :-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I go out of my way to buy products that aren't advertised.
It makes me laugh to see people buying things like brand-name aspirins, where on the shelf below is a bottle of aspirin sold at half the price. I can't understand why anyone thinks that aspirin is chemically different when sold by a company they've seen on the telly. Ditto almost every other product.
This is a letter that I e-mailed to Phoenix Tech investor relations. I e-mail it to mary_ann_chirchill@phoenix.com. I think everyone against it should do the same, or else the other bios companies will get the same idea.
I just thought I would take the time to tell you that I do not care for the idea of you selling advertisements on my computer when I boot it up. I will no longer buy any product that is associated with your company, and I will be contacting computer manufacturers telling them that I will not buy their product if it is in association with your company.
Sincerely,
Have to agree with you, the moderator system on /. has become outright censorship, but occasionally a good story still pops up.
It seems any contrary opinion regardless of
possible merit is knocked to -1 or -2 right away.
PS I have an account I just don't use it because of the SPAM that was being generated from this site...someone is harvesting email addressess.
The way I read the original article, if you choose to sign up for this notion, Phoenix will give you a cut of the proceeds. Seems fair.
BIOS is going the way of the dodo. It lags behind the capability of most modern ide devices. Most advanced computers don't use BIOS any more. ARC boot is already supported by many advanced platforms, it just hasn't trickled down to Intel based machines yet. Don't worry, we can break this BIOS habit soon enough. All we need is a little help from some friends .
Well if Phoenix starts embeding BIOS ads, I'll bet it won't be long before there are BIOS hack to take them out. Some hacker with too much time on his hand is bound to sit down and figure out how to remove the ads while leaving the other code unaffected and then release an image you can flash on there.
There is one problem with the internet download idea, if the computer is NOT connected to the internet at all then it is total worthless. (Yes, there still are some computers that are not connected. I own one of them). Also I kind of feel scared about my bios reflashing its self every so often. I kind of don't even like flashing it my self. I just wouldn't feel safe with it re-writing its self. Also, I don't really like the whole idea of wasting bandwith with a 53K modem for some add, when I can put it to better use. The motherboard should be free and come with a coupon for half off the chip if that is the case. Remember you're paying for the download time each time it does it.
Well the original poster obviously misused the word "right-wing", but there is some truth there. Economical laissez-faire is more found on right wing than on left wing, right? Or do you mean that most of the deregulationists are found in the left wing and that's where also most opponents to most regulations are found ?
Some of us on the "right" don't support total deregulation.
But the average amount of regulation wished by people of the "right", is lower than people of the "left" (even if both sides will claim that they want exactly "enough" regulation, no more, no less). In the advertising case, clearly the regulation is lacking ; so the original poster blamed it on the "right". He was wrong in blaming "right-wing" as a whole (instead of lobbies, blind technical experts, etc...), although you could argue that statistically the right wing are a little more responsible for this sorry state than the left wing, if that has any meaning, etc...
Did I just hear a bunch of ppl scream that there is a need for a GNU BIOS? Lets get on it ;-)
1.well, i thought BIOS is really hardware programs, so it doesn't matter how long it hasn't seen battery.
2. if you wipe the ad, doesn't it mean that you wipe the BIOS too?
duh.
But the main problem is that you aren't going to save $1000 ; it will be more like $1 or $10. The way to reverse your question is: do you really want to win $1 per month and have adds everywhere (desk, monitor, watch, clothes, pen, door, ...) ? Note that everywhere people are trying to make their environment prettier (nice translucent cases for iMAC, pretty design for monitor, nice buildings, ...), and this has a cost ; now come the advertising that defaces and partly ruins this effort, for some financial gains. If the financial gains of ads are much less that the cost of making environment prettier, then this makes no sense.
Yeah, just what I want - a national government funded telivision system. Not only would the US Gov't be able to listen to everything you do or say (read: Echelon), but they could also show you everything you should say or do.
Shades of Nazism?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
and that is one annoying background image
Exactly! Piss on 'em!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You bought the nice little mobo. It's your property! Charge them like NASCAR drivers charge for paint space on their car!
:)
You can make some serious moolah. Just think, sending AOL a bill for $20 every month
Heck, better yet, 20 million people sending AOL a bill for $20 every month.
You can mess with my mind, you can mess with my dog, Messing with my bios? Let's get it on!
SP
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire
I used to think rather highly of Phoenix BIOS products. Heck, the BIOS itself is probably still pretty good.
HOWEVER -- This is going too far. There are enough sources of intrusive, irritating ads in our world without having more of them on our screens at POST time.
Phoenix can take this entire idea and shove it up their arse. I will have no part of it. AMI, Award, here I come!
Take a look at openbios.org, and start contributing this is a project LONG overdue.
:)
DBDUMP =>
time, fork, epoch: Research | Commercialization
? Research: -> diamond age
? Commercialization: -> WCW & WWF * WW III
The Phoenix web site gives their main E-mail contact as toni_goodrich@phoenix.com
may the lord have mercy on her soul...
No, I am aware that most people on the "right" support excessive deregulation. I support deregulation to an extent, but I'd LOVE to see advertisements regulated like guns are now. I've got no problem with people making money, even lots of it. (Hell, I'd like to do it someday.) But there is something that needs to be considered: Ethics. What Phoenix plans to do us unethical. So are billboards, IMHO. TV commercials are OK because they keep broadcast TV free, but what the hell does a billboard get me? Not a better view, for sure. At least I can choose not to watch TV, but I can't avoid seeing the big, ugly billboards on the way to the office every day.
The Phoenix BIOS boot-up ads are a worse case, because not only are they advertising someone else's product intrusively, but on something I paid for. This is intolerable. If I wanted to pay to see advertisements, I'd buy a newspaper.
But, what pissed me off about about blaming the "right-wing" is that original poster blamed all of the "right-wing" for what is the current state of advertising in this country. I hate getting stereotyped with the aristocrats who got into politics because they support extreme deregulation. I don't support extreme deregulation, but I do support the ability of a person who applies themself in life, to make as much money as possible. Just as long as they don't intrude on my personal space, or the local scenery. And my computer's boot up screen is for damned sure my personal space.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
--
In my opinion, having an update option is not an option. The BIOS would have to find the modem, provide drivers for every modem, dial the internet and download the ad. Also, where would it dial? I certainly wouldn't stick my ISP info into the BIOS. So they'd have to set up an 800 number to dial. Then, there would be a waiting time to download the ads. What about people with no internet, or winmodems, or if they get their internet from the network. And face it, who's going to install the Phoenix Advertisement Updater for Windows?
There are too many video modes for this to ever work correctly. You can setup a video card many many different ways, vga opposed to text mode etc etc..
Whoops, now that you mention it, I remember seeing that.
.
.
.
.
those station ids are fcc mandated in the us.
parts???
Do we have to sit through the ads even though we happily paid for the components?
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire
Result of Channel One in my kids' school: pulled them out and started homeschooling. Much better. First additional course: Propaganda Analysis.
BTW, few American schools have anything to do with education. Indoctrination is their goal.
Firstoff, last fall I read that the MERGER between Phoenix and Award had been approved -- so this will probably affect all Award BIOSs as well as those few still sold under the Phoenix name.
Second, I just read the full press release on EBetween, the new subsidiary Phoenix created to promote this atrocity. And it looks like we aren't going to have much choice, since it affects altogether too many major-brand motherboards. Quoting from the press release:
"Thirteen Motherboard Manufacturers Sign Agreements -- Phoenix will utilize available system ROM (Read Only Memory) to provide a unique link between Internet service and content providers and end-users. To date, leading motherboard vendors ABIT, AOpen, Asustek, A-Trend, Biostar, Chaintech, Gigabyte, LuckyStar, MicroStar International (MSI), Shuttle, SOYO, Tekram and Tyan have agreed to distribute Phoenix's Internet ROM extensions, which will enable the ebetween Internet services. These motherboard vendors currently generate approximately 30 percent of the annual, worldwide desktop PC motherboard shipments, evidencing Phoenix's substantial channel for delivering Internet-enabled products and services in the upcoming quarters."
Myself, I've always preferred the better stability (and fewer bugs) of AMI BIOSs, but try finding one anymore on a major-brand motherboard. However, this could create a market for m/bs sold WITHOUT any BIOS, and an aftermarket for BIOSs created just to fill the void. Hey, AMI, go for it.
BTW, AMI's pseudo-Windows interface proved so unpopular that 1) they've dropped it, and 2) they're now providing flash code to replace it with text.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Some of us already have that :) Nettrom (the Netwinder's firmware) supports lots of nifty options for loading kernels. I hear it's modeled after Sun's booting firmware. I guess what I'm saying is that it exists (and has for quite a while) -- but I don't know if it exists on PC hardware yet.
But then you could sit down and Windows could
kiss your....
Or maybe it's time to set a 'puter in that
smallest room in house...and you could express
your opinion of the advert with a *flush*
"The User can turn it off and it goes away forever."
So if it reduces the cost of your motherboard who cares.
Yeah, that's right - all our schools are trying to brainwash the children! Quick - get them out while you can! It's a huge conspiracy! Run for the hills! Join a militia! Marry your sister!
Get real. School is about education. It's unfortunate that some of the things we learn there are a little biased, but hey - that's life, not evil intentions.
That stupdi fucking WankerWhack thing stole this story from /. again. What is up with that anyway?
Would it even be possible to disable this junk?
:-)
Disabling should be easy enough. Bioses are flashable these days. Just download the latest upgrade from the board vendor's webpage. Now of course this has the ads in it, so edit the flash image and overwrite the ads with something else. Just as hackers already can put their own name in the image before flashing it.
Personally, I believe this is a good idea, and one that's needed to be implimented for a long time. Reasons for this stance:
/., every computer would be made by 16 year old hackers in their basement, using spare parts from the broken toaster and the extra blender in the garage, and the standards that industry has provided and which has allowed our newly pseudo-unified "world community" to be constructed would be non-existant. Businesses make money through advertisement. It's not a new concept. But all of a sudden because the advertisement is "inside" the box and not plastered on a material item, like your stereo, or the TV, or even the freaking clothes you wear, all of a sudden it's evil and wrong and must die because it's all mine.
1. Advertisements create revenue for businesses, allowing them to grow and expand, creating better products in the long run.
2. This is no different from any piece of merchandise you purchase that has the logo of the company on it. Every thing you own has a logo plastered on it, and for a reason; advertisement. This case is slightly different, Phoenix actually letting other companies advertise in their BIOS start-up screen, but hey, one big happy family right?
3. Everyone's so concerned about the boot-up time wasted with advertisements. Get a grip. It's 5 extra seconds or so and then you can go about your precious business. It will support Phoenix BIOS and their product. And if you don't think it's a good product, you do not by any means have to support it; find another manufacturer that suits your own personal standards.
4. Again with the boot up time; inconsequential. Whoop-de-shit. So you have to find something to do for that crucial minute of boot up time; did you know you actually can leave your chair during boot-up and visit the john, or take out the trash, or even bathe the dog if the fancy so struck you? This advertisement thing doesn't require you to be present to watch all the pretty advertisements.
I sense way too much egotism with all the anti-advertisement sentiment. It's all my me mine I hear; review your basic common sense; without these businesses making money and producing hardware, we wouldn't be able to have these pleasant conversations on
Get a grip. You're not the only one who lives here.
While the idea of an advertising splash-screen at boot time is annoying, it might not be that bad. If there was some way to flash a new image into the BIOS, you could have (for example) a Tux splash screen at boot.
However, the article implies that it could be more than that. According to the article, "an Internet-service provider such as America Online Inc. could theoretically put its sign up icon directly on the desktop of any PC that uses the Phoenix start-up software". Doesn't this imply that the BIOS would have Windows-specific code in it? I shudder at the implications for non-Windows users if the BIOS assumes that your OS is Windows, and tries to make system calls. Hell, I shudder a the implications for Windows lusers if this is true. The ultimate impossible-to-delete icon on your desktop. I think I see declining market share in Phoenix's future if this is true.
But you'll see a real BIOS screen when pressing f10 or esc, then with F10 you can go and alter the bootup device...
You're one of these weird products of TV culture that just loves to be spanked by business interests. I really don't understand the mentality -- like a displaced religious sentiment, a weird relfection on an irrational, innate sense of guilt -- yes oh God, punish me with more ads, I love it and need it!
I bet the furniture in your house is ugly.
And would you really pay for all the crappy TV you watch, if you did it directly, instead of paying for it every bloody time you buy something? I don't think so. TV isn't cheap, and we are paying for the crap every day.
If it wasn't for all the commercials we could all buy stuff *much* cheaper. And we could chose what to buy based on our experience or someone's recommendation.
The good products would still be sold. The crappy and useless products would go away. TV companies would have to actually provide some content, instead of endless plugs filled out with commercials. Everyone would be happier.
Don't hate the media, become the media.
I wonder if Phoenix contemplated how much money they would lose in lost sales because of this venture. It does not seem that anyone would want to PAY for a computer that spits advertising at you no matter what you do.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
Company Contact
Toni Goodrich
Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
(408) 570-1000
toni_goodrich@phoenix.com
Public Relations
Kristin Jones
Walt & Company Communications
(408) 496-0900
kjones@walt.com
Be nice, but let 'em know how you feel about this BS.
Yep... I had already fired off a few emails, and was getting ready to post a link to that page.
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
Proof that Capitalism is the ultimate evil. Maybe next I can get advertisments on my car's odometer and possibly on toilet paper!! Joy!
Come on now. How is it censorship if you can still see every single post? You're just a crybaby who had all his retarded posts knocked down to -1 (btw, there is no -2).
As for your reason for being anonymous: that is the most retarded explanation I have ever seen. The "not really AC, I just forgot my password" crap is bad enough. There's a password mailing feature for god's sake. But to not use your address because of spam?? Why don't you just go remove your address from your profile? Then they won't be able to spam you. Why, isn't that a brilliant idea?!
Why don't you just say the real reason you're posting as an Anonymous Coward: you ARE an Anonymous Coward!!! Maybe you're afraid of getting more of your crappy posts bumped down to -1. But don't come up with lame excuses for why you're anonymous. If you don't want to acknowledge the real reason, don't mention anything. It saves everybody that much wasted time.
PS - I have an account, I just forgot the name.
I've got an idea.
I'm going to wait a year or two, an then I'll start a company that builds The ad-less PC. Imagine how much extra I could charge per PC!
All I'll need is the OpenBios project, I belive I saw an open CPU project somewhere... might be some decent, transparent Windoze emulation (or, heck, KOffice will be out, right?).
This Let's Put An Ad In Everything is starting to get a teeny bit too annoying. Let's all Email Phoenix and tell them the Build-Our-Own-PC crowd is going to boycott them unless that goes away.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Of course the right-wing fringe in the US, rasing the banner of "freedom", hates the idea of any sort of regulation...
Why does it have to be right-wing this, right-wing that? I consider myself right-wing in most cases. You say "right-wing" while stereotyping all of us right-wingers with the extreme right-wing. Thanks a lot. So, let me tell you about me and my "right-wing" (and as you would imply, extreme deregulationist, advertisment-loving, bible-thumping, gay-bashing school lunch taker) friends:
Some of us on the "right" don't support total deregulation. Regulation is necessary. Microsoft is a key example of something that should be regulated... why? Because it's a "utility." You basically need Windows to use a computer if you aren't a geek. There are, of course, alternatives, like there are to city water, but overall, if the average Joe buys a computer, he needs Windows to do anything with it.
On to the point: Me and my "right-wing" (you would imply extremist Jesus freaks who bomb abortion clinics) friends hate advertising. Most of us don't watch mainstream TV because of it. I hate billboards, skywriting, and TV commercials. I hate banner ads. I am not an uncommon "right-winger" in this regard.
And, furthermore, I can tell you that some of the most obnoxious ads come from the "left-wing"... and I mean "stop smoking" ads and billboards. Half the commercials on TV here in Oregon are taxpayer-funded "stop smoking" commercials, along with several billboards as you enter the city limits. They are more annoying than any other. They are the biggest, most colorful, and most prominently displayed billboards around. I hate them, too.
So, think twice the next time you want to say "the right-wing" in a sentence and then proceed to tell what all of us "right-wingers" do. And you "left wingers" want us to quit stereotyping. Practice what you preach.
Brought to you by a Second Amendment-supporting, Independent Protestant who votes Republican at every election. I may not agree with all "right-wing" philosophies, but I've looked at both sides, and I think "right-wing" is better than "left-wing." At least our "right-wing" presidents have the decency, and the balls to resign when they shame the office.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
As an American who has spent much of his life abroad, I can say this: advertising is one of the worst features of life in the USA. It's a persistent, stupefying, demeaning mess.
I live in New York City. Houston Street nowadays is repulsive with its huge, building-sized billoard ads promoting useless shit.
I no longer watch the television here in the US -- the constant interruptions by aggressive voices telling me "you're gonna love " this, or "gonna want" that -- no I will not love it and do not need it -- athlete's foot spray or crappy SUVs, I could give a shit. This level of intrusiveness into my life is far, far worse than that exercised by federal and state public bureacracies. A huge conglomerate industry is constantly hammering on us all to behave a certain way: it's thought control and anti-freedom.
To Americans the notion that you could watch the evening news or a movie without interruption might seem wild. But then this is the country suffering from an epidemic of attention deficit disorder.
Unregulated advertising is a blight on this society. Thank goodness the local governments in places like Rome, Italy, carefully regulate the placement of ads. It means there are still beautiful places to be found in this world. Of course the right-wing fringe in the US, rasing the banner of "freedom", hates the idea of any sort of regulation -- forgetting that often one man's freedom is another's bondage, e.g. I wish to be free of advertising, without having to live in the desert, or in a foreign country -- besides, right-wingers and gun-slinging liberitarians rarely boast much in the way of aesthetic sensibilities, so they're blind to the ugliness of advertising.
As for Timothy, the poster, I'm afraid he's part of the problem, believing ads provide "useful" information. Certainly only very badly educated people, or ad industry workers, would find any of them "pleasing". By definition they are not easily "avoidable" -- if so they would fail. They are certainly not "helpful". I don't care whether the information is true or not -- that the price on a new car is now $9,995 or whatever. If I need to know I'll seek out the information, otherwise keep it to yourself, sir.
You're forgetting that the BIOS has to sit in actual ROMspace -- meaning that you'd be lucky to get 64K of space to work with (I'm thinking F000, here). There usually isn't enough space to include verbose error messages.
Posted by Kilbert:
If Phoenix is doing what I think their doing, which will be the easiet to do, and that being adding a boot logo...er, ad when you boot up. Wouldn't it take one person, to hack out how it uploads the ads to the chip and then everyone will be having their own boot logos?
I'm also assuming that they will only write Windows software, and I doubt it will get supported in Linux. So I'm going to guess that we will all be having custom boot logos and not having to use a framebuffer console to do so.
If that's the case, then I applaud Phoenix for a "brilliant" idea.
later,
Kilbert
You learn something new everyday.
thanks
I don't see how they COULD do it at all, without making some sort of hooks in the OS itself. A Bios couldn't really DO it at all, unless Windows itself can take 'boot parameters'..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
While I am a lawyer this is not legal advice. If you need advice on this matter, see a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
The repercussions from this could be interesting . . .
MS has made a habit of pulling licenses for windows from companies that modify the windows startup screens, taking the (peculiar?) position that the companies are distributors for microsoft.
This won't work with the bios for a couple of reasons. The first is the lack of a contractual relationship with microsoft--microsoft doesn't have any threats to make, or contracts to claim it will enforce. The more interesting variation is that it puts microsoft in the same position w.r.t. Phoenix as Compaq was in with regard to microsoft--if the MS arguments are accepted, windows cannot tamper with the bios ads.
curioser & curioser . . .
hawk, esq.
I'm glad I keep my computer on all the time. :)
I got the PC from a guy that had all Macs, and I think he did something funny with it like make it into an ersatz PPC. So I wiped the HDD, and went for the disk action. It was the only way to be sure.
But you have a good eye, I do have an XL. A 6150 XL. I was at work when I wrote that, so I couldn't remember exactly what it was.
I tried to update the BIOS, and got really odd results. Since I don't know what was done to the machine before I got it, I can't say what I did wrong. But I do know that fdisk makes a clean ext2 partition and the four disks get it right where I need to be.
However, the AP400 I "found" in a lab at work did not need the four disks to be reborn as a Linux box, and is a great development server. F10 wasn't needed there, though, because I didn't add any hardware or change any BIOS settings.
But I''ll keep F10 in mind, though. I know of a XL machine that is just begging to be an MP3 server...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
The situation is much worse than the summary implied. Advertisements would occur not just at boot time. According to the ZDnet article, "an Internet Service Provider like AOL could theoretically put its sign up icon directly on the desktop of any PC that uses the Phoenix start-up software." In other words, the message would not just be at boot-up. While Linux users would presumably not get such an icon, the situation for MS users is scarier than other posters have realized. I've already sent a complaint to Phoenix and praise to AMI.
If they're really looking for something useful to add to their BIOSes, I'd vote for serial console support.
I. They mention an icon on your desktop.
A. This is impossable for technalogical reasons. As of know BIOS only understands how the Hard Drive Hardware works, not the file system. Will they support every knows Hard drive formating technique (e.g. DOS, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Extended2(linux), etc)? And if so what will they do when I install my new OS that uses FAT64(example)? Will the BIOS just assume it to be FAT32 and force write the icon to the right place thereby destroying my file system integrety?
B. What if I have the Individual desktop feature turned on? How will BIOS with the above limitations know where to write?
C. What if I am using Linux? It does not have a "Desktop", will the bios just destroy my HD in its atempt to write its data?
II. Who will get to buy the use of the splash screen type adds the artical mentioned?
A. What happens when a virus sets the splash screen to a very detailed image of a nude woman, and my 7 year old son or doughter goes to turn on the computer next time? Of how will your mom/wife react when she goes to check her email and finds the afore mentioned image? And how about the same virus seting the Icon to send you to www.sex.com? Are we seeing a problem here?
B. What if a Porn company offers Phenix X times its going rate for the use of the space, in this case there would not even be a virus involved. Don't even try to tell me that Phenix is smarter than to do that, they came up with the idea in the first place right?
C. If Apple Buys the space then every PC would have a message encourageing the user to by an Apple to avoid the very type of add that they are now viewing.
III. If if updates off the internet they have to know how to connect using a modem or a network card, through a firewall, and proxy server. This is such a security risk I am not even going to go into it.
IV. If any of the this happens, my child is traumatized by a porno image, my data is ruined by their softare, or my network security is compromised by the software and damage results imagein the law suits that will follow, Phenix will be out of bussines in a mater of weeks.
P.S. Can you say "Open Source BIOS"?
Folks that are GOOD news. Why? Because MS will make sure that the people out there will be happy if they see a penguin logo.
Who (including all zero idea customers) would like a fixed advertisement they have to look at all the time and cannot remove? Hehe, nobody will be THAT stupid to enjoy this.
I don't care if my computer advertises SEARS or the like (better not be porn or mind rot like tobacco/alcahol), So long as it doesn't interfier with my reading of the BIOS POST messages (not that they really matter). Generally POST needs half the screen, leaving half left for an ad. I don't care as the comtpuer isn't booted anyway, and with the ad in there the comptuer can be cheaper for the same quality.
Besides, the only time I reboot is power failure or new kernel. For the former my monitor isn't even on, while the latter doen'st bother me either, after all the time it takes to check 128Mb is plenty long for any advertisment.
Of course I'd hate it if it lenghtened the already too long boot process, but that it shouldn't need to.
Exactly ... all you need is to figure out system dir on windows and you are done ...
Of course you realize that AOL's gonna be on this like a shot. As if my mailbox, television, radio, magazines, and all that weren't saturated enough. I can imagine what this'll look like.
Get AOL! It's easy, and you get a free month!
Install now (y) ?
-The quest for truth died with the birth of the net. Now we have all the truth we could ever want. The new quest is how to make sense of all this damned truth cluttering my terminal. -Alex.
The first and most natural reaction to this is of course fear and loathing of aol on your computer with no option to turn it off, or delete it. But, if they don't give us an option then I see some competition coming up. It would make a great ad to be able to say that you won't get any automatic ads when you boot up. Of course when there is competition there is cost reduction, and when there is cost reduction that means better prices for all of us. This might not be so bad after all.
"That which does not become part of the one shall become void" B.G.
I power-down my Linux box at night since I have no need for it to be on when I'm not using it (it's not a server for anything), and I'd just as soon not pay for the extra electricity (disregarding environment issues). I'm sure many other do the same.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Am i just stupid, or don't you have to be connected for it to display ads. I mean, the first time you boot it, it obviously can't display any other ads than the ones that were added during manufacturing, but who would want to buy ads that will be displayed some time between 1 and 3 years from the time of the buying? Also, if I run the computer single-mode and never connect it to the Internet the ads can never be updated. Or perhaps the are confident everyone will have a permanent Internet connection by the time they release this BIOS...
Well, anyways, I'm just stupid and probably should return to work...
Posted by generic kewl tech reference:
:)
is to buy motherboards with BIOS from a manufacturer that does not do this. Hopefully, this will show Phoenix that this form of advertising is unacceptable.
Unfortunately, all the manufacturers that use Phoenix probably think that this is a swell idea, or they will until a competitor buys ad space on their 'puters
Call me cynical, but I don't see this going away. And I'm going to have to put up with it, as writing my own BIOS is way the hell out of my league.
"heh", nice counterpoint Bill :)
From reading the article it sounds more like the BIOS is going to allow people to sign up for the services via the displayed icon somehow.
"heh", nice counterpoint Bill :)
seriously though, that's not logically linked. The fact that a company is putting ads into a hardware controller is just plain annoying. You don't want your microwave to suddenly flash "eat at joe's", or your car to come with a mcdonald's logo sprayed on it. Has nothing to do with system stability. People will vote with their wallets, Phoenix will hurt from it.
Nope. You were right when you said, "can't display any other ads than the ones that were added during manufacturing". An internet connection aint gonna do it. Only a BIOS flash. And to do a BIOS flash via an online means would be a serious security risk (imagine a virus that flashes your BIOS with a big smiley face that says "GOTCHA"). What they will do is put up "timeless" ads, very much like the ads you poor, unsuspecting 98 users are subjected to on the channel bar. Companies like AOL, Yahoo, Excite, etc. will have ads like "Choose AOL", "Search the net with Excite" or "Do you Yahoo?". These will not need updating, just rotation and the BIOS will handle that.
SOMEBODY NAME a generic motherboard with a Phoenix BIOS. Anyone?! Award and Phoenix are one in the same, but yet, seperate companies. The news article states Phoenix is making the Ad BIOS, not Award. I think we missed the definition of the term "white box". The ONLY place I've seen Phoenix BIOS is in "name brand, I think I'm going to buy my computer at Best Buy because that's where you buy computers" computers, not clones. As I posted before, for the clone market to get into this would be foolish. There are TOO many options out there for mainboard BIOSs for Phoenix, Award, whoever, to alienate themselves with some crappy ads.
Packard Bells are white.....Maybe they meant Packard Bell?!?
Now Microsoft will get to position itself as the best operating system manufacturer for PCs with ads in their BIOS. Since Windows requires such frequent reboots, perhaps they should get a share of the profits that Phoenix receives.
My
This is such a good marketing idea. Guess just need to download some pictures into the flash RAM once a while. You got millions and millions of captive audiences for your ads. This is an exclusive market, and Microsoft can't touch them easily! Boy, another AOL and Yahoo?
LGPL or BSD would be a better choice IMHO, for obvious reasons.
-T
Hard drive detection
[80] MXT-10000 10.2GB
[83] ATAPI CD-ROM
Still booting Windows ???
Get a REAL Operating System!
Linux. It's free. What are you waiting for?
Starting MS-DOS ...
- - -
But how many people actually used em?
BIOS vendors should stick to the basics - like getting large hard drives to work without pulling your hair out.
What's next? A jingle from my microwave every time my popcorn's done?
Just read EBETWEEN's website. The BIOS WILL be updated via the internet. What a security risk! I'm going to write a BIOS flash virus just to prove a point of how STUPID that is. These boneheads are so naive!
The article seems to imply that any advertisement would be retrieved via Internet at boot-time.... Am I reading that wrong? They wouldn't just burn the ad into the chip, and have it be the same thing for the lifetime of the motherboard; that's too limiting.
So now my BIOS chip is going to implement TCP/IP? Great. I'm sure that'll be a nice, clean implementation too.
Maybe I'll just go back to watching TV....
-- Mid
The article states that they are targeting the "white box" computers (the ones you and I build, and the ones that the small retail outlets build), instead of the big OEMs (Dell, Compaq, etc).
I've been out of the building biz for a little while now, but last I recall, nearly every white box MB used an AMD or Award BIOS. I generally only see Phoenix on the big OEMs.
What's up with this?
--
Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi
Posted by Dahakbert:
Now NT/Windoze has a reason to keep crashing... the pathetic uptime generates marketing revenues each time the machine boots up. So That 23x6 uptime really does make sense!
The big PC manufacturers (Dell, HP and Micron for example) already have their logos appear on bootup. Theoretically (albeit unlikely), Gateway could buy the space for their ad :)
Realistically, the only people who are likely to see these ads are those who build their own systems - not necessarily the type of demographic that would be particularly receptive to intrusive advertising. Ironic isn't it.
There are systems with things like OpenBIOS today. There is Open Firmware, which is on machines sold by Apple and Sun Microsystems. I don't want to mention anything about Open Firmware internals here, but hardware drivers are included on ROMs with Open Firmware, and it is Open Firmware's job to load these drivers and tell them to initialize various parts of the hardware. Open Firmware is not hardware specific. The drivers that it calls, however, are.
DES Khaddafi KGB genetic jihad Uzi Rule Psix Qaddafi cryptographic Peking Mossad Legion of Doom Albanian Serbian Saddam
No, I'm not plastered with adverts every time I watch TV. 50% of the channels I receive are from the BBC, the UK's national government-funded television company. It provides quality programming and an excellent news service. Also, it has five national and many local radio stations also with no annoying advertising. But that's just because Britain is so excellent. We're great!
I say we all invest heavily in Phoenix (Nasdaq: PTEC) and shut down this ridiculous project.
that requires nothing more than copying a 1K file to the desktop directory, which (unless you have a user that knows how to change windows settings) is virtually always c:\windows\desktop. If user profiles are set up with different desktops, it's c:\windows\profiles\(username)\desktop
However, with NT, it's c:\winnt\profiles\(username)\desktop
so to fully work, it would have to be aware of not only the OS, but the settings in the os.
#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}
F(#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}%cF(%s))
The most popular and growing forms of advertisement and product placement is most evident in material and media that we cannot avoid. Take a look at the ads that come with you phone and cable bills. Look along the side of the interstate in many areas. You can't really close your eyes whil you drive or write a check for the bill. You can't even go bowling without running into tons of beer ads! I won't even go into junk mail (e- and realtime).... :).....
I've even seen roadmaps, that you pay money for, sport ads on top of the "less important" sections of a city. Whereas advertisements used to make things cheaper for the consumer, it's now become an "extra" source of revenue in many types of necessary-to-view media. Yes, even Austin Powers (the spy who shagged me) probably would have left a bit better tast in everyone's mouth without blatant product placement
So, unavoidable ads are the hottest property on the block, and why would corporations pass up selling that type of ad space if they can provide it?
When it gets down to it, the last thing I want to see in the mornings when I turn on my computer is a fscking ad for depends undergarments. It is my personal property, and the only property I own that carries tangible, baltant ads are magazines. (I do not own t-shirts that advertise, nor do I watch TV). Just because Phoenix has a widely used BIOS doesn't mean they should exploit thier customers like that! They make enough money from motherboard manufacturers now. If they want to make the bios'es for free in exchange for ads, the motherboard manufacturers probably wont pass on the savings to us, the consumers, the people who matter most.
Just because TV is a hotbed of marketing schlock doesn't make it RIGHT.
Everyone has grown up just accepting that commercials are a necessary evil. Why should we believe that? Can't they find a less intrusive and mind-bending way of making money on TV?
It's gotten to the point here in north america where we get only 15 minutes of actual TV show time for every half hour. The rest is all advertising schlock. And it's going to get worse.
Already TV shows are being trimmed back further and further just to fit in MORE advertising shit. Take the Simpsons, for example. How many times have you seen an episode and wondered where that one piece you remember has gone? The syndicates trim it down and cut pieces out (hoping you won't notice) to put even MORE advertising shit in your face. It's almost impossible to find a feed of the Simpsons that hasn't seen the butcher's knife.
Of course, it gets worse. Nowadays the trend is to air the exact same commercial two times in a row. It's all heavily funded mind-warping, from the same folks that invested in subliminal advertising once upon a time.
Should we sit back and let even MORE advertising invade our brains? FUCK no.
Well, this is going to be a pain in the butt, however, I can't see how it will really affect a machine. I mean, given the current size of today's typical application, a BIOS chip couldn't do more than flash a message or perhaps one graphic -- can you imagine Phoenix making a BIOS chip with enough space to actually hold an AOL install program? Me neither.
If the BIOS flashes some stupid message at the beginning of the boot sequence, someone will write a virus that will infect the BIOS, changing the message to something truly funny and/or vile, and that will pretty much be the end of it...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Just a quick question... being that this particular BIOS implementation, according to the article, is updateable via the internet (for revolving ads, new advertiser space, whatever...) would this not juts be an amazing place for a virus/trojan/work/whatever! Imagine that... the one thing that people had always conceptualized would be safe on their computers, the BIOS, is now officially open to attack from crackers! These are trully great times we live in kids, take note!
Damn dude,what damn OS you run? You running Winsucks or something? I used to run Windows. I would reboot a lot. But now with Linux, I simply don't reboot. But I really don't want any ads showing up when I bootup. It's just the fact that if you 'don't care' and let it happen then it will eventually grow to something that is very hard to stop. It'll be a type of cancer. Doesn't bother you really at first, but suddenly it starts eating away at you and spreading. It will eventually work it's way into when you do word processing and other things. I could really see companies deciding that you should have a 1"x1" corner of your screen and in there, will always be an ad. It's not about stability or how much we need to see it. It's the fact that it's there and that it could eat farther into us. And the rare times we do reboot, do we REALLY want to see an ad sitting there for us?
Just wondering when we can expect PROMs rather than BIOSes similar to the SGI PC's...also does anyone know the difference between PROMs and BIOSes ????
You don't want your microwave to suddenly flash "eat at joe's"
I don't know, how much cheaper will the microwave be?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I keep my home systems on all the time unless there's a major T-storm approaching. (Guess I'm a little paranoid about lightening after seeing what it did to a friend's house and a lot of their electronics a few years ago.) At work we have industrial strength surge protection for the data centers and uptimes are quite long. (And would be even longer if it weren't for all the upgrades we're doing to finish up the Y2K compliance.)
BTW, while a lot of us have systems that are up for quite extended periods of time, I would imagine many Linux users have that system off to the side that they use for trying things out that could be considered too disruptive to do on a production system or their primary personal system. Or do all you NT admins just toss things onto your production servers without testing them? :-)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If you RTFM, you'll see that most BIOS's already have ~4 kB "customer customizable" space.
Usually, all this is used for is the BIOS customer (Mobo manufacturer's) name and model number.
Phoenix is try to squeeze some $$$. I doubt the mobo mfr's will let them, especially if endusers complain.
It is a stunning comment that PC reboots have become so acceptable that Phoenix sees an opportunity to see ad space during POST. I have to think that the BIOS maker will LENGTHEN boot time to allow for more ADs. This is a truly hideous turn of events.
Wasn't there a free BIOS project?
Maybe I'm the only one here, but I'd like to see a REAL help system in a BIOS. Every BIOS I've seen that has a help feature just gives you a list of the possible options for a feature. What I want is a short descripion of what a feature is and what reason a person would have to enable or disable it. It is just not very helpful to get to an option menu on a BIOS and find something like PMAS and a "help menu" of "Yes/No".
Of course that is just one example, there are gobs of things you could do with that extra space besides putting in Windows specific advertising (modifiying the filesystem from the BIOS?!? Yuck!).
I read the internet for the articles.
Great, so now my BIOS is *regularly* flashed so I can see new ads next time I reboot. The virus writers will love this. They just have their virus patch the bios.bin file and take over your BIOS. Lovely.
on a presario 2412ES series :
the video is an SiS 3d Pro AGP, the network is a DECChip Tulip 21142. I finally got it to work with linux (although i have to boot from a floppy -- LILO doesnt work with 1GB HDD's and the compaq) and it wont run with NT (hehe)
If they put ads in the bootup, I'll make sure that any computers I buy won't be run by Phoenix. That's just wrong. Is nothing sacred anymore?!
It's a sad trend to see that nearly every company that has a part of the PC user's screen real estate is lining up to bombard us with advertisements.
:)
Some posters have pointed out that ads aren't a big deal anyway -- let's face it, we hear them all the time on the radio, see them watching television, read them in the newspaper.
The key for me (and the real pisser) is that schemes like this take control away from the user.
What's the first thing I do if I don't feel like watching an ad on TV? Go get some food, or flip the channel. I change the station when ads come on the radio. Would I be able to do this with the new Phoenix BIOS's?
We'd better be able to, or Phoenix's market share could quickly drop to 30% from 70%.
Even though I like the Phoenix BIOS and use a machine with one now, I'll move to Award, or some other BIOS (a GPL'ed one would be nice) in the future to avoid these ads.
Boo on advertisements! BOO!
Technically, I'm curious how they will pull off a working signup icon in the BIOS. A splash screen is one thing, but something that actually interacts with the OS?
I wonder if the "icon" would kick in before the operating system. In order to work like this, the code for initializing the modem, dialing, connecting, etc. would have to be in the BIOS as well. I don't see that happening.
Alternatively, forcibly putting an icon on the desktop in Windows requires specific Win32 calls. Putting that in the BIOS sounds like quite a task. Not to mention you run the risk of shipping computers that won't boot unless Windows is installed.
I could be wrong, but I think the article may have taken some liberty with the notion of a working AOL Signup icon in the BIOS. I'm not saying it CAN'T be done, but that idea just sounds like a tremendous pain.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Some of us do have to pay for the electricity we use. Why leave your computer on 24 hours at home? I'd rather not be wasteful, even if its a small amount of electricity.
By the way your a worthless troll - and I'm no zealot. I use 4 different OS's, and I'd be very upset if I had to sit through some friggin ad each time I reboot.
Don't know about a web page, but there's an active mailing list full of people working to write a free BIOS for most PC like motherboards. You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending the word "subscribe openbios" in the body of a mail message to:
majordomo@wesley.informatik.uni-freiburg.de
This is a worthy project. Please don't subscribe and immediately start asking stupid questions, just sit back and watch the flow. I've never posted a message there because I'm not a BIOS hacker... if you're not a BIOS hacker either, but are curious, you're probably welcome as a lurker. Serious BIOS hackers are probably most welcome contributors. Either way, please respect the users' of this list by helping to keep their S/N ratio down!
The reason the BIOS has worked well so far is that it does one thing and does it well. When you add complexity like this, you will create security holes or reliability problems. I, for one, will do everything I can to avoid BIOS ads, even if I have to pay a little extra for it.
Just wait a few years until NASA, ESA, and other aerospace agencies start allowing for the launch of floating billboards. These would be thin mylar sheets miles wide, with reflective coating sprayed on for letters.
Imagine camping in the woods, or sailing through the middle of the Pacific, and seeing a gigantic "Drink Coke" or "Where do you want to crash today" billboard in the sky, obscuring your view of the moon and the Hale-Bopp II and other astronomical delights.
Also, on a slightly related note of commercialization madness (and annoyance), check out
This Crazy NASA Possibility. Kind of scary.
But I expect we'll find hacks to replace such images within a week of their appearance. Windows users will be paying $10 for shareware programs to flash the BIOS with their favorite picture, Word macro viruses will try to install offensive imagery in peoples' BIOSes, Linux users will see Tux at startup, BSD folks will be seeing the daemon, etc. etc.
Welcome to the future :)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Whether the BIOS icons are present only at initial boot or on OS desktop, obviously the Tux icon should boot into Linux or provide access to Linux (order CD? FTP installation file?).
Seeing as they don't let you CHANGE ANYTHING!!! Oh well, sorry, I don't post that often but I had to make that outburst.
Cool site.. like slashdolt without the religous dogma! Ill start reading it regularly. IM very disapointed that /. has degenerated into little more than a circle-jerk for hardcore OSS bigots.
Hey. I am kind of pissed off about this. I can't beleve I'd need to see a fricken ad when I bootup. Anyways, I was shown a new BIOS manufacturer. Maybe we should check em out, and get their name known.
Check em out at:
HTTP://WWW.MRBIOS.COM
They seem to be moving from
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/OpenBIOS/ to
http://openbios.org/.
I've never built a machine with a phoenix bios. I've always hated phoenix, it's cumbersome and doesn't have all the neat little configuration options the others do. If they want to run off and put adds on post that's just peachy, I don't care, though I really doubt this will fly with the big boys. If (for example) Dell boxes are shipping with a cute little AOL ad plastered on the screen at boot they'er going to want a cut, I guarantee it.
I came. I saw. I coded.
Depends whether or not the car is like Bill Elliott's Ford.
... so it's unclear whether switching to Award would save you from the demons. See this for proof of ownership, but there's no doubt other places as well.
That's how the kernel and other software get's improved so rapidly. We crash our systems with the new development level code *before* release in order to debug it. Unlike 'other' software providers, we fix the problems, *then* we release it. Unlike the folks that use products from 'other' software providers, we don't run the buggy stuff on the systems that we need to keep up 24/7. We reserve certain machines just for that development and debug work. The other machines we just leave alone until there is some reason to take them down.
What's more, we don't even charge anyone any money for the stuff. Whether it is the buggy development version or the debugged and stable stuff, we give it away for free!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
>Just wait a few years until NASA, ESA, and other aerospace agencies start allowing for the launch of floating billboards.
That would be enough to make me a huge supporter of a ground-based missile defense system... Note that mylar balloons can short out high-tension lines and the like. I think the lawsuits would be immense.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
In my experience with many computers, I have had many bad experiences with Phoenix BIOS, and many good experiences with AMIBIOS (American Megatrends). The AMIBios on my 486 from 1993 has a better configuration utility than the Phoenix BIOS on my parent's P166 from '95 or '96 (I don't remember). Don't you love it when your BIOS lets Windows reconfigure your serial ports when you have told Windows not to do so, and told the bios not to be Plug'n'Pray? This is just one more way in which Phoneix BIOS will suck.
As far as their statistics, from looking at separate motherboards, I think that most of them still have AMIBIOS on them. It is the prefab machines (Dell, Micron, etc.) that tend to have Phoenix on them. As long as component mobos have a good bios like AMI, and as long as it is possible for me to build my computer from components, I will do just that, and have a superior machine for a lot less money (case in point: my most recent machine cost me $2500 to make from parts. An equivalent machine from any prefab place would have cost me at least $3500! The M$ tax does not make that big a price difference.)
-Cheetah
...I think I'll stick with my 3 year old Mac (actually Power Computing)
hardware and get that new NetBSD release to play around with.
I'm sure the world really needs *MORE* advertising.:P
I'm still pissed over the way networks destroy the end of the programs
they run with ads. I *like* watching movie/show credits and seeing the final gag.
And don't get me started on ads above Urinals!!
Time to go renew that subscription to AdBusters.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Intel motherboards already do this by
o rkstation/ms440gx/GRFXLOGO_.htm
displaying a big flashy "Motherboard made by Intel" at boot time. Not much more annoying
than the Windows splash screen really.
An of course it's editable... Intel provides the utility here:
http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/w
The minute I got one of motherboards I flashed my own logo into the PROM. It is now displayed at boot time next to the POST messages. Looks cool! The only trick is to cut down the color palette of your logo to the allowed 16 colors.
Hardly a conspiracy against your free speech rights like some people seem to believe... C'me on people, it's just a neat hack!
--Renaud
Hmm. I haven't had a computer with a Phoenix BIOS in it... well... ever. Apparently, never will.
but this one takes the cake. Who in the hell was the genius that thought this idea up? My guess is the Divx guys all got jobs there last week and needed to come up with an idea.
Sorry Phoenix, but you guys are about to crash and burn in a hard way. Award, Ami, and Mr. Bios are all on my good list now.
What a joke!
While the idea of having stupid, annoying ads pushed onto my computer provokes a kneejerk "How dare they!" response, I would welcome a simple routine to flash in a random gif (like, say, a penguin) when the computer starts up. I bet lots of corporations would like their logo, etc at startup, too.
You just know that Linux will support this in the cool way (i.e., ads disabled). Other operating systems will provide the annoy-o-pipe, and might even speed adoption of ad-less operating systems. Besides, how many times do you reboot on a given day? Zero for me.
But think...BIOS needs to die anyway. I wish my PC had the same firmware that a Real Computer did...Look at those new Intel SGIs...They have an ARC-compliant firmware, and workstations have had real consoles for some time now...It's about time I turned on my x86 box and told it to netboot...BIOS needs to DIE!
Dislaimer: I work in advertising, but don't usually feel much call to defend advertising with a little a, but sometimes with a big A I want to.
... would you really mind an ad on your odometer? I'd never thought about one going there, but if I could save $1000 on the price of a car by ocasionally finding a note from coke instead of 3 zeros (after an informative leading digit, that is!), then I'd be pleased with the deal. Would I buy more coke as a result? Well, I don't think so, but if I did the car certainly didn't force me to.
... you might even derive some satisfaction from watching certain ads, since they can be funny or otherwise pleasing.
Ads embedded in a BIOS strike me as being pretty dumb (from both end user and advertiser perspective) unless they are designed for compatibility with all operating systems and unobtrusive enough not to cause a backlash of annoyance / resentment. That translates into "pretty dumb."
But it doens't follow that ads are always dumb or bad
Advertisments can be annoying, but they are both avoidable (by varying what you choose to pay attention to, where you go, etc.) and -- often -- helpful / informative.
You've probably used advertisements to price-shop, or found out about some new product because you saw it advertised. (or perhaps found out because someone else saw the ad, etc.)
Advertisements also allow the establishment of media whose readers / viewers don't necessarily care about the advertising. I enjoy the show Ally McBeal, for instance, and tend to mute the commercials. If you read slashdot, you're benefitting from the fact that advertisers recognize slashdot's appeal. Would the nature of slashdot be different if it were sheerly a 'labor of (unpaid) love'? Maybe. But in that hypothetical world, how many of us would get to read it, and how much could Rob afford to spend on his hobby?
This doesn't mean that fraudulent ads are OK because "advertising is good" or negate claims that ads, like anything else, can foster what I'd consider negative behavior -- I'm just arguing that advertising by itself is a moral neutral, a spectrum containing bad as well as good. Most of it makes you groan, maybe -- so be it. But again, I say that's advertisements, rather than Advertising.
Cantankerously,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
apparently, nobody has thought about it... This idea doesn't sound new to me.
.xpm or something. i think one could use color files on the newer Ultras, but i might be wrong.
Ever seen a SPARC boot up? they have a neat flashy picture there that (get this!) CAN be changed. the trick is that (on older boxes anyway) the picture you use has to be a black-n-white
if an ad can be put there, it can be changed. it would be stupid to have an advert be permanent, since in today's day and age, there's no guarantee that a company will even be around next week... 8\
just my $0.02 US....
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
OpenBIOS or other could do something like this - finally putting the kernel loader where it belongs. Damn this would be sweet!!
How about addressing where the kernel actually lives? Now we can have many boot devices but they all have non-GPL BIOSes of their own.. perhaps the kernel should be stored in flash so these ungodly BIOSes can never be touched =) i.e. SCSI and IDE BIOSes are only used once these days, for booting the PC, then they go away... but if the kernel image could be available at boot-time right away...
Is there a customer feedback email for Pheonix?
I think it's time to let them all know exactly what we think of this.
(Note: I am not advocating flames here, just well-mannered mail telling them what an insulting idea this is.)
I don't know why all of these companies think they are going to make zillions of dollars in advertising. First, I'm sure that someone will find a way to quickly disable this "feature". Second, the whole computer/internet advertising model is completely flawed. I mean, how many of you actually click on ad banners? I never, ever do just as I change the channel when a commercial comes on during a tv show. Isn't the click through rate something like less than one percent and dropping? This will never work because there is no way to make money off it and if there are no profits stuff like this will disappear very quickly.
Waiting for the net bubble to burst any day now!
The Splinter Cat
Or do all you NT admins just toss things onto your production servers without testing them?
--
E_NOSIG
Here's an e-mail addresses for Phoenix. If you use Phoenix's BIOS, or intend to in the future, sending them a polite and thoughtful message expressing your feelings is a probably a good idea. However, I wouldn't bother e-mailing them if you have no intention of ever buying their products.
Anyways here an email contact for the company that they listed on this web page:
Toni Goodrich
Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
toni_goodrich@phoenix.com
Why leave your computer on 24 hours at home?
Just turn your monitor off. Do it! It's science damn it!
This seems to me like a disturbing thing. If all it does is show pictures, that's not too big a deal. The Intel motherboard in this PC defaults to showing an Intel Ad at bootup (you can turn that off and see the 'normal' bootup sequence instead) but it doesn't get in the way of things.
However, once you have the idea that Ads or other content can be sold into the BIOS, how long will it be before Microsoft comes along and buys the right to put code in there to refuse to boot the machine if certain criteria aren't met.
That would be a perfect gun to hold to users' heads to make them pay a yearly subscription and to prevent other OSes from gaining any place in the market.
Sure, this is a pretty paranoid thing, but if it occurs to little old me, why shouldn't a multi-billion dollar corporation have had the same idea?
In fact, what's to say they don't write their own BIOS (okay, that's a BIG undertaking but they could do it) and couple it with Windows fees to leverage it into the marketplace? Use their BIOS and get $20 off your Windows license. Then, they could do exactly as they please.
Graham
Graham
I'm not paying $70 for /. either......
Slashdot is a free service that we pay nothing for. They have good reason to put ads on the top of the page, it takes money to run a site (cost of server, electricity to run server, compensate webmasters for their hard work etc).
However, in the case of a motherboard.... When I pay 50-150$ for a motherboard, I don't want it blasting crap advertising at me durring boot so the mfg can make even more money off me. There is a difference, and I don't think anyone is being hypocritical.
The goal of a BIOS is to get the damn computer booted and get out of the way as soon as possible. The goal of Phoenix and any other BIOS maker should be to streamline the "boot process" until it is no longer noticeable as a separate process at all. Now their incentive is to do exactly the opposite and make the boot take as long as people will stand, to maximize ad revenue. In my book, that will be a big strike against the Phoenix BIOS in any future PC purchase I make.
I think it could be an amusing feature if it can be hacked. I could customise my boot up screen. The big fear is if it is some dumb AOhell ad and you get stuck with it for the life of the machine even if AOhell (dream) go bust. I know that unless I am sure I could change it I would not have one for free.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
If you hate ads, especially banner ads, try webwasher, it ain't perfect, but it's free and it sure helps.
http://www.siemens.de/servers/wwash/wwash_us.htm
This and 'The Bat' (email client) are the only two bits of windoze S/W I've ever really wished I could get on HPUX..
On another tack, it's easy to change names in the UK, I wonder if I could get paid (per day) to changed my name to 'Eat at MacDonalds', think about it... there are a lot of 'hits' for a name, and admen like 'hits'.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Anyone boot up a Toshiba laptop lately? You get a quick splash screen stating "Toshiba In Touch With Tomorrow" Similarly, with IBM PC's - when you boot, you get a nice shiny IBM big blue logo. On your basic home PC - this is there as well. Gateway 2K has had little graphical pictures on boot for quite some time now, reminding you of where you bought your PC from. Even generic motherboards have advertised "Energy Star" compliance since 386 systems first came out.
It's the same concept, but now you'll get ads for Yahoo, Ebay, and wheredoyouwanttogotoday when your PC boots. Frankly, I don't really care - I don't watch the PC boot up much.. I fire it up, then go do something else while it gets happy. Most often I just let it run as well.
I'm curious to know, however - is this a permanent ad, or does it need to connect someplace once in a while to update the ads? That.. or do they send new PC users a floppy disk once in a while for a new round of ads? Should be interesting to see where this one goes...
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
Why don't they do something useful like put the equivalent of LILO in the bios? That will make multiboot very easy!
They may have calculated that if they lose sales that the adspace they sell could make up for the difference .
If they charge enough they could even show a healthy profit in the light of a strong backlash .
If they stick it out long enough they almost certainly will be OK as people get used to it and the backlash dies down .
What I want to know is how do I determine if the motherboard that I am buying has this technology in it . Can I do so easily or is this sort of thing just going to work it's way into my computer no matter what I do ?
Or do all you NT admins just toss things onto your production servers without testing them?
You mean there's another way to test?
Compile, link, ship. That's the Microsoft way.
--
E_NOSIG
I thought I would miss The Simpsons and The X-files, but I don't. I thought, because I didn't have a TV, I would spend more time on the computer. But it didn't work out that way. Instead I go around to the shops and feed geese by the river. I sleep over at my parents when there's something I want to watch.
Keeping on topic, I have an old copy of Funny Times with the Tom Tomorrow cartoon in there that a previous poster referred to, the mylar balloon idea. Like the last panel of the toon says, "If they could, advertisers would beam their message right into our brains".
We consider a computer tho to be more personal. Unlike a TV, it holds our lives and expressions of ourselves. It's the same concept as bars that put ads on the back door of washrooms. While I'm there piddling, I don't appreciate a big perfume ad staring me in the face!
animated gifs and all...
...great for getting your neighbor's door kicked in and having him hauled off as a peedofile...
i for one would not mind wiping on bill's face, as long as he did not run with colour...
;-)
I hope THEY don't start advertising.....how would you like to start you vmware session under Linux just so you can play [Starcraft | Warcraft | SimCity | etcetera] and see an add for [Windows | AOL | Yahoo! | etcetera}?
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
Posted by Forlife:
...
Oohh...Joy..more brain washing..my fav..
Im a company will get rich making a program to kill these ads so itz really not as bad as you think...it still soundz horrendous that a manufactor would even consider it
Its not that the ads themselves are bad, but the fact that you must pay to see them that sucks. Previously having ads meant you got something from it, like network TV, or sites like Slashdot. This is part of a disturbing trend... Juno Internet (yeah I know, but its for my gf's mom okay!) makes you pay the standard $20/mo and still makes you see ads. I think AOL does it too!
So I buy a machine Q4 99 which boots up and gives me a website pointer or an ad for Newer Coke or something.
So by Q4 2005, this machine is my mail server and I boot up and the web site hasn't existed for 3 years and newer coke fizzled in Q1 2000.
Sigh. Anyone else see a problem?
This is part of the reason why books and CDs and things like that don't contain ads on them. Ads are far too temporal based.
Yet another reason to NEVER reboot your computer. :)
That's what the headline of the ZDNET news article implies, but after reading between all the marketing-speak in the "ebetween" press release, I think we may have all jumped to the wrong conclusion.
The press release doesn't talk about bootup ads at all. Instead it touts how this will allow ISP's to "virtually" bundle their signup kits with new PC's without entering into any agreements with Microsoft. This could be done by treating the extra BIOS ROM space as a small ROM disk containing a few programs that bootstrap connections to online services. The BIOS would present this device to Windows, which would mount it, and voila, there's your "bundled" Snap/Excite/Lycos/etc. Since all of this happens after boot, rather than during boot, Phoenix has no incentive to slow down the boot process, which was my earlier objection. Also, it seems no more intrusive than getting software preloaded onto your hard disk, assuming that there's an option to ignore it.
If what they're really doing is just putting a lot of marketing spin on a ROM disk, then Phoenix/ebetween needs to get out a clarification in technical, not marketing, terms, before every technophile writes them off.
No I do not watch TV. However look at the bright side with Linux you only have to reboot every month or better, not every day as with Windoze. Another good reason to use Linux.
Help fight continental drift.
As others have pointed out, the BIOS screen lasts a relatively brief period of time, and then you never get to look at the ad. So, what piece of equipment do you look at all the time that doesn't currently have ads on it? Oh yeah, that's right, monitor ads. What's better is every six minutes a new ad appears, lasts ten seconds, then goes back to the original screen; or perhaps just a smallish square in a corner. And if you don't connect to the Internet and download new ads, it'll just shut off. Yeah, that'll teach those goofy kids that try to get around it.
I have already seen this basic idea. A friend of mine purchased a Compaq desktop- don't remember what model. When you turn it on, it doesn't show you a RAM test or offer to let you run SETUP. Instead, it just goes into a big, red,
COMPAQ splash screen, then boots Windows. It will not boot off of floppy either, only off the included "restore CD". We wanted to put 95b on it instead of 98, do a complete, clean, reinstall... I could burn a bootable CD maybe for it, but it isn't really worth the hassle.
So is this box Windows-only? Theoretically, no, it could boot off a custom CD- but practically it is. If he ever wants to put in, say, a Riva video card and needs to change the BIOS settings to make it work.... it won't happen. Makes any sort of modification kind of risky. So the BIOS makes it impossible to
1) set up new hardware safely
2) boot up off of floppy and easily change OS
3) avoid seeing that STUPID SPLASH SCREEN!
All it needs is an AOL ad instead, and it's already here. Brand name computers suck. If Phoenix thinks anybody is going to use that BIOS in a custom box, they're smoking crack.
Don't know about your machines, but the IBMs we have at work have the option to turn off the logo on boot, or (even more fun!) replace it with a user-defined graphic. It's a nifty neat feature in the flash update program.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
As we approach Zero-Costed PC, the companies need to have some way to recoup R&D cost. BIOS companies need to do the same thing. There ain't no free lunch, you know.
The first decision made concerning the pre-boot screens was that the end-user can disable the feature. Don't like it? Turn it off. You've seen it once. Of course on my machine I only need to reboot about once every three or four kernel releases...
I was setting up an NT server today; problems were such that I think I must've rebooted it 40 or 50 times. Those crappy Phoenix BIOS' ALREADY take years to boot (give me Award any day), I can't imagine what this would be like with ads. Working on winblows machines frequently, this would just kill me.
As it was I was zoned out in a puddle of drool after just 40 reboots. With ads I think I'd have gone postal.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Before you jump on the "let's all email Phoenix and give 'em hell" bandwagon, here are a few facts. The BIOS license for a single motherboard is less than a dollar; the "I won't buy your product" approach is unlikely to impress. Phoenix ships about 70 million units a year; so "I'll tell my friends not to buy" is in the same boat. Today, based on the announcement, shares of Phoenix stock rose over 40%; it looks like the people with money are the ones who will be listened to. The projected revenue of the project is 10 to 15 million dollars in the first year; maybe they'll give it all up to satisfy a few hotheads that don't even know what they're upset about.
I don't mind paying for a product that I actually want. I'm sick of television being filled with the lowest common denominator CRAP that is designed to appeal to the lowest instincts possible. Just to convince me to buy crappy beer like Budweiser which is closer to piss than an actual beer, or to use Dove dishwashing liquid.
Advertisement and "Public Relations" in general is nothing more than an organized and legal way to deceive the general public. For 40 years PR and advertisement denied connections between cigarette smoking an cancer, good for your side. Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee didn't do too much for the industry either, especially when their research into propaganda was manipulated by Hitler's government, I just feel ever so swell knowing that these are the people behind a diet coke commercial and mass propaganda broadcast through cheap German radio's subsidized by the government.
I know a little bit about the PR industry, I wonder if you do? GE to this day dumps toxic waste into the Hudson river in Schenectady NY and thanks to their crack PR, they get away with it to this day, as long as they pay the fine for poising the river, which happens to be cheaper than disposing of it safely. I have to hand it off to Ivy, the brilliance of tying cigarette smoking and the women's movement together to make it socially acceptable is still a feat that hasn't been matched to this day.
Advertisements encourage you to buy a product not because it is a good product, a better product, or because you need it, but because the advertisement itself is based on Skinner Behaviorism and a bunch of correlation studies. What a way to improve the world! Bang up job there. Advertisement is a yoke on society, fueling unneeded consumption and false information, what can be good about that? To make matters worse, we are now dependant on it so that if consumption falls the economy will collapse - yippee.
Advertisement used to be about demonstrating which product was the better product, now it's anything to get the consumer to buy the product. Advertisement isn't free, we pay for it every time we buy a product that does advertise. But all of us are now forced to advertise just to compete, so it's just another tax. And PR puts in their two cents claiming that the green house effect is a liberal plot or that lead in gasoline really ISN'T bad for you, and I still have to pay for it. It's insulting, but as long as the average dope on the street believes your company is 'green' or 'cool' or whatever, it pays off - for the owners, not to consumers.
And that's how I feel about propaganda, oops, I mean advertisement. Still, I really can't complain, as everybody else attempts to keep up with the non-existent Jones', I'm planning to retire early. A materialistic society is the best society for a non-materialist to live in. I save more than 1/2 of my paycheck per year because I'm one of those 1 percenters that doesn't give a fuck what a advertising executive wants me to do. And that includes my mother, who is an advertising executive.
Programs to hack the EPA logo in your BIOS have been around for a while. Check out the following:
For DOS:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Chip/4378/
For Linux:
http://geggus.net/sven/linux-bootlogo.html
And yes, that last one even has a .BMP that will allow you to see Tux every time you boot :)