CodeGen is looking at supporting a 64-bit native version of SmartFirmware
on the Hammers. You would be able to directly boot a long-mode x86-64
O/S from either flash, disk or the network, without any intervening
boot loaders. Certainly not the current mess of boot into 16-bit real
load the 512-byte L1 boot loader, load the L2 boot loader, switch to
32-bit protected/flat-mode, load the L3 bot loader, load the O/S, or
variations thereof, that are currently done. The O/S would then
be able to use the client interface to query every attribute of
the system just like Sparcs and PowerMacs.
CodeGen is looking at supporting a 64-bit native version of SmartFirmware
on the Hammers. You would be able to directly boot a long-mode x86-64
O/S from either flash, disk or the network, without any intervening
boot loaders. Certainly not the current mess of boot into 16-bit real
load the 512-byte L1 boot loader, load the L2 boot loader, switch to
32-bit protected/flat-mode, load the L3 bot loader, load the O/S, or
variations thereof, that are currently done. The O/S would then
be able to use the client interface to query every attribute of
the system just like Sparcs and PowerMacs.
How much support would there be for this project?