[LispM-Hackers] Loaded ersatz ucode and N928.LOAD on x86

[John Morrison]

Hi All;

Just a quick note to let you know I hacked up the NBI file utility
("mke3nbi" for "make e3 NBI file") so that it read the asm/C++ binary,
and tacked on the N928.LOAD load band (all 33MB of it).  I then
successfully loaded the NBI file over the Ethernet, and they both
were loaded to different spots in PC memory.

For the terminally curious, the ucode is loaded at 0x11000 (underneath
the frame buffers in real-mode-accessible RAM so we can jump to it in
real mode and then enable protected mode.  The load band I just stuck
starting at 0x100000/1MB.  I can and probably should put it in high
memory (there is a way to tell Etherboot to stick the bits at an
offset with respect to the end of physical memory, whatever that
happens to be at runtime).

\begin{excited-babbling}

Do you realize how convenient we could make installing/running e3, in
stark contrast to installing Windows, Linux, or anything else?

People would be able to:

(1) go to www.rom-o-matic.com, and burn an Etherboot floppy in about
30 seconds, 

(2) go to unlambda.com (or wherever) and download a 10-11MB gz file of
the NBI-format ucode+loadband (that's how small our 33MB NBI file
compressed to)

(3) simply stick the uncompressed NBI in /tftpboot on a willing
TFTP/DHCP server

(4) Put in the floppy and hit the reset switch.

No partitioning.  No formatting.  No dual-boot nastiness (I should
know -- I just ran into all sorts of misery trying to get GRUB to
understand my 2-disk system).

FYI, it only took about EIGHT SECONDS to load the NBI image over the
100Mbit/sec LAN.  It took much longer than that for my ancient,
wheezing 200MHz machine to pass its BIOS POST checks.

\end{excited-babbling}

Seriously, though, this could be pretty cool.  I have to think there
is real potential for educational institutions to retask those
roomfulls of hard-to-manage diskful Windows and Linux PCs to being
diskless LispMs.  It would be so incredibly easy if we did even a
halfway-decent job.  (FYI, it is a pet peeve of mine that Lisp is not
more widely taught in CS courses, and that therefore these graduates
aren't as clued-in to what the Real Big Programming Issues are.)

-jm (giving up for the night)

-- 
==== John Morrison
==== MAK Technologies Inc.
==== 185 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA 02138
==== http://www.mak.com/
==== vox:617-876-8085 x115
==== fax:617-876-9208
==== jm@mak.com