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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!gatech!mcnc!philabs!tg!scott
From: scott@tg.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Hardware Dependance
Message-ID: <127@tg.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Feb-87 15:42:48 EST
Article-I.D.: tg.127
Posted: Sat Feb 14 15:42:48 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 05:57:29 EST
References: <275@ihnp3.UUCP> <459@moncol.UUCP> <2529@well.UUCP> <228@inuxf.UUCP> <4114@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: scott@tg.UUCP (Scott Barman)
Organization: [Consultant]
Lines: 21
Summary: How is ROM non-reentrant?

In article <4114@utcsri.UUCP> moraes@utcsri.UUCP (Mark A. Moraes) writes:
>I suspect the main reason BIOS was not used is that it is
>not re-entrant - at least 2.0 is not. That promptly makes
>serious UNIX stuff impossible, or at least darn dificult!
>It is probably much cleaner to start at the lowest level .
>
>Mark Moraes.

This is something I was wondering about since it was mentioned a couple
of weeks ago.  How is the BIOS not re-entrant?  I could understand the
argument against using the ROM because it is slow, or that in a it will
not function correctly multi-user environment because it will not
interleave requests, or even better use of the hardware can be gained
without the BIOS.  But, without actually seeing the BIOS code, I can't
see how it is not re-entrant.

I think just an email note explaining is appropriate unless there are
alot of people interested in this.

Scott Barman
{philabs, pyrnj}!tg!scott