Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!dalcs!lane
From: lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Anybody seen a ROM-based SETUP pgm for ATs
Message-ID: <2790@dalcs.UUCP>
Date: 20 Feb 88 15:00:36 GMT
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Lines: 26

A dramatization:
So there I am in the field with my super-duper hi-power AT clone portable.
The system hangs and my EPROM chip gets wiped (which does happen occasionally).
When I try to re-boot the system demands I run the SETUP program which of
course means I must re-boot from floppy and run the SETUP program.  Do you
think I had the foresight to bring along a bootable disk with SETUP.  Of
course not, not with everything I could ever possibly need on my hard disk,
... presently locked in a now-useless hunk of plastic and electronics!

Seriously, this has happened to people I know and It struck me as really dumb
not to have this facility written into the BIOS, much like the disk format
utility in the XT disk controller ROMs, and to have it automatically 
invoked when the machine sensed it's EPROM was clobbered, or maybe be
Alt-Del-SysReq or somesuch.

So I wonder if anybody makes such  product, a plug-in ROM chip with the
goodies right on it.  In fact does anybody make any ROM-based software
for XT/AT's besides BIOSes and those supplied with XT disk controllers?

John Wright

-- 
John Wright      //////////////////      Phone:  902-424-3805  or  902-424-6527
Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA  B3H-4H8 
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