Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!iscuva!jimc
From: jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Why do Macs have ROMs?
Keywords: Macs, ROMs
Message-ID: <1698@iscuva.ISCS.COM>
Date: 1 Jul 88 19:13:44 GMT
References: <453@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA
Lines: 19

In article <453@etive.ed.ac.uk> nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes:
>I hope this isn't a silly question - it isn't supposed to be. But, I admit to
>being a newcomer to the Mac world, so perhaps this is obvious. So: Why do
>Macs have ROMs?

Clone-proofing is the chief reason.  The ROM image is copyrighted, and writing
a functionally equivalent version of what's in the Mac ROMs is much harder 
than rewriting from scratch an IBM PC's BIOS.  Of course, floppy-only Macs
are saved a fair chunk of disk space by whatever's in ROM (whatever's not
broken, that is).

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