Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!killer!igloo!jjw
From: jjw@igloo.Scum.COM (John Welch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Microport device drivers use BIOS???!?
Message-ID: <1346@igloo.Scum.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 89 23:16:21 GMT
Reply-To: jjw@igloo.UUCP (John Welch)
Organization: igloo, Northbrook, IL
Lines: 24


	Some time ago, Igloo ran on an old 286 with Phoenix BIOS. Microport
had trouble accessing the floppy drive on this system, and DOS likewise had
problems. When we substituted a different rev of Phoenix BIOS, the problems
went away for both DOS and Microport.
	Now igloo is on another machine, this time with AMI BIOS. Same trouble
with the floppies, under both DOS and UNIX. We are hoping to try a BIOS swap
to get rid of this trouble.
	My question is - I thought that BIOS was real-mode code, and not
re-entrant, and all of those bad things that scre UNIX up. If that's the
case, what explains the problems going away for both DOS *and* UNIX if
the BIOS ONLY was changed??? Seems to me that Microport, in some way or
another, is running BIOS to do disk i/o. They could be running it under
protected mode, or they could be dropping back into real mode to do this.
Either way, it seems kind of funny, and if they are dropping into real
mode to do this that could explain character loss and other strange disk
behavior.
	Any ideas, world?

-- 
==========================================================================
  John Welch                                <backbone>!killer!jjw@igloo
 "Oh, reality - it's not for me, and it makes me laugh;
  but fantasy world, and those Disney girls... I'm coming back!"