Joe Marshall  <jrm@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
+---------------
| rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
| > Modern hardware is *complex*! (...unless you're going to restrict
| > yourself to 80x86 "real mode" and a serial port for I/O.)
| > [1] If you're planning on running on any fairly recent Intel-based
| >     platforms (e.g., any current laptop), you may *have* to look at
| >     somebody's ACPI implementation [such as the Intel reference code],
| >     or you might never be able to get the machine to boot at all!!
| 
| If you are willing to restrict yourself to BIOS functions, there
| should be no problem getting the machine to boot and run in 16 bit
| mode with 640 K.
+---------------

Yeah, right. (As if that's enough these days...)

But seriously, the rush to ACPI-only BIOSes is accelerating -- my new
laptop doesn't even *have* any APM BIOS functions, so without ACPI
enabled[1] I couldn't adjust the display brightness, or get the PCMCIA
slot to work, or several oter (to me) essentials. Fortunately Intel
open-sourced a reference implementation[2] that all the BSDs and Linux
use, else we'd all be SOL, but I'd hate to have to recode all that C
code in Lisp just to get a functional base platform for a "Lisp OS".


-Rob

[1] I run FreeBSD 4.9 on my H-P ze4560, and had to fix a couple of
    small bugs in the ACPI code before I could boot it with ACPI
    enabled without crashing with a kernel panic.

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607