Hi!

quoted

Its a sad fact though that we are (x86 anyway) dependant on some
amazingly fragile, stupid, usually binary only, legacy bloated, and
quite often buggy, 16-bit realmode video init code that should have
been put to pasture many years ago. 

Actually there is nothing wrong with the x86 BIOS from the perspective of 
functionality and useability (or bloat for that matter). It contains all 
the functionality we need and armed with something like the x86 emulator 
we can use it for what we need on any platform.

Open Firmware may be a 'nicer' solution, but I guarantee that if the 
vendors started supporting that it would be just a bug ridden as any 16-
bit real mode BIOS code. For the Video BIOS the code always works for 
what it is tested for. Some vendors spend more time testing the VBE BIOS 
side of things fully (if they are smart they have licensed our VBETest 
tools for this purpose). Unfortunatley some vendors do not test this 
stuff thoroughly and it has problems. But the same testing issues would 
exist whether the firmware was written as a 16-bit x86 blob or as an Open 
Firmware blob.

Actually that 16-bit x86 blob can access any PC hardware, and that's
where the stuff gets hard.
								Pavel
-- 
People were complaining that M$ turns users into beta-testers...
...jr ghea gurz vagb qrirybcref, naq gurl frrz gb yvxr vg gung jnl!