Modularity

[Ed Brinker]

I realized just after sending the last message that the problem of loadable
vs. nonloadable is not so difficult.

Just define each BIOS module with a series of attributes

module=(attribute1,attribute2,.....)

module would be hard drive, terminal, ....

attribute 1 would be none, generic or type

attribute 2 would be fixed or loadable



defining the hard drive as

hard drive=(generic,fixed) would tell the BIOS maker to use the one size
fits all BIOS hard drive driver and it would be placed in the ROM.

hard drive=(none,fixed) means that no hard drive is present  No driver will
ever be required.

hard drive=(none,loadable) means do not put a HD driver in the PROM but
reserve space for one in shadow ram.  It may be loaded later

hard drive=(Promise4030,fixed) means to put a Promise 4030 unique driver
into the ROM and it will not be replaced at run time.

other attributes would indicate special conditions or executions such as
POST (power on self test)

ie.

video=(generic,fixed,post=generic)

or 

video=(trident9680,fixed,post=none)

Other parameters could be defined such as terminal=  where terminal would
be the system control device (not the display terminal)

For example

terminal=(com1,com1) would mean that a serial device is connected to com
port 1 and that will be used as the primary input/output device.

terminal=(keyboard,vidio) would generate the customary PC interface.