Hi,

> Now, to answer Brian's question in the short form: the Powerpc REverence
> Platform was supposed to be a vendor-neutral architecture where you could
> have run-once, run anywhere OSes for PowerPC. It didn't work. The Common
> Hardware Reference Platform at least patched some of the hardware problems and
> introduced OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware is definitely one of the best
> hardware/bootware ideas around right now. Makes you wish Intel would
> force a move to it for the Merced chipsets...

Some minor nitpicking:

CHRP didn't introduce OpenFirmware.

Actually, OpenFirmware is based on Openboot, the firmware used by Sun for
its Sparc machines.  I'm sure you know that.  So I think that the
"introduced" above is in reference to the requirement to have this type
of firmware in a compliant box.

However, even keeping this in mind, the statement isn't correct.  The
PReP specification has this requirement, too.  To be precise, PReP allowed
for some other firmware for early implementations, but all PReP compliant
machines after June 1, 1995, were required to have OpenFirmware, too
(see the PReP specification, chapter 5.0).

So technically, some of those PReP machines you mentioned aren't compliant
with the spec, since I think they were still sold after that date.

And I consent 100% to your statement about the nicety of OpenFirmware :-).

Ciao,
Wolfgang
-- 
ws@TooLs.DE     (Wolfgang Solfrank, TooLs GmbH) 	+49-228-985800