> 
> At 11:15 AM 12/17/95, John D. Smerdon wrote:
> >I haven't been following all of the native boot discussions, but what I
> >remember was...
> >
> >Sector zero of any disk is the boot block.  I think if the boot block
> >version number is setup correctly, execution will start at offset $8x in
> >sector zero and can do anything that we want.  This is before the "Welcome
> >To Macintosh" is displayed, and before the Finder or the System files are
> >opened.  The boot block is 12 or 16 sectors long.
> >
> >See Inside Macintosh - Operating System Utilities - Start Manager - Page
> >9-6 for more information.
> 
> So your saying that if we replace the booting code that the mac uses, with
> a booter, and made a small parition (either a floppy or a 2 mb HFS) to boot
> from, it'd be similar to booting a mac now?

No! See my other post. If we replace the boot code, we don't get MacOS.
We don't need an HFS partition. We don't get a filing system. We
don't get windowing systems (so the booter would have to be re-written
and lots of user interface overhead added). We get to do it all ourselves.

If we're willing to make a small partition, let's just stick MacOS (minimal)
on it & stick the booter in the Startup Items folder.

> Remember, the folks who made the mac built AUX to only boot the way we do
> right now - they didn't even mess around with the boot sectors...

They were Apple Engineers. They knew what a mess things were! :-)

> I don't got any IM books, so someone else wanna lookup and confirm how to
> do this?  I'm willing to try working on this, just need the info...  Unless
> there is something else more pressing that needs to be done....

I'd vote for either getting SONIC ethernet cards to work (they plug
into older macs and are soldered onto the Q700's), or getting
the SCSI to work on the Q700. Or getting the slot manager worked into
mrg so we can call the drivers on video cards and thus run color X!

Take care,

Bill