At 7:46 AM -0700 6/9/98, SUNAGAWA Keiki wrote:
>Henry> Seems to me like you would either use the fake
>Henry> System/Finder, or the fake MacsBug, but not both.
>
>Do you mean Mac's ROM attempt to read fake MacsBug and to
>execute it?  If so, it'd be easy to implement boot block.

MacsBug has a special place in the booting sequence, before
the Extensions.  Can't say any more.

>Henry> Someone did a booter extension, perhaps they have
>Henry> some experience to share?
>
>I'd tried it personally and know it works well but there's
>some problems.
>
>Booter extension still needs Apple's system software.  I
>think it'd be better that we are independent of them and
>become licence-free.

I can see some advantage to avoiding licensing issues.  I
think the fake Finder is an easier approach to understand
than a fake MacsBug.

Don't know about anyone else, but I *like* being able to
boot a machine either MacOS or MacBSD.  Having MacBSD live
on Apple-partitioned disks is a feature, not a bug, so
having a mini-HFS partition to support ROM booting doesn't
seem like a problem to me.

>Since Hauke Fath made available floppy drive in NetBSD
>(Cool!), it's not impossible to make self-contained native
>NetBSD boot floppy.
>
>I believe it's worth to do.

I never worried about it much since you can already make
a floppy with a minimum system and the booter.  I can see
the argument though, since then you could do an install
floppy for MacBSD.  That would be neat.

Signature failed Preliminary Design Review.
Feasibility of a new signature is currently being evaluated.
h.b.hotz@jpl.nasa.gov, or hbhotz@oxy.edu