In message <199903250638.PAA03093@axp46.aist-nara.ac.jp> Toru Nishimura writes:
: The 'ARCS BIOS' (I name it because its magic numbers are 'ARCS' or
: 'SCRA') seems to have some interesting features.  Noriyuki Soda once
: pointed out the 'ROM monitor' might be a derivative from SGI design
: then hacked by unmentionalble company's programmers.  It's weird and
: cumbersome we have no concrete information whether the 'ARC chipset
: boxes' can do TFTPBOOT just like as some of modern generation of SGI's
: *ARCS PROM* IP?? boxes.  I can remember here MIPS Co. R3000 'Magnum'
: had a way to boot itself via TFTPBOOT, then why can not the 'ARC
: chipset's do that after all? 

Some ARC BIOS implementations will allow one to do TFTP/TFTP boot.
However, some will not.  The rPC44 will not (at least it doesn't
recognize any ethernet card that I plug in).  However the rPC44's bios
appears to be largely written by Deskstation.

: Another notable point is, 'ARCS BIOS' seems to provide ways for
: operating system to identify hardware configuration in detail much
: like OpenPROM/OpenFirmware do.  Configuration is supposed to be
: organized in tree like structure.  If ARCS BIOS hardware inventory is
: well designed and well maintained to reflect hardware interconnects
: inside, NetBSD/arc might be able to utilize the information during
: configure() process.  I have a plan to make whacked command line
: monitor to dig out if ARCS BIOS itself has no command line mode,
: making myself trained as disappointment-proof. 

Yes.  In my bios I can cruise around this tree.  There isn't a command
line for this stuff, at least that's the impression that I've always
had.  You may want to check out the Linux MILO, which has a lot of the
leg work done for you.  It is good for experimentation, but not good
for inclusion in NetBSD due to its GPL'd status.  I think you can get
it from ftp://lena.fnet.fr/, but I'm not sure.

The FreeBSD folks are also writing a ARC BIOS boot loader.  I'm
working on the mips one in my spare time.  That might be a good thing
to investigate.  It isn't committed to the tree yet, so I'm not sure
what its availability is.

Warner