intel-based macs

[Guy Fraser]

On Wed, 2006-18-01 at 20:22 -0500, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 05:58:46PM -0700, Stephen J. Smoogen wrote:
> > >From what I know of Ron Minnich, he is most likely correct that it is
> > possible. Now will anyone create a 16MB flash bios that doesnt cost as
> > much as 32 GB of ram?
> 
> I'm sure their accountants love the idea of selling more flash forcibly
> that way
> 
16MB flash sticks have been around for years. All most all of our 
Cisco routers and switches have at least one 16 MB Flash SIMM.
The reason they are usually expensive is that they come with Cisco
Firmware. We just threw out 4 Cisco 5248's because we couldn't get 
anyone to buy them on ebay. I yoinked the 8 16MB sticks of Flash and 
all the RAM before tossing them in recycle bin.

The more the demand, and competition for flash the prices will come 
down, then better, faster higher density products will come available.
With any luck the same SIMM standard used by Cisco and some other
router vendors will be adopted, since the products are readily 
available and have solid records of reliability. Like many Cisco 
products there are usually more than one SIMM slot for flash, but 
one is for the "signed" BIOS and the others are for additional 
storage. For instance you can't replace the "signed" BIOS stick 
with anything other than one signed for that product, the 
bootstrap loader will reject the code. There could be 
significant advantages to increasing the amount of Flash, just 
for a couple examples ; Non platform specific drivers could be stored 
on the flash, or using encryption secure keys and settings could 
be stored so for instance the biometric data of the users allowed 
to access the machine could be stored to verify authorized users 
by finger/thumb print or other means using a device attached to 
that machine.

As for the cost for the actual BIOS code, I have no idea what it 
costs. Boards that include the BIOS and free updates, cost 
as little as $60 Canadian, so I can't see the actual BIOS code
costing a lot of money per item, at this time. If BIOS developers 
start to make significantly more advanced BIOS products then BIOS 
prices will likely rise somewhat.