boot rom
boot rom
(OP)
Hi I was just wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to make a pc boot from a bootable rom. I am planning on using the motherboard in a small robot and would prefer to not have the added power drain of a seperate harddrive. I was hoping to use MS-DOS or some variation there of (i.e. 4DOS, FreeDOS,etc.) What would I need to do to make the mobo read the rom? What kind of (ee)prom whold be best for this idea? I have had a fair amout of experience using various PICs and other types of roms before. Any help would be greatly apreciated! Thank you!





RE: boot rom
RE: boot rom
http://www.web-tronics.com/oemprojsinbo.html
TTFN
RE: boot rom
<www.jkmicro.com>'s $69 -- Both are PC compatible.
<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>
RE: boot rom
The only problem I have with the single board/ chip computers are the lack of expantion ports. Most of my programming knowledge had to do with working with ISA slots and thing like the serial/parallel ports in DOS. But I now have a few great ideas to think about.
Thank you again and any more advice will still be appreciated!
RE: boot rom
both modules have direct access to some 8 bit ports: let's call them A=addr and D=data. Both A and D are addresses
between 0x0000 and 0xFFFF depending on where you map them.
In C:
outbyte(A, address) /*an address 0 to 255 used to select I/O channel */
outbyte(D,databyt) /* output byte OR for input: */
ivar=inbyte(D)
That is all.
<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>
RE: boot rom
With the minimized PC board on your robot, use your system bios to boot up to your rom extension. Within your rom extension, run a routine that will configure a comm port (IR might be the ticket), load a block of code, then execute it. Your transmitting computer will house your code, provide development tools etc. Approach it so that the code loaded into the mobo, once acceptable in performance, will be burned to rom and reside as a rom boot extension. The thing I like about this approach is that minimal programming is required to bring your mobo to attention, and you have all the flexibility of software development. If you look back to a PCxt, you'll see that rom extension socket sitting there waiting to be used. Using an eeprom is easy and can be programmed on a breadboard.