Open Firmware Forth Code may be compiled into FCode, a bytecode which is independent of computer architecture details such as the instruction set and memory hierarchy. A PCI card may include a program, compiled to FCode, which runs on any Open Firmware system. In this way, it can provide platform-independent boot-time diagnostics, configuration code, and device drivers. FCode is also very compact, so that a disk driver may require only one or two kilobytes. Therefore, many of the same I/O cards can be used on Sun systems and Macintoshes that used Open Firmware. FCode implements ANS Forth and a subset of the Open Firmware library.
That same Open Firmware Forth system [1], which was developed by Mitch Bradley [2], was not only in the PowerPC Mac bios, but it was originally used for the SparcStation boot roms, and eventually in the OLPC, and it was even an IEEE Standard 1275-1994!
In fact: the Open Firmware boot loader and plug-in card firmware interface technology, commonly used by both Sun and Apple, is the only firmware standard in existence to have its own theme song [3] !!!
: OpenFirmwareSong ( - )
\ By Mitch Bradley.
\ Sung to the tune of "The Flintstones".
𝄞
." Firmware" cr
." Open Firmware" cr
." It's the appropriate technology," cr
." Features" cr
." FCode booting" cr
." Hierarchical DevInfo tree." cr
." Hack Forth" cr
." Using Emacs on the keys," cr
." Save in" cr
." NVRAM if you please." cr
𝄒 cr
." With your" cr
." Open Firmware" cr
." You can fix the bugs in no time" cr
." Bring the kernel up in no time" cr
." We'll have an FCode time!" cr
𝄒 cr
\ Thank you and good night!
reboot
;
https://web.archive.org/web/20070204145613/http://playground...
https://github.com/MitchBradley/openfirmware
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867724
OpenFirmware uses architecture independent FORTH byte code, so peripheral cards can include machine independent drivers and diagnostics!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
Open Firmware Forth Code may be compiled into FCode, a bytecode which is independent of computer architecture details such as the instruction set and memory hierarchy. A PCI card may include a program, compiled to FCode, which runs on any Open Firmware system. In this way, it can provide platform-independent boot-time diagnostics, configuration code, and device drivers. FCode is also very compact, so that a disk driver may require only one or two kilobytes. Therefore, many of the same I/O cards can be used on Sun systems and Macintoshes that used Open Firmware. FCode implements ANS Forth and a subset of the Open Firmware library.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9844026
That same Open Firmware Forth system [1], which was developed by Mitch Bradley [2], was not only in the PowerPC Mac bios, but it was originally used for the SparcStation boot roms, and eventually in the OLPC, and it was even an IEEE Standard 1275-1994!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Bradley
In fact: the Open Firmware boot loader and plug-in card firmware interface technology, commonly used by both Sun and Apple, is the only firmware standard in existence to have its own theme song [3] !!!
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20070204145613/http://playground...