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What is Open Firmware, and why do I care?

April 26, 2017firmware

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What is Open Firmware, and why do I care?

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Briefly, it is a command environment using the FORTH language which the NetBSD kernel uses to gether information about your system, and to control some of your devices. It is part of the boot ROMs in most PowerPC-based Macintosh systems, and we use it to load the kernel from disk or network. Open Firmware, as specified by “IEEE Std 1275-1994: IEEE Standard for Boot Firmware (Initialization Configuration) Firmware: Core Requirements and Practices” and its supplements, is a platform-independent boot firmware. It is based on Sun’s OpenBoot firmware, and uses ANS Forth as a processor-independent interface language. You can find more about Open Firmware at the Open Firmware Working Group home page or at the Apple Computer Open Firmware Home Page. Also, Apple has some nice Technical Notes available, such as 1061.