> the idea of rich pre-OS applications just seems completely backwards. is at odds with: > let me select which disk partition to boot from As soon as there's

> the idea of rich pre-OS applications just seems completely backwards. is at odds with: > let me select which disk partition to boot from As soon as there's any UI at all, one has to deal with much of the complexity of modern UI. For one thing, I'm sure modern firmware has to support modern HID input devices, such as USB keyboards. But also, ideally, that UI should be accessible to people who can't use a minimal screen-and-keyboard UI implementation, such as blind people. This is an area where, even with UEFI, PCs fall short. I like the way Apple has resolved this on its Apple Silicon Macs [1]. As I understand it, as soon as the Mac has to display any UI at boot time, it boots into a minimal version of macOS itself, where VoiceOver and any other accessibility tool can run. I agree, though, that in the common case where the default OS is booted, the path from power-on to OS kernel should be as short as practical. Booting into a BIOS in 8086 emulation mode hardly seems like the best way to do this. But then, a design-by-committee solution like UEFI might not be optimal either. It pains me somewhat to say this, but Apple's proprietary, vertically integrated solution might be near optimal. [1]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Apple-Silicon https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Appl...