3 ms·
The main reason for OpenFirmware being added (was not in the 6100, 7100, or 8100 PPCs)was because Apple was supporting the Mac Clone business back then. I was
by knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
The main reason for OpenFirmware being added (was not in the 6100, 7100, or 8100 PPCs)was because Apple was supporting the Mac Clone business back then.
I was at Apple back then, on the project this post is about, and remember being in OpenFirmware meetings with John Rubinstein who at the time was with FirePower. As noted in the article the Netware startup code had a hacked OF interpreter to boot the NW volume to do mappings that was not used on real OF machines. Because it was just a development hack that’s why some things, like being hardcoded for 24Meg RAM, were implemented. Once we got real OF prototypes those limits were gone.
The planned NW port was intended to work on any PPC OF hardware although Apple was only going to supporting native drivers for Apple stuff.