OpenBIOS
Encyclopedia
OpenBIOS is a project aiming to provide free
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 and open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 implementations of Open Firmware
Open Firmware
Open Firmware, or OpenBoot in Sun Microsystems parlance, is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It originated at Sun, and has been used by Sun, Apple, IBM, and most other non-x86 PCI chipset...

. It is also the name of such an implementation.

Most of the implementations provided by OpenBIOS rely on an additional lower-level firmware
Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

 for hardware initialization, such as coreboot or Das U-Boot
Das U-Boot
Das U-Boot is an open source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including PPC, ARM, MIPS, AVR32, x86, 68k, Nios, and MicroBlaze.- Supported File Systems :...

.

Open Firmware

Open Firmware should not be confused with the IEEE-1275 specification it implements. Open Firmware was released by the company Firmworks. The principal architect of Open Firmware, Mitch Bradley
Mitch Bradley
Mitch Bradley is the inventor of Open Firmware, which was first developed at Sun Microsystems in 1988 and used by Sun, Apple, IBM and the One Laptop per Child XO....

, is chairman of the Open Firmware Working Group and president and founder of Firmworks. The OLPC XO-1
OLPC XO-1
The XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop, Children's Machine, and 2B1, is an inexpensive subnotebook computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express...

 laptop uses the Open Firmware implementation.
It supports the x86, PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

, ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...

 architectures, and is released under the terms of a BSD style license.

SmartFirmware

SmartFirmware includes a C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 to FCode compiler. It is made by CodeGen, Inc.
It is written in ANSI C
ANSI C
ANSI C refers to the family of successive standards published by the American National Standards Institute for the C programming language. Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so aids portability between compilers.-History and outlook:The first...

 and supports the x86, PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

, SPARC
SPARC
SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....

, ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...

, MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...

 architectures.

OpenBOOT

OpenBOOT was released by Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

. It supports the sun4v architecture.

OpenBIOS

OpenBIOS is portable and licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

. It is produced by the OpenBIOS project.

SLOF

Slimline Open Firmware is produced by IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

.
It supports the PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

architecture.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK