Different machines can use different hardware to store the settings. Its why windows and other oses use the bios/efi calls to read and write them. If the app is going to bypass the firmware interface it needs to know the hardware. Motherboards tend to come with apps that let you vary settings like clock speed and voltages these days. You don't want to start poking at these values.
And like the Mac's NuBus was doing in 1986. You got slots, you plug cards in, in any order. End of story - no configuring required, as firmware on each board ran at startup.
You mean there is an API available? How come, then, choosing things like which is the boot device or whether to start the machine up automatically after loss of power or on some schedule all appears to be so difficult? Such that there are innumerable threads here with people wringing their hands and bleating about doing this, that, or the other to do with the BIOS? Is there a market opportunity here?
MIT's NuBus you mean? ;-)
Again, it's always easier to 'improve' a solution than come up with it in the first place. (first IBM PC in ~80?). ;-)
When I was working as a Datacomms guy I was surprised by the number of communication solutions (protocol and / or interface converters) were based on the IBM PC platform, often with specialised cards.
And that then opened up another 'issue' if you preferred the Apple hardware platform as nearly all makers of such cards made them for the IBM / ISA platform and were rarely available in any other form (inc S100 / NuBus or even MCA / EISA etc).
That worked out well for me as our Co 'wrote off' a couple of these protocol converters and I found that by replacing the ROM with a generic IBM one (luckily I also looked after all the firmware for our own products and most was stored on eProm so I had burners and erasers etc ...), I got myself a couple more PC's to play with. ;-)
I built our BBS using TBBS software on an XT and had a 4 port Digiboard serial card in it (in addition to the 2 std COM ports etc). A couple were connected to dial-up modems for customers / engineers to dial into, a couple were connected to an X.25 PAD for similar access and a couple were connected to a serial port server that allowed anyone on our LAN (that I installed) to also access the BBS via serial port redirection software running on the W3.1 PC's out in the office(s).
Fun days. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
It very much depends on the BIOS and the manufacturers. Some, provide tools, others just give you a very basic ability to set stuff up.
Realistically, most casual users don't want to know. They buy a machine, Windows is preinstalled. It boots. End of.
OTOH motherboard vendors like 'feetchas' so their BIOSES are crammed with options because you could be plugging in lots of stuff and MOBO buyers are technophiles who like all this overclocked crap.
It's when users of the first sort meets computers of the second sort and need to do something in the BIOS that issues arise...
Hiya Tim
I can't disagree with anything you say. I too, have dependency on Windows.
The Yin & Yang of the moment is, the traditionalist wants the comfort of stability while many others argue it could be done better.
All companies are 'the best' of choice while, ironically, striving to be better than they are.
Open source is attractive; it offers more of everything. This in turn means less users per 'thing'. So, when it comes to marketing, what is the ideal goal?
MS, on the other hand, has done very well in establishing itself. Use of marketing and ruthless takeovers has put MS on a very strong footing. Any hardware/firmware producer IS going to consider the reach of MS as the only real way to go.
However, MS, now having the world at it's feet, is drawing in the net, literally, and the only way out is through that narrow section that drops you into the MS Hold.
It is indeed the tool that has advanced many technologies but I do not like where it is going.
You may have dependency on it but that's not an argument for letting it anywhere near a critical system.
Yo. ;-)
Well you could, but you would be wrong. ;-)
Many do, in spite of them being fanatical about alternative OS's, which must be really frustrating for them.
Oh, no one has ever argued any of it couldn't be done better.
We hope. ;-)
It is, *if* you are one of those who are interested in such things and / or might be able to make use of it. For the vast majority it doesn't matter if it's open or closed source.
It offers *some* more of everything. AFAIK, it offers me little extra of anything?
'Freeware', is of use to *me* because it gives me useful tools and games for 'free'.
I'm not quite sure I follow Ray?
It has, like Apple, by offering people something they are familiar with, can get support for and that offers them (in most cases without realising it because it's the 'de-facto standard ...) the greatest range of hardware and software.
They are 'A Company' after all and therefore doing no more than any other company would do?
If you have their sort of money then you can normally get what you want. However, 'many companies' are bullish when it comes to takeovers and will also stop to all sorts of 'dirty-practices' (as some might call it, again others call it 'just business') to do what they feel is best. Some companies (and even whole Countries) will 'dump' products on the market to force their competitors out of business.
Of course, but that is never guaranteed, even with MS.
Well, most will and do because they too have employees with families that need food and shelter.
You might only consider it to be that way if you aren't happy to 'buy into' their system? There are many many million people are very happy to spend hundreds of pounds on Apple products, often much more money that alternative products from other manufacturers simply because they like what they like. In general, people like what *works* for them.
Quite, but anyone who has an interest in an OS or is 'bothered' about the marketing / security implications will then have to make a decision to 'step away' from anything they don't like or remove such features if possible, just as they did with Unity when Canonical added all the search stuff to their Ubuntu.
When I install Windows 10 I get the option to not 'opt in' to a whole load of things some might consider 'unnecessary' intrusions into their use of an OS. I generally do 'opt out' to all of them, simply because I don't need any of the features that they offer (like my geographic location on a map on a home based PC or to share my WiFi logins across my other machines), but many may find them very useful features?
I like the idea of 'free' (of cost), I like the idea of 'free' (as in freedom), I also like the idea of 'Open Source' (because that means that some *other people* might be able to modify some code to suit their own needs better (NASA etc) and 'a million eyes' *might* be checking the same code to make sure it's all it should be (and not what it shouldn't). Unfortunately, *most people* wouldn't put either of those above being able to play their favourite game (Flash or otherwise) or being able to get music from the iTMS and *easily* put it on their iDevice. Few of these people are interested in the 'how', they are only interested in what it allows them to do and often the price is irrelevant.
So, bring out an OS that runs on the hardware most people already have, make it as easy to maintain and as well supported by hardware and software companies as what is being used now and make it more 'ethical' than what is out there now and I can see it being a success, even if you had to pay for it. But for it to be of interest to the vast majority, it *has* to be easier for them to do what they want, not what 'some nerd' things they should have.
So, if a hardware and software company can come up with a stylish and trendy solution (because to many people 'stylish and trendy' is important to them and those devices) that could replace the iTMS / iTunes / iDevice combination and market it to the trendy people and make it say cheaper, they *may* just consider trying such the next time they drop and break their iDevice (especially if they can still put the music the have paid for on the iTMS on said new device with a couple of clicks).
At the moment, there are no alternative OS's that would offer all the above that are 'better' than Windows, and that's accepting that Windows is in no way perfect.
And that's not just my opinion ... that's the fairly static 5% of users who use Linux or the 10% who use OSX compared with the 15% of people who have already taken up W10 in the 5 months it's been out?
Cheers, T i m
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