They are here! M$ and a new trick!

[Waccoon]

Boy, this is harsh.  You really only have a choice between FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS if you want to talk to Windows.  Besides, any dependence on a Windows filesystem means paying Microsoft a fee.  You can't use NTFS, because MS will charge for that, too.  What, are you supposed to FTP everything or use embedded IP interfaces with HTML interfaces?  What a mess.

You also have to think about all the Kiosk machines that are based on other operating systems.  Will every public terminal have to pay Microsoft, too?  Then again, I haven't seen a Kiosk in a LONG time that didn't run Windows.  I remember when Kodak used Macs for all their Kiosks, and now they all run WinNT/2K.

Matt_H:  Amiga has had this command forever. I'm sure it's been patented somewhere. Just got to find someone willing to prove it in court.

Don't most UNIX shells have that command, too?  I thought they had more than just the mount command.

MikeyMike:  Does it matter after the whole Mickey Mouse trademark/copyright?

Ah, ownership.  If you take a photograph of an old painting, you can charge a license fee for the right to use the photo, because the photo is copyrighted, even if the painting is not.  Hence, all art history books have full credits for museums and private owners, usually including the term, "graciously provided by..."  :-)

MikeyMike:  Would you still like Amiga/compatibles if their respective makers sunk as low as MS tactics?

Who says they haven't?  Putting a ROM chip on the AmigaOne instead of an EEPROM for copy protection purposes is sinking pretty low as it is, and OS4 will probably be cracked from day 1, anyway.

Twin:  I work in the Industrial Property industry and US Patents last 20 years.

Ah, I thought it was 14 years.

Anyway, I wish more people understood the differences between a copyright, a trademark, and a patent.

QuickSanz:  Welcome home. Of all the operating systems I've used this one is the most user friendly.

And the most unique.  I'm sick of Linux imitating everything Windows does while using glossy Mac graphics.  Everyone else just clones UNIX, 80-column displays and all.  I see no point in making an alternative OS unless you write a unique graphics system and completely re-work the interface.

[Waccoon]

CodeSmith:  What level are you sinking to when you lock the door to your house?

I can change the lock on my house without having to send the whole door to the manufacturer to have it "refurbished".  Just about all hardware these days, from video cards to CD-ROMs allow firmware updates.  A fixed ROM BIOS is just so... Amiga.

If you're suggesting that the pirate protection is to keep Pegasos users from using AmigaOS4, well you can thank Bill Buck for choosing the nastiest dongle ever: the Marvell Discovery chipset, which is 100% incompatible with the Articia S

Only on the Pegasos2.  The Pegasos uses the same chipset as the AmigaOne.

Coder:  I agree so much on that. I remember when Linux was fun but now I have to admit it's turning into a Windows clone. Because that is what will attract the non-geeks they think. It got to stop.

Well, there's little central unification when it comes to anything other than the kernel, so Linux probably will never make any major strides in the interface, anyway.  People still blame Red Hat for trying.

Linux is made by geeks for geeks.  That is its audience, and it will probably stay there.  The only hope I see for turning Linux into a true desktop machine is to eliminate the XWindows way of thinking and make a new interface.  Of course, if you do that, there are better kernel choices, too.

My ideal system would be QNX running a GUI similar to the original Amiga, an entirely new shell, and a built-in interpreted programming language (more like Java and less like Perl/PHP).  I see no point in making a new OS just to run bash, XWindows, Gnome...

iamaboringperson:  I don't have memory cards here, however can't I just format them to a different file system?

Memory card readers don't care, but cameras do.  Nobody saw the crackdown on FAT coming, so everybody just used FAT12 by default so everything would work with Windows.

It's just a popularity issue, though.  I'm sure Apple would have done the same with HFS if they owned the market.  Being #2 in the industry makes it a bit hard for Apple to put their foot down and charge for every little piece of their pie.

Bloodline:  Hense the BIOS can read the FS...

PC BIOS is obsolete.  All it really does is monitor hardware and activate the boot drive so the OS can be started.  After that, the OS and drivers do all the work.  90% of BIOS options these days are set to defaults and ignored, unless you're trying to get Windows3.1 to boot.   ;-)

But more interestingly, tell me more about this booting from a disk if the BIOS is dead?

ROM backup.  Intel mobos do that.  I salvaged a non-working Intel motherboard for $20 ($90 value), just by downloading an emergency BIOS tool from the Intel website.  What a deal!   I wish all motherboards had a small ROM for reading the floppy drive and reprogramming the BIOS.  It would make BIOS updates a lot less worrysome.  :-D

Chris:  That's because there is no bootblock telling it what it should do next. Format a disk with NTFS and it will complain "cannot find NTLDR".

Yup.  The Bootblock of an NTFS partition is too small to do anything major, so it does its thing, then looks for NTLDR.  It must have some sort of security check, though, since if something happens to the filesystem, the machine will complain it can't find NTLDR, even though it is there and intact.  NTFS is a real pain in the ass.

[Waccoon]

IF it’s obsolete why not just re-flash your BIOS with zeros? Let's see IF your system can boot up... Obsolesce means that an item can be discarded.

No, obsolete means something is outmoded, which can also mean unfashionable or infirior.  That doesn't always mean it can be discarded.  Of course, I'm thinking in terms of not needing Windows, anymore.  :-)

The majority of BIOS tweaks are to ensure legacy support, like all those PCI interrupt mappings and crap.  If your OS doesn't need that stuff because it can use drivers instead, there's no reason to have the BIOS handle it.

That's why I don't get the comment that the BIOS has FAT support.  A BIOS shouldn't handle the filesystem, it only [should] read the boot sector.

PC's BIOS shields Windows the difference between chipsets for booting, safe mode and during setup

Yes, yes.  It does that by using the oldest access modes possible.  That's what I mean by that remaining 10% of the current BIOS that's actually useful.

Hammer:  Modern PC BIOS is important since they take care most of the integrated features (i.e. activation/ deactivation) of any full featured X86 motherboards. These integrated features can range from SATA RAID, PATA RAID, AC97, 1394, USB Mouse/Keyboard, FSB settings**, voltage settings**, memory settings**, 100Mb/1Gb NICs, AGP Aperture, AGP8X activation/deactivation switch, AGP fast writes, dual BIOS and etc.

Why do you have to disable hardware if the OS can simply ignore it (no driver is initialized)?  Sounds more like bad design to me.  What companies actually standardize BIOS architecture?