QNX4 BIOS Requirements

Where can I find information on QNX4 BIOS requirements? Has anyone tried to
run QNX with one of the free BIOS available such as OpenBIOS or LinuxBIOS?
We are looking at what it might cost to produce a custom mainboard and want
to cut costs by eliminating a BIOS license.


Marc.

“Marc Desjardine” <MDesjardine@aptpower.com> wrote in message
news:a7d6fq$t50$1@inn.qnx.com

Where can I find information on QNX4 BIOS requirements? Has anyone tried
to
run QNX with one of the free BIOS available such as OpenBIOS or LinuxBIOS?
We are looking at what it might cost to produce a custom mainboard and
want
to cut costs by eliminating a BIOS license.

With some work QNX4 can be made to run without a BIOS.

In fact it depends on the type of hardware you will be using.
For example if you are using PCI network card, QNX driver expect
PCI information to be provided by the BIOS.

If you are running a GFX card, that can be tricky as well since the VIDEO
bios
of the card can call in the main BIOS…

In that regard QNX6 is easier to customized.

Marc.

As Mario said, it is possible to write an instant startup using the QNX4
embedded toolkit. The problems start if you have PCI devices; their
drivers use standard calls to the pci “library routines” which basically
are macros that do a soft interrupt to the PCI-bios routines. So you
need to have something at that vector slot. Been there, done that. It
turns out that at least one company whose name I can’t remember offers a
configurable bios package for about US$2000 for 1000 licenses. It’s not
free, but then neither are programmer hours. And it does work! I could
look up the company name if anyone needs it.

Phil Olynyk

Marc Desjardine wrote:

Where can I find information on QNX4 BIOS requirements? Has anyone tried to
run QNX with one of the free BIOS available such as OpenBIOS or LinuxBIOS?
We are looking at what it might cost to produce a custom mainboard and want
to cut costs by eliminating a BIOS license.

Marc.

Phil,
Wow, $2 a BIOS is reasonable as long as it doesn’t cost too much to drop
in. Please look up the name of the company and post it.

Marc.

“Phil Olynyk” <pholynyk@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:3C9CFC19.D64FB452@rogers.com

As Mario said, it is possible to write an instant startup using the QNX4
embedded toolkit. The problems start if you have PCI devices; their
drivers use standard calls to the pci “library routines” which basically
are macros that do a soft interrupt to the PCI-bios routines. So you
need to have something at that vector slot. Been there, done that. It
turns out that at least one company whose name I can’t remember offers a
configurable bios package for about US$2000 for 1000 licenses. It’s not
free, but then neither are programmer hours. And it does work! I could
look up the company name if anyone needs it.

Phil Olynyk

Marc Desjardine wrote:

Where can I find information on QNX4 BIOS requirements? Has anyone
tried to
run QNX with one of the free BIOS available such as OpenBIOS or
LinuxBIOS?
We are looking at what it might cost to produce a custom mainboard and
want
to cut costs by eliminating a BIOS license.

Marc.

“Marc Desjardine” <MDesjardine@aptpower.com> wrote in message
news:a7nii8$e7m$1@inn.qnx.com

Phil,
Wow, $2 a BIOS is reasonable as long as it doesn’t cost too much to
drop
in. Please look up the name of the company and post it.

That’s $3 CDN :wink:

Marc.

“Phil Olynyk” <> pholynyk@rogers.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3C9CFC19.D64FB452@rogers.com> …
As Mario said, it is possible to write an instant startup using the QNX4
embedded toolkit. The problems start if you have PCI devices; their
drivers use standard calls to the pci “library routines” which basically
are macros that do a soft interrupt to the PCI-bios routines. So you
need to have something at that vector slot. Been there, done that. It
turns out that at least one company whose name I can’t remember offers a
configurable bios package for about US$2000 for 1000 licenses. It’s not
free, but then neither are programmer hours. And it does work! I could
look up the company name if anyone needs it.

Phil Olynyk

Marc Desjardine wrote:

Where can I find information on QNX4 BIOS requirements? Has anyone
tried to
run QNX with one of the free BIOS available such as OpenBIOS or
LinuxBIOS?
We are looking at what it might cost to produce a custom mainboard and
want
to cut costs by eliminating a BIOS license.

Marc.