Talk:Open Firmware

"Macintosh computers that use an Intel microprocessor do not use Open Firmware."
Source: Universal Binary Programming Guidelines: Open Firmware /* was Universal Binary Programming Guidelines: Open Firmware */.

However I'd leave the article as is for now, since there aren't any Intel Macs generally available yet. AlistairMcMillan 16:17, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * Based on that evidence, I'd certainly (now) support changing the article now. And it also adds credence to a point I raised off Wikipedia where I was speculating on whether 1) Apple will support dual simultaneous booting of Windows and Mac OS X via a hypervisor and 2) whether Mac OS X will eventually run on commodity PCs and Apple will transform into a software-oriented + boutique hardware company.


 * Thanks for the pointer!


 * Atlant 17:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks. Very interesting. --DavidCary 21:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Some Old World PPCs use OF
This page previously asserted that only New World Macs used Open Firmware. As far as I know, that's false. See Old World ROM, this page. I did not, however, word the edit perfectly. If you can think of a better way, please edit. Adrian Sampson 18:09, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
 * All PowerPC PCI Macs used OF. Potatoswatter (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Open hardware?
The article includes a link to "Open hardware", with no further explanation. Does Open Hardware have anything to do with OpenFirmware, besides starting with "Open"?
 * No. Mirror Vax 04:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

"powerful language"
the discussion of open firmware being a "powerful language" is a bit imprecise. i think that someone means to say that it's recursive (a.k.a. turing-complete) ... which, of course, implies that it can be used to solve towers of hanoi ... or any other problem that any other language can encode.


 * Forth is a powerful and complete programming language. (Though the Open Firmware implementation of it is a fairly trim.)—überRegenbogen 12:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Forth in OFW is a complete ANS Forth implementation, with a lot of additional features and concepts not found in ANS Forth. So it is actually a lot more powerful than the standard forth itself. 88.66.25.124 (talk) 16:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's middle of the road. The standard itself defines basic interrupts and exceptions, things needed to create a basic OS, with a fair level of object orientation to support the driver system. Then vendors add extras to support demanding hardware at high speed, GUI administration/maintenance tools, filesystems, etc. So it's not C++, but it's just enough to write a usable GUI OS with full driver support for a vendor's machines. Potatoswatter (talk) 19:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

high or low level language?
The article refers to Forth, at different points, as both a high-level and a low-level language. Forth can seem somewhere in between; but it is sophisticated enough to be considered high-level.—überRegenbogen 12:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge from FCode
See discussion in Talk:Forth (programming language). Wandering if it is possible to hack without any apllications? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.176.214.51 (talk) 00:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support per most of the discussion there... FCode is an integral part of OF and not anything else. What do you mean "hack without any applications"? — please define "hack" and "application" here. OF can be easily manipulated at runtime, but typically that is done by the text interpreter and not more cumbersome bytecode. Potatoswatter (talk) 17:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Comparison to UEFI?
I'd like to see a point-by-point comparison of OF and UEFI, and specifically, the typical extensions fo OF found on sparc, powerpc, etc. linas (talk) 18:05, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

PCI
PCI based systems are not the only systems open firmware/open boot worked with. SBus Suns for example. Chris Fletcher (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OpenBoot was developed originally on SBus systems, but those were gone by the time OpenFirmware was released. My recollection is that Sun stopped developing SBus based desktops in the mid-90s (Ultra-1 timeframe), and servers not too long after that - while the release of OpenFirmware (what this article is about) wasn't until a decade later. Tarl N. ( discuss ) 00:23, 22 August 2018 (UTC)