Trixter
Veteran Member
(I wasn't sure if this was more a programmer question or a hardware question, so I posted this in the forum with the most number of BIOS Version sticky posts
In trying to come up with a simple way to fingerprint a machine for my benchmark-in-progress, I came across the idea to do a quick CRC of the BIOS. For speed, it's a 16-bit CRC of the BIOS. (That CRC is stored as a quick way to identify two identical class machines, as well as help generate a unique ID for the record.) However, I was trying so hard to not leave any old machine behind that, keeping the 5150 at the front of my mind, I wrote code to calculate a CRC for the entire 64K F000:0000 segment. But looking at some BIOS listings for some clone BIOSes tonight, they all have an ORG of C000.
Did I make a mistake? Should I only "guarantee" myself that the BIOS starts at F000:C000? Or is the entire 64K F000 segment the right choice? I don't want to be reading random bytes/holes/adapter roms by mistake...
In trying to come up with a simple way to fingerprint a machine for my benchmark-in-progress, I came across the idea to do a quick CRC of the BIOS. For speed, it's a 16-bit CRC of the BIOS. (That CRC is stored as a quick way to identify two identical class machines, as well as help generate a unique ID for the record.) However, I was trying so hard to not leave any old machine behind that, keeping the 5150 at the front of my mind, I wrote code to calculate a CRC for the entire 64K F000:0000 segment. But looking at some BIOS listings for some clone BIOSes tonight, they all have an ORG of C000.
Did I make a mistake? Should I only "guarantee" myself that the BIOS starts at F000:C000? Or is the entire 64K F000 segment the right choice? I don't want to be reading random bytes/holes/adapter roms by mistake...