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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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Open Firmware is a specification for software built into your computer that brings all the hardware up and boots your operating system. On PCs, there was/is something analogous called the BIOS but Intel has made something more modern called UEFI (which I don't know too much about tbh)
What makes Open Firmware so cool is you get a full Forth programming environment (stack-based programming language) to work with within moments of turning on your computer which makes it really versatile. I'm not too sure of the exact history but when Apple, IBM, Motorola were developing the PowerPC architecture in the 90s and they needed some kind of standard software to bring up their computers they decided on an Open Firmware implementation
Maybe I should write a longer post about it
And brb, made plans to with friend
I will read and upbear that post, sounds rad :)
So aside from just being a Bios But Cooler, what're the actual practical applications of having a Forth environment at boot? I'm picturing somethin like the boot disks for old microcomputers, which were iirc much closer to hardware than something like Windoze.