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dnl	$OpenBSD: prep,v 1.3 2004/02/13 11:00:24 miod Exp $
To be able to boot the OpenBSD/MACHINE installation program, you will
need to acquire some limited knowledge of ABLE Firmware, the low-level
process that controls the microprocessor after hardware initialization
and diagnostics are performed but before control is handed to the
operating system.

A complete documentation on the ABLE firmware is available from Simtec at
the following URL:
  http://www.simtec.co.uk/products/SWABLE/files/able-doc-allset/


** Note!
    You will need ABLE version 1.89 or better in order to be able
    to boot OpenBSD/MACHINE. Firmware updates are available from
    Simtec at the following URL:
      http://www.simtec.co.uk/products/EB110ATX/resources.html


For convenience, a few ABLE commands are described below:

	boot (hd0)bsd
		loads and boots the ELF file 'bsd' from the disk partition
		identified by firmware as hd0.

	nvset variable value
		sets a firmware environment variable.

	nvsave
		saves all variable changes to non-volatile memory.

	nvclear
		restores environment variables defaults.

The following environment variables control the system startup:

	boot.auto
		when set to "true" (which is its default value), the
		system will attempt to execute the command set in the
		"boot.cmd" variable after "boot.timeout" seconds, unless
		the boot process is interrupted by a keypress.

	boot.cmd
		command used to auto-boot, such as "boot (hd0)bsd" to
		boot the bsd kernel from the first hard disk partition.

	boot.timeout
		delay until the system boots, in seconds.

Arguments to the kernel are not passed on the commandline. You can check
and modify these arguments with the following commands:

	showargs
		displays the current arguments string.

	setargs value
		sets the arguments string.

dnl
dnl XXX bootable partitions