>Several companies have "pre-boot" features built into their systems (PXE,
>etc). Some companies (ON-Technology, for example) have a small "pre-boot
>OS". These types of systems offer the advantage of being able to access a
>computer that may be having hardware or software problems.
>
>Would it be beneficial to have a "pre-boot" version of VNC? Because of its
>small footprint I wonder if it could be done. Of course the next question
>is which protocol should it run on, but that is flexible due to the nature
>of the RFB spec.
>I suppose it could reside in the system board or in the network adapter.
Sure it could be done, RFB is very lightweight in it's minimal forms. I
personally estimate a BBC Micro (2MHz 6502, 32k RAM + 32K ROM) could be
rigged to run the RFB routines (say, via the serial port), although it
would be rather difficult to control the entire machine that way due to the
single-task, non-extensible OS.
However, an RFB "environment" could be set up independently of the resident
OS and simple applications run within this and controlled/viewed via RFB.
See jVNC (or whatever it's called these days) for an example of this
approach, albeit on a bigger scale. The VNC promotional video also shows a
coffee machine controlled in much the same way.
On an off-topic note, the BBC Micro's ROM is split in two physical parts,
one containing the OS and one containing the BASIC language - the BASIC
chip can be physically swapped or logically paged out in favour of an RFB
environment ROM, or a word processor, or...
--------------------------------------------------------------
from: Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not for attachments)
big-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
uni-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.
Get VNC Server for Macintosh from http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/vnc/
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