RE: FN-FORUM: [OT] can't wait till microsoft tries this....

date posted 4th January 2004 18:33

Andy MJ:
> The way that the xbox works is that the "base" O/S - i.e., the boot
> loader is stored in hardware. However, each game actually has the OS on
> the DVD so that all drivers and anything else is specific to the DVD.
> The O/S is a core win2k with custom drivers as appropriate.
>
> As for the O/S of the boot loader, not sure but I'd be surprised if it
> was linux

I've never really considered a boot loader to be an OS, or even necessarily
part of one.

I'd guess there's really only two possible cases (and I'm quoting certain
stuff to avoid having to define it):

1. What you're calling the ' "base" O/S ' contains the 'kernel', and just
loads all available 'drivers' on the DVD automagically. In that case, I'd
argue that aforementioned boot OS is actually *the* OS - in which case the
XBox runs W2K. Incidentally, I'm thinking you'd need a *really* good reason
to do it any other way - otherwise you'd have to duplicate *core* APIs like
I/O, SHM and Graphics on *every* DVD, which seems wasteful.

2. If each DVD really does contain *all* of a cut-down W2K (if that's not an
oxymoron), then the in-XBox boot loader simply has to pass control to the
'kernel' on the DVD, which *doesn't* require the boot loader to be an OS per
se (as an example, I boot my XP box with LILO (LInux LOader), which I
certainly wouldn't consider to be an OS). So again, the XBox runs W2K - just
not the same 'image' for every game.

Anyone know for sure/got any other thoughts?

- Nick Grimshaw
{ if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. }