are there problems with this email? - what is a disc on chip? - beginner's question

Antony Stone Antony at Soft-Solutions.co.uk
Wed Jan 8 16:45:00 CET 2003


On Wednesday 08 January 2003 9:37 pm, Alessio Sangalli wrote:

> what about that disc on chip device: how much does it cost more or less?

In the UK they cost about GBP20 - so I guess that's about EUR30 / USD30 in
the rest of the world...

> Why can't we use a normal FLASH memory like the ones used to store a
> standard BIOS?

Because they do not have a large enough capacity.   Standard BIOS chips are
2megabits (= 32 kilobytes), which is not neough to hold a Linux kernel.

> I can think those chips provide particular features, but
> which ones exactly?

The main thing which DoC does which you can't do with standard Flash Roms is
to format them as a Silicon Disc, and put a file system into them.

> Aren't common flash/eeprom chips much easier to find
> and cheaper to buy?

Yes, but they're too small.

> An external programmer could be needed (like for the
> eproms of etherboot) but most people could have access to such a device.

You can program a Flash Rom chip on your motherboard - no external programmer
needed - that's how you upgrade the BIOS even if you're not doing anything
with LinuxBIOS.

Antony.

--

If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk.
If you want to be happy for a year, get married.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, get a garden.



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