The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 11, 1994
Filed:
Aug. 30, 1993
Joseph E Provino, Cambridge, MA (US);
William F Pittore, Lexington, MA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
In a computer system, a system boot prom having a bootstrap program is provided for booting the computer system from a boot device having a boot program and an operating system. The bootstrap program is designed to create a boot prom interface through which the boot program uses to locate the device driver for loading the operating system from the boot device. As a result, the device driver for the boot device may be provided in the system boot prom or a third party boot prom, thereby allowing the computer system to be booted from either a standard or a third party boot device without requiring rebuilding of the system boot prom. Additionally, a boot program interface and stand-alone I/O library routines are provided to the boot program for a root executable segment of an operating system without the root file system and root device driver to use the boot program to load other relocatable segments of the operating system on an as needed basis until the root file system and root device driver are loaded, thereby allowing the computer system to be booted with such basic root executable segment of an operating system.