Hmmm. Seems to me that you're beating the same mule. Forcing each
manufacturer to come up with a boot floppy – well, heck, right NOW you're
forcing them to come up with a boot ROM, which (A) adds cost to the PCB,
(B) is hard to deal with for updates. With MY method you'd also be able to
boot to a network, or the "highest priority device" – which the user sets –
by inserting the proper disk…. so, if he WANTED to, you could boot from
the network, but then, if today he wants to boot from his own HD, just a
different boot disk, he does. Your method, he has to remove the network
card. I think mine is better, and more flexible, using YOUR criteria. YOu
can also replace exec from autoboot with a floppy… so what's the diff?
What "other" things can autoboot do that you couldn't initiate from floppy?
Nothing, I bet!