WELCOME TO THE OPEN FIRMWARE HOME PAGE.

Feb 12, 1999

Open Firmware is processor and system independent boot firmware. This is the home page for the Open Firmware Working Group. You can read more about Open Firmware, the working group, and several documents related to Open Firmware.

The information provided here is published by the Open Firmware Working Group, and is provided as a free service. The Working Group, any individual member, and/or any company sponsoring the membership of any individual member are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect information provided in these documents.

The Open Firmware Working Group acknowledges SunSoft's Internet Engineering Group for hosting our home page.

The Open Firmware Working Group acknowledges Apple Computer Inc and Paul M. Resch for hosting our mirror site.

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Open Firmware Working Group Meeting Information
Open Firmware Working Group Recommended Practices
Open Firmware Working Group Proposals
What's New?

ABOUT THIS PAGE.

This is the Open Firmware Working Group's home page. This page describes who we are, and what the working group does, and provides a convenient way to examine documents, proposals and other information the working group maintains at the group's FTP site.

This page, The Open Firmware Working Group home page, is maintained by David Kahn dmk-xxx@Eng.Sun.Com. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

This page is not an all-encompassing description of Open Firmware, for that, you'll need to read some of the documents that you can find out about from this page.

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FILE FORMATS AND TOOLS.

We use several file formats for posting documents here.

Plain text files (.txt) are posted using the 'unix' convention which contains no carriage return at the end of each line.

Some documents are posted in Adobe's Portable Document Format (.pdf). PDF readers are available free, for several operating systems and platforms from Adobe.

Some documents are posted in postscript (.ps). Postscript viewers are widely available on the internet for several operating systems, and several platforms. Ghostscript is one of the many popular postscript interpreters.

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IEEE 1275 OPEN FIRMWARE.

OPEN FIRMWARE DESCRIPTION.

Open Firmware is the only firmware standard in existence to have its own song. Download or listen to Mitch Bradley singing the Open Firmware Song (278k).

Open Firmware is the non-proprietary name of firmware complying with IEEE Std 1275-1994. OpenBoot (tm) is Sun Microsystems trademark for the firmware product shipping on over one million SparcStations(tm) and SPARCServers(tm) since 1989. Apple Computer's newest line of PCI bus-based Power Macintosh(tm) desktop systems are shipping with Open Firmware.

Among Open Firmware's many features, it provides a machine independent device interface, which can be used to boot plug-in cards without providing OS-specific and/or machine dependent binary programs on the plug-in card. This feature enables plug-in card manufacturers to easily support several independent computer architectures without needing to supply different firmware for each one.

Open Firmware is based on Sun Microsystem's OpenBoot 2.x implementations and complies with ANS (ANSI) Forth. (Information on ANS Forth is provided courtesy of Athena Programming, Inc.) You can also get additional information about Forth and the Forth Interest Group on the World Wide Web at Forth Interest Group Home Page.

OpenBoot 3.x, currently shipping on Sun's 64-bit UltraSparc based systems, complies with the Open Firmware standard.

Open Firmware is now shipping on Apple Computer's 604-based, PCI bus, PowerMac systems. Read how Apple Computer describes PCI bus and Open Firmware.

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OPEN FIRMWARE VENDORS.

Please note that the working group does not endorse any particular vendor or implementation of Open Firmware. Contact dmk-xxx@Eng.Sun.Com to be included in this vendor list. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

For support of specific vendors systems, (i.e. Sun Microsystems, Apple Computers), please contact those vendors through their usual support channels.

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FORTH AND OPEN FIRMWARE INFO ON THE WEB.

Here's a list of some other information on the web related to Open Firmware. This information is not provided by the Open Firmware Working Group. Contact dmk-xxx@Eng.Sun.Com to be included in this list. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

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OPEN FIRMWARE WORKING GROUP.

The Open Firmware working group has published several documents through the IEEE Computer Society Bus Architecture Standards Committee.

The Open Firmware working group publishes bindings, clarifications, extensions and recommended practices to IEEE Std. 1275-1994. Some of these items are published under the authority of the IEEE, and some published under authority of the working group. Some bindings are published under authority of other industry associations.

Each recommended practice has a scope and a specification. If you are an Open Firmware developer or FCode device driver developer, you should periodically check here to review new recommended practices and other interesting documents.

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Working Group Organization.

The working group has three officers, and a general membership. There are no membership fees, membership is open to all interested parties.

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Membership and Voting Privileges.

Open Firmware Working Group membership is open to all interested parties. Voting privileges are extended to those members that attend two meetings, or participate, in kind, via email. The working group generally meets every 6 weeks or so, alternating meetings between Silicon Valley, California and Austin, Texas.

The working group maintains a list of upcoming meetings at our FTP site.

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Working Group Email Aliases.

The working group maintains an email alias p1275-wg-xxx@risc.sps.mot.com. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

To join the mailing list, send email to majordomo-xxx@risc.sps.mot.com, with the text "subscribe p1275-wg" in the body of the mail message. To unsubscribe, send the text "unsubscribe p1275-wg" in the body of the mail message. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

If all else fails using the previous methods, you can send an email message to owner-p1275-wg-xxx@risc.sps.mot.com for manual assistance with the mailing list. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

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Proposals and Clarifications.

Proposals and requests for clarifications should be sent to the working group proposal agent (p1275-proposal-xxx@gramercy.eng.sun.com) using the information in the proposal template. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

Please note that there are special instructions if the proposal contains attachments ... please follow the instructions in the proposal template.

Using the agent is the only way to guarantee the proposal is assigned an official entry in the working group agenda.

The agent assigns a work item number to each proposal, and automatically logs each proposal. Currently, the externally available proposals data base at the working group's FTP site is updated on an occasional, as needed basis.

To guarantee review of an item sent to the agent, items should be sent to the agent at least a week prior to a working group meeting.

Clarifications will be sent to the initiator and published at the working group's FTP site.

You can view the current subject, status and text of each proposal at the Open Firmware Working Group Proposals page.

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Working Group Meetings and Info.

The working group meets every 6 weeks or so, alternating meetings between the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas. Additional working group information includes meeting information, schedule information, hotel information, directions to meetings, meeting agendas and meeting minutes.

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Working Group Archives.

The Open Firmware Working Group FTP site, is playground.sun.com:/pub/1275. This machine is outside the Sun firewall, accessible via the internet. For information not covered by these pages, you may access the FTP site via anonymous FTP.

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OPEN FIRMWARE DOCUMENTATION.

There's several documents available defining and related to Open Firmware. Some of the documents are published by the IEEE, some by other industry organizations, and some are published here, by the working group. There's also a list of commercially available documentation related to Open Firmware.

We'll try to provide a list of documents related to Open Firmware in this page. Additions, corrections and comments about this list should be sent to dmk-xxx@Eng.Sun.Com. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.) Be sure to include the title and section of the page you are referring to in your email message.

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Commercially Available Documentation.

To have your commercial documentation included in this list, contact dmk-xxx@Eng.Sun.Com. (Remove '-xxx' to use email address.)

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IEEE Std 1275-1994.

Open Firmware Core Specification.

The Core Specification for Open Firmware is the generic (bus and instruction set architecture independent) specification for Open Firmware. Typically, an implementation complies with the core standard, an instruction set architecture binding, at least one bus binding, and possibly, a platform binding.

The core specification, IEEE Std 1275-1994: IEEE Standard for Boot Firmware (Initialization Configuration) Firmware: Core Requirements and Practices (ISBN Number: 1-55937-426-8) is only available from the IEEE Standards Organization. For ordering and pricing information, use the searchable index at the IEEE Standards Products Page.

Core Errata to IEEE 1275-1994.

This is the IEEE draft of the errata document to IEEE 1275-1994.

Additional Errata to IEEE 1275-1994.

This is additional errata not included in IEEE errata document.

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Instruction Set Architecture Supplements to IEEE Std 1275-1994.

These Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) supplements are available publicly. Each ISA supplement, creates additional requirements on all compliant Open Firmware implementations on that instruction set architecture. An implementation may also comply with or provide a platform binding to define specific implementations of the firmware on that platform or platform family.

SPARC (32-bit) Instruction Set Architecture Supplement: IEEE 1275.1-1994.

PowerPC Instruction Set Architecture Supplements.

ARM Processor Instruction Set Architecture Supplements.

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Bus Supplements to IEEE Std 1275-1994.

These bus supplements are available publicly. Each bus supplement creates additional requirements on both host adaptors implementing the bus, and devices which plug into the bus.

IEEE 1496 (Sbus).

IEEE 1496 (SBus) Bus Supplement: IEEE 1275.2-1994.

PCI Bus Supplement.

PCCard Bus Supplement.

VME Bus Supplement.

IEEE 896 (FutureBus+) Bus Supplement.

ISA/EISA/ISA-PnP Bus Supplement.

SCSI-3 Parallel Bus

Universal Serial Bus

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Platform Bindings.

These platform bindings are available publicly. Platform bindings specify the application of Open Firmware on a particular platform or group of platforms.

Power PC Reference Platform (PReP).

PowerPC Microprocessor Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP).

Current Accepted Version
Previously Accepted Version
Latest Draft Version

Digital Network Appliance

Latest Draft Version

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Device Bindings.

These supplements specify the application of Open Firmware to certain common devices.

ISA Audio Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA base audio controllers. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA Floppy Controller Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA floppy disk controllers. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA Keyboard/Mouse Controller Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA keyboard/mouse controllers. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA DMA Controller Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA DMA controllers. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA Interrupt Controller Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA interrupt controllers. This document is an unapproved draft document.

Linear Frame Buffer Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) Linear 8-bit Frame Buffer Devices. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA Parallel Port Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA Parallel Port Devices. This document is an unapproved draft document.

ISA Serial Port Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) ISA Serial Port Devices. This document is an unapproved draft document.

VGA Device Binding.

This document describes the application of Open Firmware to the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) VGA Devices. This document is an unapproved draft document.

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Other Supplements and Documents.

These supplements are available publicly.

64 Bit Extensions Supplement.

This IEEE draft of a proposed standard describes 64 bit extensions to the core standard.

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Recommended Practice Documents.

The Open Firmware Working Group authorizes the publication of recommended practices which may extend and modify previously published documents.

There's a list of current practices and a template for creating recomended practice documents in the Open Firmware Working Group Recommended Practice page.

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