Acorn also had RISC OS in ROM. Booted in about two seconds. Yes it was tricky when you had to upgrade but I suspect the constraints made the ROMs better quality. Certainly was rare to come across bugs etc and the performance was miles ahead of the current software we have today.
Re:Windows 95 – How Does It Look Today?
by goatgoatgoat on Saturday April 03, 2021 @11:23AM
(#26681760)
I upgrade the OS for an Acorn A3000 around 30 years ago. It wasn't too bad. Carefully remove the old ROMs from their sockets and carefully push the new ROMs into the now empty sockets. Quickest OS upgrade I've ever done.
Re:Windows 95 – How Does It Look Today?
by RantyDave on Saturday April 03, 2021 @08:38PM
(#26685999)
Fun fact! Risc OS is some quasi open source these days - ie you can see the source.
It's in ARM assembler.
The IBM PS/1 had MS-DOS 4.01 in ROM. You could install newer versions on the hard drive, but I remember being bitterly disappointed on installing the 2.5MB RAM expansion, because the memory test slowed the boot process down tremendously.
Here's a quick demo from a similar Tandy model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaSkda4XW3k