IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof

From: Absurdly Obtuse <vance_at_ikickass.org>
Date: Sun Sep 30 12:53:19 2001

On Sat, 29 Sep 2001, Glen Goodwin wrote:

> Tony, I think you are correct as I've never seen a clone mb with BASIC in
> ROM, but I *have* seen clone boards -- including early Pentium boards --
> which would cough up "no rom basic" if they didn't find a bootable device.
> Oddly enough the text of this message is always displayed in 40-column
> low-res mode. Doesn't this suggest that part of the ROM BIOS code was
> "borrowed" from early IBM code?

I would tend to say "yes". Although, I've seen clones with BASIC in ROM,
it wouldn't surprise me if there were some people who just copied IBM
BIOS, but slipped through the cracks of the IBM copyright enforcement
patrol.

Peace... Sridhar
Received on Sun Sep 30 2001 - 12:53:19 BST