Phoenix Technologies Ltd, Santa Clara, California, has now launched its bootable CD-ROM drive specification. First announced last November (CI No 2,552), the Bootable CD-ROM Specification 1.0, developed with IBM Corp’s help, enables an operating system to boot directly from CD-ROM drives, without the need for additional drivers. This is achieved by equipping the system BIOS with the software necessary to access the CD-ROM. CD-ROM boot images can emulate a 1.2Mb, 1.44Mb or 2.88Mb floppy image or a hard disk. Phoenix says vendor-specific boot criteria will be possible: this would enable a loader program to boot a specific image based on given criteria. The company has implemented the specification in PhoenixBIOS 4.0 and says it can be incorporated i nto any BIOS. Phoenix says OEM customers have shown considerable interest in the system as bootable CD-ROM drives are seen as a low-cost replacement for floppy-only systems. System and software vendors may be extremely interested, it says, as software can be provided on one CD instead of a clutch of floppies.
