MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, February 27, 1995 -- FirmWorks, a developer of Open Firmware products, announced today a key license agreement with FirePower Systems, Inc., Menlo Park, Calif. FirePower will use FirmWorks's Power Firmware(tm) read only memory (ROM)-based firmware in its line of PowerPC(tm) systems. Details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Today, IEEE Standard 1275-1994, which defines Open Firmware, is the only industry standard for boot firmware. FirePower's Powerized(tm) system products are the first systems to incorporate FirmWorks's Open Firmware product for the PowerPC. Open Firmware enables Powerized products to fully support big- and little-endian operating environments, the booting of multiple operating systems and processor-independent plug-and-play add-in cards.
FirePower will ship its Powerized line of PowerPC systems in the first half of this year. Power Firmware was publicly demonstrated in FirePower's PowerPC products at this past Fall Comdex.
"Open Firmware is a critically important solution to providing processor-independent plug and play," said Charlie Barbour, vice president of software engineering at FirePower Systems. "FirmWorks is the industry leading provider of Open Firmware and they have been pivotal in FirePower's development of the first PowerPC platforms which incorporate Open Firmware."
Power Firmware complies with the Open Firmware standards as specified in IEEE Standard 1275-1994 and its associated binding documents. The specification is the first non-proprietary, open standard boot firmware that can be used on different processors, buses and operating systems.
The core technology of the Power Firmware ROM is the Forth interactive programming language. The Forth micro- kernel is small, fast and efficient enabling companies like FirePower to leverage its power, interactive debugging capability and automatic system configuration. The field-proven code can be easily ported to specific system architectures and supports multiple operating systems such as Windows NT®, AIX®, Mac(tm) OS and Solaris(tm). Key features include:
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FirePower Systems, Inc. headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., is dedicated to providing the industry's leading computer suppliers with systems based on the PowerPC microprocessor and compliant with the common hardware reference platform specification. FirePower's innovative products, which range from designs to complete systems, are supplied to OEM customers for license or purchase. The company was formed in 1993 as a partnership with Canon Inc. of Japan.