02-20-2019
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Last Activity: 7 July 2020, 11:47 AM EDT
Location: Saskatchewan
Posts: 23,310
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Linux was such a hack back then because those ancient machines were a mishmash of old and new designs, never implemented the same way twice.. Manufacturers didn't feel a need to publish proper specs because BIOS extensions were mostly "good enough" to nursemaid whatever archaic non-Windows OS you had into the 21st century. That is to say, device drivers, included in the form of little microchips to be read upon boot...! Nowdays the BIOS is basically gone and drivers are taken a little more seriously.