Abstract: A method is provided for loading device drivers in a computer system having a set of devices, when Open Firmware is implemented to boot the system. A set of stub device drivers are initially created, one for each device attached to the computer system. A stub driver comprises a reduced form of the complete driver for its corresponding device, wherein each stub driver is capable of providing device tree properties of its corresponding device. The method further comprises loading each of the stub drivers into the system, to respectively create device tree properties for the devices in response to a specified implementation of the Open Firmware. The loaded stub driver of a particular device is used to trigger loading of the complete driver for the particular device, only when the particular device is required for use by the specified Firmware implementation.

Abstract: A system for caching peripheral component interconnect device data. In response to probing a peripheral component interconnect device, peripheral component interconnect device data is discovered. The discovered peripheral component interconnect device data is cached and then configured to enable the peripheral component interconnect device to execute.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and computer instructions for handling exception vectors by firmware. An exception vector is identified to form an identified exception vector when control is passed from an operating system to the firmware. The identified exception vector is saved to form a saved exception vector. The identified exception vector is then replaced with a substitute vector; and the saved exception vector is restored when control is returned to the operating system to form a restored exception vector. At that point, the restored exception vector is again used to perform error and debugging processes.

Abstract: A PCI to SCSI host adapter circuit is provided for use with different types of host platforms. The host adapter includes logic and controller circuits, and a memory having multiple drivers and a bank switching instruction set stored therein. During initialization, the first driver is loaded into the host's memory if the host's processor is of a compatible type. Otherwise, the bank switching instruction set is loaded into the host's memory and interpreted by the host's processor. During interpretation, the bank switching instruction set causes the host's processor to signal the logic circuit to request that the controller circuit re-map another driver to the location of the first driver in the memory. After this bank switching has occurred, the selected driver is loaded into the host's memory, provided of course that the host's processor is of a compatible type. This process may be repeated until the appropriate code type is found or the host processor is not supported.