BOUNCE openbios@freiburg.linux.de: Admin request of type /^\s*which\s*$/i at line 9

[owner-openbios at freiburg.linux.de]

>From stepan at freiburg.linux.de  Wed Feb  9 10:30:01 2000
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From: "Jessen, Per" <JesseP at europe.stortek.com>
To: "'openbios'" <openbios at elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
Subject: flashing AMD EPROMs under Linux (possibly off-topic)
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 09:23:50 -0000 
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All,

this is probably off-topic on this list, so my apologies in advance.
But considering the recent debate on the flashing of BIOS'es, I figured
this might be the right place to ask - 

I'm trying to flashwrite to an AMD29F010A - 128K flash EPROM. It's sitting
at 0xC000 as a video-ROM. I've got a module (kernel 2.2.14) doing this,
which 
initially caused some problems, but it's more or less working now. 
It's the "more or less" bit that's causing problems :-)

If I leave the 2 first bytes of the ROM-image as 0xFFFF (instead of 0xAA55)
I can flash the EPROM with no problems. If I leave them in, the system
appears to get stuck/hung. No way out, except reset.
If I use 0xFFFF at first, then subsequently try to write 0xAA55, the
system again appears to locks up. 
Prior to a new write, I erase the entire EPROM (not necessary, I know, but
...)
So, what I don't understand is what is the importance of the 0xAA55 to Linux
?
I can flash the EPROM using a DOS utility with absolutely no problems.

If this is the wrong place to ask, could someone point me in the right
direction ?

MTIA
regards,
Per Jessen