We used to boot DOS/Win3 and Macs using bootROMs.  The
ones I liked the best were from a Canadian company called
LANWorks, the product was called BootWare - I think they
were swallowed by 3Com a few years ago.

  If you go to Intel's web site and search on "PXE" for Pre
eXecution Environment, you should be able to download a
development kit for programming bootROMs that includes a
TFTPD daemon for Linux.

  The nice thing about the BootWare ROMs was that they were
configurable from both the keyboard and a DOS program.  You
could select the ethernet frametype, whether or not to use
their proprietary system called MSD (don't remember it's
specifics) and another set of utilities (multiboot) that
would give you a boot image that displayed a menu of
available boot images.  Fun stuff.

Steve
"Robert N. Eaton" wrote:
> 
> plug@arcticmail.com wrote:
> >
> > Someone at the meeting tonight wanted to know
> > how one could boot/run Linux on a system with
> > no floppy, no CD-ROM drive, and no hard disk.
> >
> > Here is an (ancient) package that can demonstrate
> > one possible way to accomplish this via RPL:
> >
> > http://sorry.vse.cz/dimension/rdos/dxt/
> >
> > D
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Plug-discuss mailing list  -  Plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> 
> There is also a fairly interesting how-to for creating a 1-floppy,
> hard-diskless 486 firewall(12-16 meg memory) at:
> www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2503199,00.html
> 
> It also describes a method (new to me, maybe not to others) for writing
> 1.6 megs onto a 1.44 meg floppy.
> 
> Bob Eaton
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Plug-discuss mailing list  -  Plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss

-- 
Carpe cerevisiae