SciTech has released a software product designed to enable PowerPC based systems to use standard x86 graphics hardware. Snap Boot IES for PowerPC is a BIOS emulator that can initialize x86 graphics hardware for use with SciTech's Snap Graphics drivers in PowerPC systems, including embedded systems that lack BIOSes.

According to SciTech, the Snap Boot IES for PowerPC is a low-level BIOS emulator that brings the graphics card to a ready state using x86 instructions and data extracted from either the card's onboard BIOS or a BIOS image on disk. Once the graphics hardware has gone through the POST (power-on self test), it can be driven by SciTech's SNAP Graphics drivers, SciTech says.

SciTech Graphics has long supported ATI video cards, and SNAP Boot has been tested and certified for use on “virtually all ATI embedded graphics hardware,” according to SciTech, including:

• Rage XL
  
• Radeon 7000
  
• Rage Mobility M / Rage Mobility M1
  
• Mobility Radeon (M6-C16H)
  
• Mobility Radeon 7500 (M7-CSP32)
  
• Mobility Radeon 9000 (M9-CSP64)

When used with ATI cards, 2D acceleration is supported. For non-ATI cards, a generic VESA VBE 2.0/3.0 driver is available, but may not support acceleration.

One major use for Snap Boot is to add a graphics card to an embedded device that lacks a BIOS altogether, according to Marketing Director Andrew Bloo.

CEO Kendall Bennett said, “Solving the issue of graphics support on the PowerPC platform has long been a dream at SciTech. With the recent addition of SNAP Boot to our SNAP Graphics IES product line, we feel that great strides have been made towards the realization of that dream."

Snap Boot can be purchased as part of SciTech's Snap Graphics IES (Industrial Embedded Solution), priced at $2 – $10 per unit depending on volume. SciTech offers Snap Graphics drivers free for non-commercial use and testing through a nifty on-demand online build tool.

 
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