WARNING RANT:
Okay so today I was working on a PC and I don’t know what it is about PCs that for some reason makes me feel like I’m back in 1997, 1998 again, but today was one of those cases. We were just marveling on FreshDV the other day during on of our podcast at how fast and far technology has come in 10 years. Tapeless media and workflow combined with the promise of 4K acquisition make us techno nerds heady at times. We live in a day and age of blogs, the iPhone, YouTube, and social networking sites such as MySpace. Its a different world, technology is good, or so you would be lead to believe. Then suddenly something comes along and crashes you back to earth dashing all dreams of a stability and technological utopia evaporate. While working on VideoToaster system today there was some issues with stream hangaing and freezing on ingest so it was suggested by Newtek that I flash the bios. Now I’m very proud of my techno geek status and very few technological feats scare or intimidate me. I have flashed my share of bios in the day (mostly in the late 90’s early 2000s) so I figure no sweat. So I proceed to the SuperMicro site and after a short perusal through the documentation am able to ascertain with a relative degree of certainty that I have in fact downloaded the correct files.
So I unzip the files to flash drive and head over to the system to get to work. Against my better judgment I decide to read the text file readme file first. Perhaps it was the warning that read “Warning: Flashing the wrong BIOS on system can cause harm to the system. “or the fact that I could no longer remember whether CD/ or CD\ was the DOS command to change directories but I think it was somewhere close to that point when random flashes from the 90’s began to indubitably invade my mind. Continuing against my better judgment I read further:

1. Extract .zip file under Windows into a floppy disk
2. Prepare a 98 bootable floppy disk
3. Boot up system for which BIOS will be flashed from 98 bootable floppy disk.
4. Insert disk with BIOS file and flash utility into floppy drive
5. At the prompt, type: [flash .rom] and hit enter.
6. Program BootBlock
update the BootBlock sector of the FLASH part, please answers ‘y’ to this prompt,
BootBlock sector will be updated.

Ooookay at this point vaguely from the past the name “Floppy Disk” emerges along with the term boot disk, I quickly try to recall the last time I had seen a floppy disk. Near as I could recall it was 1 of a 5 disk set containing some game boasting new improved 256 color graphics. Bummer, no floppy disk close by I grab a CD and put it in when I realize that windows XP has no native way to create a boot disk other than as a format option to a floppy disk. IT seemed my earlier premonition of doom was closer than I’d hoped. Matt Jeppsen quickly reminded me that Nero or other burning softwares often contain options to format boot disk. Fortunately I had a copy of Nero Express installed on the system, I through in a CD only to be informed that this is an invalid format and the disc must be a DVD, huhhh, minutes later I emerge with a successful DVD boot disc complete with the flash files on the disc. I rescan the direction one more time, could they be anymore unclear!!! Geeze people! Step 5. At the prompt, type: [flash .rom] and hit enter. I quickly glance at the files, 4 total none with a combination of flash.rom and nothing named . This whole process while seemingly archaic at the outset now decided to ad a pinch of insanity to the mix, at this point I lost it. Who in their right mind rights instructions litered with .zip. Is this the downloadable set of generic bios instructions that someone forgot to completely fill in? Finally by looking at the properties and once again with the help of Matt we manage to trace down which file was the .batch file. I reboot the system with the boot disk holding my breathe, in the back of my minds I hear all the voice of reason and warning about flashing bios, how a simple mis step, wrong BIOS firmware, power failure, sneezing, coughing, abdominal pains and sweaty feet can all turn a motherboard into brick. AFter some quick recollection from the good ole days, which I’m no longer certain where “good” a few pinches of DIR/P commands and come CD\ and I finally manage to locate the correct directory to run the flash file. I execute it and hit enter, the DOS shell loads, only to give me an error. it can’t locate the .rom file. I nearly replace to 17″ LCD monitors thrown from a two story balcony. A quick boot back to dos and I confirm the name and directory of the .rom file as 6dal1197.rom oh of course, why not? Re-loading the flash program I manually tell it where the .rom file is and voila. The BIOS is updated and the system reboots. I calmly wipe the sweat from my palms and slide my set of unused floppy disk into my trapper keeper next to my #2 pencils and Nintendo Games.
My point is simple, unlike the convoluted process I just described, is it seriously necessary that in 2007 we are still using processes that archaic? Oh how far we have not come! So today when you pick up your wireless controller for your new 360Xbox and start slamming villains in HD, pause and consider the fact that for all of our advances there are still those times when technology, in spite of all efforts to move on, clings tenaciously to the past in a desperate effort to remain unchanged. Please engineers, can we move into 2008?