> [Dredging into my memory, and anecdotal from a friend of mine...]
>
> I think Sun uses (or at least used to) something like this.
> It is based on Forth and is called OpenROM or something like that.
> I believe that all the adapters had enough of a driver stored onboard
> to support booting.  It was supposed to be able to run on any of the
> platforms they supported.  I just did a quick search and found
> references to OpenROM and OpenBoot.  I believe that the guy
> that wrote this is a pretty well know Forth personage.
>
> Now the buzzword is I2O.  Some believe this to be a plot by Intel
> to sell more 960's since most (all) I20 adapters have a 960 onboard.
> There is a lot of controversy over I2O in the Open Source camp.

Indeed, the iMac boots in a funny mode when you hold some magic keys down, 
into a Forth-like interpreter that seems to be closely related to device 
configuration.  I recall seeing some press describing this awhile back, and 
some indication that more Apple computers will be using that thingie, 
whatever its called.  OpenROM or OpenBoot sounds familiar.