I once saw (and used) a similar feature on Mac: pressing some key combination during boot allowed you to wipe and reinstall OS from Internet. Not sure how exactly it was implemented, though, but I agree it would be cool if BIOS had a feature where you could type an URL to ISO and it would download and boot it.
> “It originated at Sun Microsystems, where it was known as OpenBoot, and has been used by vendors including Sun, Apple, IBM and ARM.”
> “Open Firmware allows the system to load platform-independent drivers directly from a PCI device, improving compatibility.”
> “Open Firmware may be accessed through its command line interface, which uses the Forth programming language.”
As I had written a few Forth programs on the Commodore 64, when I got an aluminium PowerBook G4 years ago (2003) I tried it out, and yes, it was Forth.
More recently, I used it for real when setting up a Sun Blade 150.
Here is a quick reference page listing the commands available: http://firmworks.com/QuickRef.html
Although yes, the fact that open firmware let you boot to a FORTH prompt is very relevant to this general discussion:)
option-command-r (on an intel mac at least) boots it into internet recovery mode