I do like the idea of having a very small partition to serve as a "bootable floppy." However, making use of 'dd' sorta assumes that some competent *NIX is up and running.

And, yes, I am trying to force the issue of moving beyond the era of the floppy drive. Heck, we've got single hard drives inching towards 250 and 320GB. Bootable CDs would definitely suffice, by Tyan seems to be having a little trouble with El Torito and friends.

-SUO