On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 at 22:11, Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net> wrote: > > Assuming Google does not scrap GSoC amidst the layoffs, I have a thought. > > Perhaps it could be used to solve one of the most frequent problems I hear. > Running FreeDOS on modern UEFI hardware. > > As we are all well aware, this cannot be directly accomplished and would > require an abstraction layer between the OS and the actual hardware.
I was discussing this recently on Mastodon, following Jim kindly agreeing to a video interview for the Register. https://social.vivaldi.net/@do...@nd2.uk/109716078029851572 This is a very sketchy thought, but... AIUI, the way that 386 memory managers for DOS work is that they put the CPU into protect mode, map RAM into upper memory blocks as DOS wants, then start a single, non-multitasking V86 mode VM for DOS itself. That basic process would be enough to boot a DOS instance, wouldn't it? "All" it needs is a memory manager that can start as a 32-bit process, set up a few interrupts -- INT 11 for the hard disk, for instance -- start a single V86 process, and then kick DOS off in that process. Then a stub program for DOS to load in CONFIG.SYS to enable the memory manager. Normally, DOS starts EMM386 or JEMM386 or whatever. This way round, JEMM386 starts DOS. Does that seem doable? It needs to be small, but as such, I wonder if VisOpySys, KolibriOS, MenuetOS or the like might have something usable? > A project could be created to provide a very thin Linux based system > (possibly using an RTOS kernel) whose only job is to manage the abstraction > layer and implement the virtual machine to run FreeDOS. This sounds akin to the process HP and others use to ship FreeDOS laptops. It works but it's quite complicated: https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packard-freedos-option/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
