Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Michael Brutman]

I am a little skeptical about the prospects for success on this project.

The FreeDOS roadmap ( http://www.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/FreeDOS_Road_Map
) is out of date and short on details.  I would like to see a broad
discussion on the roadmap, get consensus and have it updated.

Anything that uses the name "FreeDOS" should be reserved for the classic 16
bit operating system.  A new project that uses a fundamentally different
kernel should not just have a different version number; it's a different
OS.  I would expect them to call it "FreeDOS-32 v1.0" or something like
that, not FreeDOS v2.0.  You should do this to preserve your trademark
protections too.

Trying to find somebody on freelancer.com to do work on FreeDOS-32 is going
to fail.  It's just not going to happen.  The crowd-sourcing programming
sites attract people who are very optimized to do a specific piece of work,
such as making a new web site using a particular framework.  Operating
system skills and DOS skills are not going to be available, and nobody is
going to want to trudge up the learning curve for a very limited duration
gig.  FreeDOS contributors are hobbyists - they do it because they are
interested.  There is no financial incentive to work on it and the
knowledge is esoteric and not in demand.  It's not a good candidate for
outsourcing.

The Kickstarter project may prove me wrong.  I am interested to see if it
does.  But at a minimum please consider throwing that project back in its
own namespace and not polluting "FreeDOS".



Mike

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 8:12 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:

> Chelson Aitcheson has just started an independent Kickstarter project to
> fund development for FreeDOS-32, in support of a FreeDOS 2.0 distribution.
> I will also post a note about this on the FreeDOS website, but I wanted to
> share a link here for those who wanted to contribute.
>
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597889412/freedos-20-32-bit
>
> The Kickstarter aims to raise $2,500 by Thursday, January 29 2015.
> Chelson's goal is to hire public developers through freelancer.com to
> improve FreeDOS-32. If FreeDOS-32 can be significantly improved, Chelson
> hopes it will become part of mainline FreeDOS.
>
> I'll add that I haven't used FreeDOS-32 but if it supports classic DOS
> programs on modern systems while adding new and useful features, I would
> support that kernel update in FreeDOS 2.0.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Mercury Thirteen]

I have nothing against the project at all (it would be awesome to have a
DOS with 32 bit speed) but I have to say I agree with Mike - the two
projects should keep separate names. FreeDOS should remain an enhanced
clone of MS-DOS since anything which takes it into the 32 bit realm would,
in my mind, qualify it as its own project and therefore merit its own name.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Jim Hall]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
wrote:

> I have nothing against the project at all (it would be awesome to have a
> DOS with 32 bit speed) but I have to say I agree with Mike - the two
> projects should keep separate names. FreeDOS should remain an enhanced
> clone of MS-DOS since anything which takes it into the 32 bit realm would,
> in my mind, qualify it as its own project and therefore merit its own name.
>
>
I agree FreeDOS is an enhanced clone of MS-DOS

But for a moment, let's look at the history of DOS. Microsoft introduced
MSDOS in 1981, based on Seattle Computing's QDOS. Microsoft made
improvements and enhancements to MSDOS over the years, adding new
functionality and modernizing the interface, but always maintaining
application compatibility - because *APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY IS 100%
IMPORTANT*. MSDOS 2 added directory support, and I think it was MSDOS 3
that added CDROM support. MSDOS 4 had multitasking, but that was taken out
before MSDOS 4.01. Microsoft re-wrote MSDOS for version 5 in 1991, and
added neat features like a task switcher. MSDOS 6 in 1993 was basically an
enhanced version of MSDOS, plus a few modern utilities.

In 1994, FreeDOS aimed to create a free, compatible alternative to MSDOS.
And I believe we met that goal in version 1.0 several years ago. We've even
extended the feature set (read: utilities) from MSDOS 6. But FreeDOS is
still - essentially and most importantly - an enhanced clone of the old
MSDOS.

FreeDOS 1.2 and "2.0" need to remain "DOS." There are certain core things
that define DOS. We're small, we run everywhere, we use FAT, we run DOS
applications. That last point is most important, because *APPLICATION
COMPATIBILITY IS 100% IMPORTANT*.

And FreeDOS supports three kinds of users: people who want to run classic
DOS games, people who need to run legacy business applications, people who
use FreeDOS in embedded systems. FreeDOS 1.2 and "2.0" need to meet all
three of those users.

Sure, MSDOS is now a reference platform (i.e. not changing) but DOS isn't
static. We shouldn't be afraid to modernize FreeDOS in ways that don't
break application compatibility. We need to be really careful in doing
that. Minimally, applications written for MSDOS should still run under
whatever "FreeDOS 2.0" becomes. That's because *APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY
IS 100% IMPORTANT*. I think if DOS applications break in this "FreeDOS-32"
kernel, we can't use it. End of story. Aside from that, we are free to make
changes that modernize FreeDOS.

In short, I envision FreeDOS "2.0" as being a more modern version based on
FreeDOS 1.x.


FreeDOS-32 has been around a long time (since 2000) but they haven't
released anything to date. I was in occasional email contact with one or
two of the developers at the time, and I know they suffered poor project
stability. They completely started over more than once. They decided to
create their own filesystem (LEAN) which I still believe was a mistake.
They threw out a lot of code and re-wrote from scratch.

The FreeDOS-32 project went idle in 2005 without having ever released a
version of their kernel to try out. So I've never tried it. Looking at
their "explore" list on their front page, I've always known FreeDOS-32 was
VERY unfinished.

But the concept of a 32-bit FreeDOS kernel was interesting. Their goals
were lofty, but sometimes you need lofty goals to do something new. It was
an interesting project to watch.

So I am interested today to see if this kickstarter project can take up the
FreeDOS-32 code base and make something of it. But I'm cautious. As they
make progress, I will watch for application compatibility, because *APPLICATION
COMPATIBILITY IS 100% IMPORTANT*.

What I don't want to see is someone create a "FreeDOS-32" that's basically
a custom operating system kernel that does something completely different
from "DOS" and provides a compatibility "shell" to run classic DOS apps.
Because we have that now. It's called Linux + DOSEMU to run DOS programs. I
do that all the time today. And I like it, but I don't fool myself into
thinking "Linux + DOSEMU is still DOS" because it isn't.


jh
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/31/2014 10:40 AM, Michael Brutman wrote:

I am a little skeptical about the prospects for success on this project.

The FreeDOS roadmap ( 
http://www.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/FreeDOS_Road_Map ) is out of 
date and short on details.  I would like to see a broad discussion on 
the roadmap, get consensus and have it updated.


Anything that uses the name "FreeDOS" should be reserved for the 
classic 16 bit operating system.  A new project that uses a 
fundamentally different kernel should not just have a different 
version number; it's a different OS.  I would expect them to call it 
"FreeDOS-32 v1.0" or something like that, not FreeDOS v2.0.  You 
should do this to preserve your trademark protections too.


Trying to find somebody on freelancer.com  to 
do work on FreeDOS-32 is going to fail.  It's just not going to 
happen.  The crowd-sourcing programming sites attract people who are 
very optimized to do a specific piece of work, such as making a new 
web site using a particular framework.  Operating system skills and 
DOS skills are not going to be available, and nobody is going to want 
to trudge up the learning curve for a very limited duration gig.  
FreeDOS contributors are hobbyists - they do it because they are 
interested.  There is no financial incentive to work on it and the 
knowledge is esoteric and not in demand.  It's not a good candidate 
for outsourcing.


The Kickstarter project may prove me wrong.  I am interested to see if 
it does.  But at a minimum please consider throwing that project back 
in its own namespace and not polluting "FreeDOS".




Mike

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 8:12 AM, Jim Hall > wrote:


Chelson Aitcheson has just started an independent Kickstarter
project to fund development for FreeDOS-32, in support of a
FreeDOS 2.0 distribution. I will also post a note about this on
the FreeDOS website, but I wanted to share a link here for those
who wanted to contribute.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597889412/freedos-20-32-bit

The Kickstarter aims to raise $2,500 by Thursday, January 29 2015.
Chelson's goal is to hire public developers through freelancer.com
 to improve FreeDOS-32. If FreeDOS-32 can
be significantly improved, Chelson hopes it will become part of
mainline FreeDOS.

I'll add that I haven't used FreeDOS-32 but if it supports classic
DOS programs on modern systems while adding new and useful
features, I would support that kernel update in FreeDOS 2.0.


+1

Anything "32 bit", unless it would refer to a DOSExtender, for which 
there are now at least a couple Open Source one, simply is not DOS 
anymore. And certainly nothing that would be able to run "classic DOS 
programs".
A better spend time (and money?) would be to convince someone at the 
SeaBIOS project to help providing an (U)EFI boot stub, upon which a 
"classic" 16bit FreeDOS then could boot just "like in the old days" on 
the newest systems...


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/31/2014 1:48 PM, Jim Hall wrote:


FreeDOS-32 has been around a long time (since 2000) but they haven't 
released anything to date. I was in occasional email contact with one 
or two of the developers at the time, and I know they suffered poor 
project stability. They completely started over more than once. They 
decided to create their own filesystem (LEAN) which I still believe 
was a mistake. They threw out a lot of code and re-wrote from scratch.


The FreeDOS-32 project went idle in 2005 without having ever released 
a version of their kernel to try out. So I've never tried it. Looking 
at their "explore" list on their front page, I've always known 
FreeDOS-32 was VERY unfinished.


But the concept of a 32-bit FreeDOS kernel was interesting. Their 
goals were lofty, but sometimes you need lofty goals to do something 
new. It was an interesting project to watch.


So I am interested today to see if this kickstarter project can take 
up the FreeDOS-32 code base and make something of it. But I'm 
cautious. As they make progress, I will watch for application 
compatibility, because *APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY IS 100% IMPORTANT*.


What I don't want to see is someone create a "FreeDOS-32" that's 
basically a custom operating system kernel that does something 
completely different from "DOS" and provides a compatibility "shell" 
to run classic DOS apps. Because we have that now. It's called Linux + 
DOSEMU to run DOS programs. I do that all the time today. And I like 
it, but I don't fool myself into thinking "Linux + DOSEMU is still 
DOS" because it isn't.


FreeDOS-32 was born dead IMHO. You simply can't not do what they had in 
mind and still be "100% application compatible". That's why they had to 
start over and over again, without really getting anywhere.
And you won't find anyone writing any new software for it that fills all 
the needs & purposes of (still) existing 16bit DOS software. Any such 
effort is better spend on producing user applications for Linux.
And that $2500 Kickstarter goal won't buy you even one month of 
developer time. And one has to be smoking some really bad stuff to think 
that such a project could be done in such short period of time anyway...


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Jim Hall]

>
>
> FreeDOS-32 was born dead IMHO. You simply can't not do what they had in
> mind and still be "100% application compatible". That's why they had to
> start over and over again, without really getting anywhere.
> And you won't find anyone writing any new software for it that fills all
> the needs & purposes of (still) existing 16bit DOS software. Any such
> effort is better spend on producing user applications for Linux.
> And that $2500 Kickstarter goal won't buy you even one month of developer
> time. And one has to be smoking some really bad stuff to think that such a
> project could be done in such short period of time anyway...
>
>
It's not my kickstarter project, but I'll watch and see what happens. I
agree that FreeDOS-32 is a tough prospect. As you can guess from my other
post, I'm very concerned that they can maintain any application
compatibility while adding modern hardware support. If they can't keep
compatibility, it's a dead end. But if they can, it's worth looking at.

Even NovOS (also another post) was a tough sell to Novell, because it hoped
to provide backwards compatibility while offering a whole new API to do
"new" stuff. It sounds great until you try to do it.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/31/2014 4:22 PM, Jim Hall wrote:
>
> It's not my kickstarter project, but I'll watch and see what happens. 
> I agree that FreeDOS-32 is a tough prospect. As you can guess from my 
> other post, I'm very concerned that they can maintain any application 
> compatibility while adding modern hardware support. If they can't keep 
> compatibility, it's a dead end. But if they can, it's worth looking at.
Given that I am working/playing/programming with DOS since December 
1981, I simply don't see how they can possibly achieve this, unless they 
produce their own reincarnation of something Linux-like and then provide 
a VM to run 16bit DOS. And in that case, you can use a VM on Linux to 
begin with. Or on Windows or OS/X, or any other OS that supports a VM...
>
> Even NovOS (also another post) was a tough sell to Novell, because it 
> hoped to provide backwards compatibility while offering a whole new 
> API to do "new" stuff. It sounds great until you try to do it.
>
Well, 1991 would have been at a time well before Linux had gone 
"mainstream" and you could argue that the folks at Novell had already 
seen "the writing on the wall"...

Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Michael Brutman]

Somebody should talk to HP and see what FreeDOS 2.0 includes.  They are
already shipping machines that support it:

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04027658&DocLang=en&docLocale=en_US&jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001

On a more serious note, somebody should try to correct them ...


On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 4:27 PM, Ralf Quint  wrote:

> On 12/31/2014 4:22 PM, Jim Hall wrote:
> >
> > It's not my kickstarter project, but I'll watch and see what happens.
> > I agree that FreeDOS-32 is a tough prospect. As you can guess from my
> > other post, I'm very concerned that they can maintain any application
> > compatibility while adding modern hardware support. If they can't keep
> > compatibility, it's a dead end. But if they can, it's worth looking at.
> Given that I am working/playing/programming with DOS since December
> 1981, I simply don't see how they can possibly achieve this, unless they
> produce their own reincarnation of something Linux-like and then provide
> a VM to run 16bit DOS. And in that case, you can use a VM on Linux to
> begin with. Or on Windows or OS/X, or any other OS that supports a VM...
> >
> > Even NovOS (also another post) was a tough sell to Novell, because it
> > hoped to provide backwards compatibility while offering a whole new
> > API to do "new" stuff. It sounds great until you try to do it.
> >
> Well, 1991 would have been at a time well before Linux had gone
> "mainstream" and you could argue that the folks at Novell had already
> seen "the writing on the wall"...
>
> Ralf
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Louis Santillan]

You can also buy a copy at MacMall for $2 [0].

[0]
http://www.macmall.com/p/HP-Operating-Systems/product~dpno~13045035~pdp.igfhgha

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 8:52 PM, Michael Brutman 
wrote:

> Somebody should talk to HP and see what FreeDOS 2.0 includes.  They are
> already shipping machines that support it:
>
>
> http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04027658&DocLang=en&docLocale=en_US&jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001
>
> On a more serious note, somebody should try to correct them ...
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 4:27 PM, Ralf Quint  wrote:
>
>> On 12/31/2014 4:22 PM, Jim Hall wrote:
>> >
>> > It's not my kickstarter project, but I'll watch and see what happens.
>> > I agree that FreeDOS-32 is a tough prospect. As you can guess from my
>> > other post, I'm very concerned that they can maintain any application
>> > compatibility while adding modern hardware support. If they can't keep
>> > compatibility, it's a dead end. But if they can, it's worth looking at.
>> Given that I am working/playing/programming with DOS since December
>> 1981, I simply don't see how they can possibly achieve this, unless they
>> produce their own reincarnation of something Linux-like and then provide
>> a VM to run 16bit DOS. And in that case, you can use a VM on Linux to
>> begin with. Or on Windows or OS/X, or any other OS that supports a VM...
>> >
>> > Even NovOS (also another post) was a tough sell to Novell, because it
>> > hoped to provide backwards compatibility while offering a whole new
>> > API to do "new" stuff. It sounds great until you try to do it.
>> >
>> Well, 1991 would have been at a time well before Linux had gone
>> "mainstream" and you could argue that the folks at Novell had already
>> seen "the writing on the wall"...
>>
>> Ralf
>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[imre . leber]

Not that I all of a sudden want to jump the bandwagon, but is he planning on 
hiring current/past FreeDOS developers at least? 

- Oorspronkelijk bericht -

Van: "Jim Hall"  
Aan: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net 
Verzonden: Woensdag 31 december 2014 17:12:57 
Onderwerp: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0 

Chelson Aitcheson has just started an independent Kickstarter project to fund 
development for FreeDOS-32, in support of a FreeDOS 2.0 distribution. I will 
also post a note about this on the FreeDOS website, but I wanted to share a 
link here for those who wanted to contribute. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597889412/freedos-20-32-bit 

The Kickstarter aims to raise $2,500 by Thursday, January 29 2015. Chelson's 
goal is to hire public developers through freelancer.com to improve FreeDOS-32. 
If FreeDOS-32 can be significantly improved, Chelson hopes it will become part 
of mainline FreeDOS. 

I'll add that I haven't used FreeDOS-32 but if it supports classic DOS programs 
on modern systems while adding new and useful features, I would support that 
kernel update in FreeDOS 2.0. 

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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[imre . leber]

Just to put in my own two cents. 

The lastest happening thing is all about open source hardware. Open source 
operating systems are so 2000. 

Intel has recently released a number of x86 based boards. With a simple 
operating system like DOS you could do all sorts of hardware things directly, 
without having to go through all the hassle of installing, updating and 
maintaining a full linux system. 

- Oorspronkelijk bericht -

Van: cordat...@aol.com 
Aan: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net 
Verzonden: Woensdag 31 december 2014 20:02:57 
Onderwerp: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0 

I'm curious what the specific uses are being proposed for FreeDOS-32 ? 

The kickstarter site mentions supporting DJGPP compiled programs which use 
DPMI. This is already supported in FreeDOS. 

It further mentions hard real time and threading. There are already user-space 
threading packages available ( freebie: Erick Engelke's ERTOS) for FreeDOS. 

What is it that the developers of this project want to do that can't be done 
with FreeDOS or other existing OS ? 


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[imre . leber]

And then why not emphasize the real benefits of DOS since like for ever? 

Direct access to hardware and real time behaviour (linux is not real time) 

- Oorspronkelijk bericht -

Van: "imre leber"  
Aan: "Technical discussion and questions for FreeDOS developers." 
 
Verzonden: Vrijdag 2 januari 2015 08:53:11 
Onderwerp: Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0 

Just to put in my own two cents. 

The lastest happening thing is all about open source hardware. Open source 
operating systems are so 2000. 

Intel has recently released a number of x86 based boards. With a simple 
operating system like DOS you could do all sorts of hardware things directly, 
without having to go through all the hassle of installing, updating and 
maintaining a full linux system. 

- Oorspronkelijk bericht -

Van: cordat...@aol.com 
Aan: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net 
Verzonden: Woensdag 31 december 2014 20:02:57 
Onderwerp: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0 

I'm curious what the specific uses are being proposed for FreeDOS-32 ? 

The kickstarter site mentions supporting DJGPP compiled programs which use 
DPMI. This is already supported in FreeDOS. 

It further mentions hard real time and threading. There are already user-space 
threading packages available ( freebie: Erick Engelke's ERTOS) for FreeDOS. 

What is it that the developers of this project want to do that can't be done 
with FreeDOS or other existing OS ? 


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Mercury Thirteen]

I didn't see any mention of that, but it would be a great place to start...
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Jim Hall]

The list of features on the kickstarter seem to be copied/pasted from the
FreeDOS-32 page:
http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net


Jim

On Dec 31, 2014 1:03 PM,  wrote:
>
> I'm curious what the specific uses are being proposed for FreeDOS-32 ?
>
> The kickstarter site mentions supporting DJGPP compiled programs which
use DPMI.   This is already supported in FreeDOS.
>
> It further mentions hard real time and threading.  There are already
user-space threading packages available ( freebie: Erick Engelke's ERTOS)
for FreeDOS.
>
> What is it that the developers of this project want to do that can't be
done with FreeDOS or other existing OS ?
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Bertho Grandpied]

On Wed, 31 Dec 2014, Jim Hall  wrote :

> let's look at the history of DOS
> MSDOS 4 had multitasking, but that was taken out
before MSDOS 4.01.

Lest I forgot, a happy new year to all !

And, Jim, a correction, as you seem to be confused here.
Mutitasking DOS was "European MSDOS 4", a  different codebase 
by unrelated teams than regular MS-DOS versions. It was not released
but almost confidentially by a couple of OEMs, and it has had no progeniture.

MS-DOS 4.01 (a quick fix for the horribly buggy MS-DOS 4.0, which
"randomly" trashed the hard disk FATs) was the regular successor
to long lived MS-DOS 3.x versions.

Sorry for the nit picking, best regards

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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Travis Siegel]

Actually, if it could be rolled in, I believe the vmix32 project would be an 
excellent 32-bit dos multitasking solution.  I ran vmix when it was version 
2.67, and it not only worked, (in my case) it worked too well.  I had multiple 
programs running, and because of the method vmix used to virtualize the output, 
and the fact that I use a screen reader because of being visually impaired, 
vmix programs were multitasking, and all programs (not just the front most one) 
were speaking simultaneously.  That is the only reason I stopped using it.  If 
the screen output had been virtualized better (I.E. not being sent through the 
dos bios routines when it wasn't the foremost program) I'd probably still be 
using it today.  It was an excellent solution, and now that it's opensource 
(though nowhere near as functional as that 2.67 release was) it might be a good 
starting point for a 32-bit dos that is 100% dos compatible.
I'm not convinced the current opensource version of vmix can do the job, but if 
the older 2.67 code could be brought into the open, then there might be 
something to base a whole compatible 32-bit system on right there.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Travis Siegel]

Actually, opendos version 7.01 (or caldera dos depending on when you purchased 
it) did have multitasking, and it worked fairly well.  The problem was, setting 
it up and getting it to run properly was a bear.  I did finally accomplish it, 
but it was a tough nut to crack, and I didn't use it long, due to other issues 
with hardware, but it went far beyond msdos 5.0 task switching, and actually 
allowed full-blown multitasking.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Mercury Thirteen]

As far as I have seen, DOS allocates one Program Segment Prefix and runs an
app in that segment. When you exit the program, it clears that app out then
loads the next one you run in the same segment. I don't think it would be
that hard to make it allocate an additional PSP every time a new app is
launched. Of course you have the whole hardware sharing issue, also, but
there should be some way to mitigate this issue too. Maybe an internal flag
which signifies that a certain program is using a specific resource, so
FreeDOS knows to make the other app wait until the first is finished before
allowing the request? That may cut down on the majority of conflicts.

Memory protection should be fairly easy to implement also, as all the
kernel would have to do is make a note of which process ID requested which
block of RAM and disallow writing into blocks owned by other processes.
This should be switchable, also, in case the user is depending on software
which *must* write into the far reaches of RAM.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Aitor Santamaría]

Hello,


2015-01-03 19:00 GMT+01:00 Mercury Thirteen :

> As far as I have seen, DOS allocates one Program Segment Prefix and runs
> an app in that segment. When you exit the program, it clears that app out
> then loads the next one you run in the same segment. I don't think it would
> be that hard to make it allocate an additional PSP every time a new app is
> launched. Of course you have the whole hardware sharing issue, also, but
> there should be some way to mitigate this issue too. Maybe an internal flag
> which signifies that a certain program is using a specific resource, so
> FreeDOS knows to make the other app wait until the first is finished before
> allowing the request? That may cut down on the majority of conflicts.
>

Under 32-bit protected mode and VMM32, I/O Access and interrupts can be
controled and hooked. This is exactly that the VxD does: it catches all
these calls, and cares that there are no conflicts (for example, the VCOMD
presumably controlls the COM port calls and interrupts among the different
VM's, VKD for the keyboard, and so on).
The DOS running in each VM runs without caring or noticing that is living
inside a VM, so needs not even to be touched.


>
> Memory protection should be fairly easy to implement also, as all the
> kernel would have to do is make a note of which process ID requested which
> block of RAM and disallow writing into blocks owned by other processes.
> This should be switchable, also, in case the user is depending on software
> which *must* write into the far reaches of RAM.
>

Same as above.

Aitor
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:48 AM, Travis Siegel  wrote:
>
> Actually, opendos version 7.01 (or caldera dos depending on when you 
> purchased it)
> did have multitasking, and it worked fairly well.  The problem was, setting 
> it up and
> getting it to run properly was a bear.  I did finally accomplish it, but it 
> was a tough nut
> to crack, and I didn't use it long, due to other issues with hardware, but it 
> went far
> beyond msdos 5.0 task switching, and actually allowed full-blown multitasking.

OpenDOS 7.01 wasn't very "open". It was short-lived, born and died in
1997. It didn't even have all the Novell fixes (AFAIK). It was
non-commercial only. I had thought it was kernel and shell only, not
sure. I don't think they released much more than that. (See Udo
Kuhnt's EDR-DOS if curious.) DR-DOS 7.03 (from 1998) is still the
latest version being sold (by a different company, since they've
changed hands a lot over the years). FYI, it normally identified
itself as IBM PC-DOS 6, for compatibility reasons.

I'm not sure when the various multitasking parts came into play. I
think DR-DOS 6 had some very limited support, but it wasn't until
Novell DOS 7 that full pre-emptive multitasking came along. You could
do task switching on a 286, but 386 was needed for the pre-emptive
stuff. It was a very good DOS, more or less, but multitasking was not
for me. I only tried it a few times. It wasn't what I'd call
interesting enough. (Almost no developers ever targeted their API.) I
don't think it ever allowed me to do much compiling with DJGPP in the
background. That was almost the only use case I could think of. Of
course, I was only using it on my (old, half-dead) P166 with 32 MB of
RAM (with some eaten up by NWCACHE and TDSK), but it was still (by
design) limited to like 64 MB per task, no matter what HIMEM you used.
IIRC, there were hidden bits (VXDs?) inside its EMM386, which also
relied on its internal DPMI server (now 32-bit since 7.02 or such).
All I remember is that something in TDE's (new) keyboard driver
conflicted, so I always had to temporarily disable DPMI when editing.

Other than that, there wasn't much (major) improvement or advantage to
using DR-DOS at all, compared to the various alternatives. It might've
been better than MS-DOS, but not by too much.

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