16 Dec
2005
16 Dec
'05
4:31 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 09:26:28 -0800
"Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
Hi Hans,
This is probably the best bet for me - I was thinking of
something that
could run FreeDOS on a PC/XT type platform. No chipsets; no
fancy CPUs...
Peeking in from the outside (not having looked at any of these
codebases) it sounds like they are bootloader projects with
varying degrees of elaborateness. The original BIOS code on x86
hardware was used as recallable routines that the OS would
actively hook into, and that programmers (at their peril) could
utilize as well. The concept of 'BIOS' in the modern era has
degraded to the bootload function. The freenixes and modern
Microsoft OSes don't generally touch the BIOS once they are up and
running.
So a Fourth-based bootloader would be much the same as any other.
Load the kernel and get outta the way.
The BIOS is written in Forth
A BIOS written in Forth? I dunno - I don't want to start any
flame wars,
but I'm just not comfortable with that :-)
Now, a complete different aproach here is
LinuxBIOS
Which, I assume, is unable to run FreeDOS or, indeed, anything
except
Linux ...