3 Jul
2007
3 Jul
'07
8:36 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
You needed permissions simply to utilize the same
entry points? I can imagine that being an issue today,
but as long as you weren't mimicking their code too
closely, you were ok.
one.
Then look it up on the 'net and prepare to be
surprised.... :-)
The Sanyo was pretty much PC compatible, not totally
of course, but I'm not so sure I'd classify it as a
pseudo-compatible. So right there we know it had a
*somewhat* IBM compatible BIOS, rom or disk based I
don't know.
Bill Sudbrink wrote the review in BYTE many moons
ago. If he's listening in, he'd be able to answer
right off the bat I suppose. HEY BILL!! You there.
All I have is dial-up access at the moment, and it's
generally painful to do anything more then check
e-mails and whatnot. I will look into it though.
And I think, that rather than taking the lazy option
you should find a
couple of on-line computer museums and see for
yourself....there is *plenty*
of information about this out there if you actually
bother to look.
The majority of PC's were IBM compatible to a large
degree and had onboard BIOS roms. If we're solely
talking about strictly about pseudo-compatibles -
there just weren't that *many*...
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Now I start to see the cause of your confusion.
Most (all?) non-IBM PC compatible MS-DOS machines
load a BIOS from disc at
boot time. The IBM is fairly unusual in having it
all in ROM.
And this amounts to confusion? If there's a BIOS
present, it's irrelevant whether it resides in a chip
or gets loaded from disk.
Yes, MS-DOS needs *A* BIOS to operate, but that BIOS
has to be "MS-DOS
compatible" for want of a better phrase (and
tailored to that particular
hardware) rather than "IBM compatible".
Remember, I never used the term "IBM compatible", but
rather "IBM style". To clarify, I guess what I meant
was that DOS itself utilizes BIOS routines for
hardware access - my guess. Not necessarily
exclusively, but it seemed unlikely any version of
MS-DOS would run on an 80x86 based computer -
regardless of how close or not it's architecture was
to the 5150's - you weren't running or even porting a
version of DOS to it.
....And the T2K
is one of the most compatible of
the pseudos at
the BIOS/DOS level
There's nothing preventing a manufacturer from
writing a BIOS for their
machine which has the same functions, entry points
etc as IBM's BIOS if
that's what they want as long as they have the
appropriate permissions. That only became an issue when the PC rose to the
top of the pile and "IBM
compatability" became desirable; whereupon the
non-compatibles faded into
obscurity.
I am, I've owned, used, hacked and programmed all of
them....
But did it load a BIOS from disk? I'm assuming by
this that it didn't reside in a rom.
> ACT Apricot PC series/ "F" series /
"Xen"
series
(prior to
"Xen-i")
Not sure. Sanyo MBC-555
I'd be real surprised if it was true of this ....and many, *many* more....I.E. MS-DOS<>IBM
compatible!
Name them. I think you're totally *totally*
exaggerating.