14 Dec
2005
14 Dec
'05
12:43 p.m.
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and hack together a small project
OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
14 Dec
14 Dec
12:50 p.m.
Gary Sparkes wrote:
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and
hack together a small
project OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any
decent resource for information on dos compatability and how to
achieve it, or is it left as a reverse engineering exercise for 'the
reader' ? :)
Would this help http://www.freedos.org/ ?
--
Antonio carlini
arcarlini at iee.org
12:53 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Gary Sparkes once stated:
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and hack together a small project
OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
How compatable? If you go by the published API for MS-DOS 1.x, then it
should be pretty easy, but if by "compatable" you mean "run arbitrary
MS-DOS
programs, especially those from Microsoft" you may have your work cut out
for you. You may want to check out http://www.freedos.org/.
-spc (But remember, MS-DOS 1.0 is a something of a CP/M for the 8086
world ... )
1:11 p.m.
On 12/14/05 3:53 PM, "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc at
conman.org> wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Gary Sparkes once
stated:
I was thinking of going up compatability in versions, such as going from 1.x
to 2.x etc, mainly because, well, I'm very, very bored :)
And of course, it'd be IBM PC compatable stuff, not the odd machine MS-DOS
running thingies
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and hack together a small project
OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
How compatable? If you go by the published API for MS-DOS 1.x, then it
should be pretty easy, but if by "compatable" you mean "run arbitrary
MS-DOS
programs, especially those from Microsoft" you may have your work cut out
for you. You may want to check out http://www.freedos.org/.
-spc (But remember, MS-DOS 1.0 is a something of a CP/M for the 8086
world ... ) 
16 Dec
16 Dec
6:37 a.m.
New subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
Am 14 Dec 2005 16:11 meinte Gary Sparkes:
On 12/14/05 3:53 PM, "Sean 'Captain
Napalm' Conner" <spc at conman.org> wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Gary Sparkes once stated:
>> I'm rather bored, so I thought I might
try and hack together a small project
>> OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
>> for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
>> a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
> How compatable? If you go by the published API
for MS-DOS 1.x, then it
> should be pretty easy, but if by "compatable" you mean "run arbitrary
MS-DOS
> programs, especially those from Microsoft" you may have your work cut out
> for you. You may want to check out http://www.freedos.org/.
I was thinking of going up compatability in versions,
such as going from 1.x
to 2.x etc, mainly because, well, I'm very, very bored :)
Well, that's like building two OSes, since 2 has been realy something
ifferent, aimed at bridgeing the gap from XPM to Xenix.
And of course, it'd be IBM PC compatable stuff,
not the odd machine MS-DOS
running thingies
That's not the question. MS/PC Dos is a rather machine independent
OS. as long as you a real mode x86 CPU, DOS itself is compatible
across virtualy all machines. Dos uses for all its functionality
BIOS calls and got no specialities to bind it to IBM-PC Hardware.
Machine specific stuff was all in the BIOS - including lots of
additional functionality for non-IBM machinery. So, straight DOS
programms could be easy portet, if DOS was present.
For incompatibilities there where two major resons:
a) The Application did use Hardware and or BIOS specific functions,
like writing directly to screen buffers, doing DMA or fiddling
with the keyboard.
b) The Application used inofficial/not public documentated MS-DOS
calls, like $52 to get the DDA, the root of all things evil
(and subsequent the memory chain, or the SFT (*1)).
Most 'incompatible' application fall into cathegory a), except for
lots of MS Programms, which belong to cat b). To my understanding
this was what Sean ment with compatible beyond the published API.
A real good book to stat of would be:
Arne Sch"apers - DOS 5 f"ur Programmierer.
I got no idea if there ever was an englisch edition, but it's
eventualy the best analysis and documentation of DOS ever made.
He covers not only DOS 2-5 but also DR-DOS and all similarities
and differences. Think of it as a documented, debugged and extended
version of
Andrew Schulman (et.al) - Undocumented DOS
Both books are from Addison-Wesley, so If you can't find Arnes,
Undocumented DOS is a good start anyway. The other real helpful
book would be
The MS-DOS Enzyclopedia from MS-Press
Good book, but of course only a compilation of the 'official'
material. only about 20% cover the DOS API, the rest is
somewhat like the mother of all DOS manuals. ~1500 pages in
one book. If you need a DOS-manual, try to get this book. It
even got a small entertaining history secttion. Originaly it
was HUGE a hard cover book for a unpayable price (I remember
500+ Mark).
Another very important book might be
Gunter Born - Dateiformate - Die Referenz
Again, German, and I don't know about a similar English book.
It lists everything from Lotus to Word, from Autocad to GEM.
Quite helpful - did I mention that I love to have information
as paper in front of me?
Oh, and last but not least, keep Ralf Browns IntList at hand
when starting the project, Sos is more than just INT 21.
Gruss
H.
*1 - I'm not completely shure it $52 was already present in DOS 1.0,
but it seams to make sense, especialy since funcions like $50/51
(GET/SET PSP) or $53 (TRANSLATE BPB) are in the same range and
should have been already present in 1.0 to my understanding.
Fits also with the idea of starting 'internal' functions at
such a number (80 decimal)
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
8:23 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
Speaking of FreeDOS and DR DOS, is there also a "Free" BIOS?
Yes, I know the BIOS is hardware specific, but most PC compatible
platforms are the pretty much the same. Even if they aren't, it's nice to
have a starting point.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Hans Franke
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 6:38 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
Am 14 Dec 2005 16:11 meinte Gary Sparkes:
On 12/14/05 3:53 PM, "Sean 'Captain
Napalm' Conner"
<spc at conman.org>
wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Gary Sparkes once stated:
>> I'm rather bored, so I thought I
might try and hack together a
>> small project OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is
>> there any decent resource for information on dos
compatability and
>> how to achieve it, or is it left as a
reverse
engineering exercise
>> for 'the reader' ? :)
> How compatable? If you go by the
published API for MS-DOS 1.x,
> then it should be pretty easy, but if by "compatable" you
mean
"run
> arbitrary MS-DOS programs, especially those
from
Microsoft" you may
> have your work cut out for you. You may
want to check out
> http://www.freedos.org/.
I was thinking of going up compatability in
versions, such as going
from 1.x to 2.x etc, mainly because, well, I'm very, very bored :)
Well, that's like building two OSes, since 2 has been realy
something ifferent, aimed at bridgeing the gap from XPM to Xenix.
And of course, it'd be IBM PC compatable
stuff, not the odd machine
MS-DOS running thingies
That's not the question. MS/PC Dos is a rather machine
independent OS. as long as you a real mode x86 CPU, DOS
itself is compatible across virtualy all machines. Dos uses
for all its functionality BIOS calls and got no specialities
to bind it to IBM-PC Hardware.
Machine specific stuff was all in the BIOS - including lots
of additional functionality for non-IBM machinery. So,
straight DOS programms could be easy portet, if DOS was present.
For incompatibilities there where two major resons:
a) The Application did use Hardware and or BIOS specific functions,
like writing directly to screen buffers, doing DMA or fiddling
with the keyboard.
b) The Application used inofficial/not public documentated MS-DOS
calls, like $52 to get the DDA, the root of all things evil
(and subsequent the memory chain, or the SFT (*1)).
Most 'incompatible' application fall into cathegory a),
except for lots of MS Programms, which belong to cat b). To
my understanding this was what Sean ment with compatible
beyond the published API.
A real good book to stat of would be:
Arne Sch"apers - DOS 5 f"ur Programmierer.
I got no idea if there ever was an englisch edition, but it's
eventualy the best analysis and documentation of DOS ever
made. He covers not only DOS 2-5 but also DR-DOS and all
similarities and differences. Think of it as a documented,
debugged and extended version of
Andrew Schulman (et.al) - Undocumented DOS
Both books are from Addison-Wesley, so If you can't find
Arnes, Undocumented DOS is a good start anyway. The other
real helpful book would be
The MS-DOS Enzyclopedia from MS-Press
Good book, but of course only a compilation of the 'official'
material. only about 20% cover the DOS API, the rest is
somewhat like the mother of all DOS manuals. ~1500 pages in
one book. If you need a DOS-manual, try to get this book. It
even got a small entertaining history secttion. Originaly it
was HUGE a hard cover book for a unpayable price (I remember
500+ Mark).
Another very important book might be
Gunter Born - Dateiformate - Die Referenz
Again, German, and I don't know about a similar English book.
It lists everything from Lotus to Word, from Autocad to GEM.
Quite helpful - did I mention that I love to have information
as paper in front of me?
Oh, and last but not least, keep Ralf Browns IntList at hand
when starting the project, Sos is more than just INT 21.
Gruss
H.
*1 - I'm not completely shure it $52 was already present in DOS 1.0,
but it seams to make sense, especialy since funcions like $50/51
(GET/SET PSP) or $53 (TRANSLATE BPB) are in the same range and
should have been already present in 1.0 to my understanding.
Fits also with the idea of starting 'internal' functions at
such a number (80 decimal)
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
9:09 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS
Robert Armstrong wrote:
Speaking of FreeDOS and DR DOS, is there also a
"Free" BIOS?
Yes, I know the BIOS is hardware specific, but most PC compatible
platforms are the pretty much the same. Even if they aren't, it's nice to
have a starting point.
Sort of. Tied to running Linux though, rather than being a free implementation
that can also allow other OSes to run. Still, booting your PC to a full
multitasking OS in a couple of seconds is still pretty nifty.
Afraid I don't have bookmarks handy (I read about all of this in passing a few
months ago), but a google for "Linux BIOS" should turn up some useful links.
I seem to remember that when you get down to it, it's surprising how many
tweaks need to be made in order to support a reasonable range of motherboards.
cheers
Jules
9:22 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
Am 16 Dec 2005 8:23 meinte Robert Armstrong:
Speaking of FreeDOS and DR DOS, is there also a
"Free" BIOS?
Yes, I know the BIOS is hardware specific, but most
PC compatible
platforms are the pretty much the same. Even if they aren't, it's nice to
have a starting point.
Well Bob, there is, and there isn't. The name FreeBIOS is of course
taken by a project, wich seams to have stalled about 5 years ago,
at least according to the last version I could find at sourceforge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freebios/
But there's OpenBIOS:
http://www.openbios.info/
While FreeBIOS was aimed as a replacement for a genuine x86 BIOS,
there's also OpenBIOS whose goal is even more far fetched by aiming
to be CPU independent (!) To reach this, some real old knowledge
has been dug out: The BIOS is written in Forth - now called FCode
and supplied with a C to FCode compiler for peole who speak only
a single letter (aka non literate programming :)
OpenBIOS is quite active and already in a state that can be used
for most ordinary systems.
Now, a complete different aproach here is LinuxBIOS
http://www.linuxbios.org/index.php/Main_Page
The idea is to just setup the very minimalistic needed things
like Memory, then unpack a Linux kernal into RAM and let the
Linux do the further hardware initializaetion and have it bootup
whatever system should finaly be bootet.
To my understanding the project diverted a bit from it's original
course by adding more and more init-code to the added (non Linux)
code, but it's still worth a look. Results on x86 hardware (386+)
is quite inplessive.
On the other hand it's (as often with linux) a rather x86 specific
thing.
Personaly I would rather go with OpenBIOS.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
9:26 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
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...
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 ...
Thanks,
Bob
10:06 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
On 12/16/05, 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...
I think the SUN computers have BIOS written in forth.. but I could be wrong.
vax, 9000
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 ...
Thanks,
Bob
11:21 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
Hi,
"9000 VAX" said:
I think the SUN computers have BIOS written in forth.. but I could be wrong.
You're thinking of Open Firmware - a superset of ANS-Standard Forth used for
detecting and setting up the hardware etc. on Sun, Apple and some IBM
machines. It can be accessed from the console as well, allowing you to probe
and set up hardware manually should you need to, or as a normal Forth of
course...
Apple are apparently dropping it from the upcoming Intel machines - pity.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
4:31 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
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 ...
19 Dec
19 Dec
5:09 a.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
Hi Bob,
Am 16 Dec 2005 9:26 meinte Robert Armstrong:
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...
Shure, but to me it seams dead since quite some time.
> 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 :-)
Well, I'm not a Forth evangelist either, but it got it's
mertoots. to adapt it to a new CPU, all you need is to
write a rather compact core interpreter and a few low
level access routines.
Of course it doesn't free you from adding CPU and hardware
specific code (in Forth) when using on a new machine, but
all Hardware that is already covered can be used right away.
Atempts like that has been done several times, and if you own
certain IBM or Mac (PPC) or Sparc computers, your machine might
already use it.
The non-x86 world is always lacking hardware, and adding a bus
like PCI does only allow to plug in a card without killing the
machine - without drivers it eats capacity of your power supply
(in best cenario, in worst, it slows down or blocks the bus by
not beeing properly initialized). Here the Open Firmware (IIRC
IBM, Motorola, Sun and HP where involved) initiative jumped in,
by defining a standard where the machine is supposed to have a
forth interpreter in ROM (or wherever the boot and initialize
software is) that is used to execute a set of Forth programms
to initialize the card. As an extension a set of 'entry points'
to do basic I/O funcionality was also defined.
The goal was to be able to plug any Open Firmware card into any
of the machines and have it properly initialized and recognized
by the OS, and in case of certain cards (for exampel graphic) be
even used with a basic functionality without loading card specific
drivers. At least enough to get the system up and running.
I would realy favour the Forth solution over anything else.
> Now, a complete different aproach here is
LinuxBIOS
Which, I assume, is unable to run FreeDOS or,
indeed, anything except
Linux ...
Na, just the other way arround. Shure, a Linux gets loaded, but
this can go straight to boot a Windows, or DOS.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
16 Dec
16 Dec
4:26 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:23:49 -0800
"Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
Speaking of FreeDOS and DR DOS, is there also a "Free" BIOS?
Depending on what you want the 'freeness' to mean, the assembler
source code is published for IBM and Compaq's BIOS on some of
their hardware. If your primary purpose is wanting the source
code, that should help.
Is the Phoenix BIOS source code published anywhere, or was the
greatly heralded 'Phoenix reverse engineers the BIOS and frees us
from IBM' move really a 'closing of the
source?'
Yes, I know the BIOS is hardware specific, but most
PC
compatible
platforms are the pretty much the same. Even if they aren't,
it's nice to have a starting point.
Most __early__ PC Compatible platforms are pretty much the same.
To the point where XT-clone motherboards even had the same chips
placed at the same points on the board across brands. They all
made the exact same copies of the IBM originals for a time. I
have a few 'XT Clone' motherboard manuals that include the
schematic, and have used those schematics to service entire
different brands of motherboard.
4:44 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
On 12/16/2005 at 7:26 PM Scott Stevens wrote:
Is the Phoenix BIOS source code published anywhere, or
was the
greatly heralded 'Phoenix reverse engineers the BIOS and frees us
from IBM' move really a 'closing of the source?'
I don't know that Phoenix has ever published their BIOS sources for
anything--including the video cards.
Let's not forget that the Taiwanese government also funded a
reverse-engineered XT BIOS for use by their budding PC industry.
There was a book out at one time with an entire BIOS written in C. My
moldy brain won't identify it precisely, but I seem to recall that Mitch
Waite had something to do with it--or maybe not. Annabooks, maybe?
Cheers,
Chuck
8:05 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS))
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote:
There was a book out at one time with an entire BIOS
written in C. My
moldy brain won't identify it precisely, but I seem to recall that Mitch
Waite had something to do with it--or maybe not. Annabooks, maybe?
Yes, it was Annabooks
My copy is not easily accessible right now
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
9:38 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 12/16/2005 at 7:26 PM Scott Stevens wrote:
Sure that is not cheese! I know at one time you could get a program
that would dissasmble
the bios and add comments to it. And no I don't have a copy!
Is the Phoenix BIOS source code published
anywhere, or was the
greatly heralded 'Phoenix reverse engineers the BIOS and frees us
from IBM' move really a 'closing of the source?'
I don't know that Phoenix has ever published their BIOS sources for
anything--including the video cards.
Let's not forget that the Taiwanese government also funded a
reverse-engineered XT BIOS for use by their budding PC industry.
There was a book out at one time with an entire BIOS written in C. My
moldy brain won't identify it precisely, but I seem to recall that Mitch
Waite had something to do with it--or maybe not. Annabooks, maybe?
10:09 p.m.
New subject: Free BIOS (was Resources for DOS
On 12/16/2005 at 10:38 PM woodelf wrote:
Sure that is not cheese! I know at one time you could
get a program
that would dissasmble
the bios and add comments to it. And no I don't have a copy!
My cheese says that that one's easy -- that was Sourcer and I think I still
have a copy of it.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:22 a.m.
New subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
Am 16 Dec 2005 15:37 meinte Hans Franke:
The other real helpful book would be
The MS-DOS Enzyclopedia from MS-Press
Good book, but of course only a compilation of the
'official'
material. only about 20% cover the DOS API, the rest is
somewhat like the mother of all DOS manuals. ~1500 pages in
one book. If you need a DOS-manual, try to get this book. It
even got a small entertaining history secttion. Originaly it
was HUGE a hard cover book for a unpayable price (I remember
500+ Mark).
A friend just tried to convince me that I again just straight
transliterated from German, and the word in question (unpayable)
should be rather 'unafordable' or 'way to expensive', but the
story goes different. I've seen that book a first in a large
bookstore, here in Munich, at said price, and I tried several
times to convince myself and buy it, bu I am not able to hand
out so much money for a MS book. I couldn't. What a relive when
the soft cover came arrounde about one or two years later :)
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
10:08 a.m.
New subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
On 12/16/2005 at 3:37 PM Hans Franke wrote:
The MS-DOS Enzyclopedia from MS-Press
Good book, but of course only a compilation of the 'official'
material. only about 20% cover the DOS API, the rest is
somewhat like the mother of all DOS manuals. ~1500 pages in
one book. If you need a DOS-manual, try to get this book. It
even got a small entertaining history secttion. Originaly it
was HUGE a hard cover book for a unpayable price (I remember
500+ Mark).
"The Programmer's PC Sourcebook" by Thom Hogan was another big book of
tables and charts, and also covered some of Windows 3.0 structures and
APIs. The date on mine is 1991, published by Microsoft Press and ISBN is
1-55615-321-X. The big gray hardcover DOS book is less complete, more
expensive, has bigger print and looks visually impressive. I don't care
much for the Hans-Peter Messmer "PC Hardware" book; he's too gabby and gets
some things flat wrong.
Another book that still gets used here is the Phoenix "CBIOS for IBM PS/2
Computers and Compatibles" published about 1989 and its companion volumes
for PC XT and AT systems. Not much about DOS, but deals with BIOS in
wonderful detail.
Don't overlook old MSDN CD-ROMs--the earlier ones had lots of good
information about DOS-related items. I imagine that the very early ones
are pretty hard to find, but if you wanted to know how DOUBLESPACE worked,
with all of its API calls, etc., it was the place to find it--at least
until the Stacker lawsuit, when it suddenly vanished.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:42 p.m.
New subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:08:41 -0800
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 12/16/2005 at 3:37 PM Hans Franke wrote:
And the IBM DOS Technical Reference Manuals came out for each
version of PC-DOS and have to be considered 'authoritative'
(ahem). The PC-DOS Manual, the PC-DOS techref, and the Technical
Reference Manuals are a complete 'authoritative' set.
I like some of the numerous textbooks that came out in the late
80s through the 90's that covered the hardware and firmware base
comprehensively. For a time, engineering professors used the IBM
hardware as a laboratory for training students. Mazidi & Mazidi's
"The 80x86 IBM PC and Compatible Computers (Volumes I & II)
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing" Prentice-Hall, 1998,
(ISBN 0-13-758509-8) is a big hefty book, and provides one HECK of
a thorough exploration of the PC architecture. It's also fairly
expensive but I don't regret having bought it. It's not a DOS
programming guide, though. It's more keyed toward Assembly
Language and digging deep into the hardware.
The MS-DOS Enzyclopedia from MS-Press
Good book, but of course only a compilation of the 'official'
material. only about 20% cover the DOS API, the rest is
somewhat like the mother of all DOS manuals. ~1500 pages in
one book. If you need a DOS-manual, try to get this book. It
even got a small entertaining history secttion. Originaly it
was HUGE a hard cover book for a unpayable price (I remember
500+ Mark).
"The Programmer's PC Sourcebook" by Thom Hogan was another big
book of tables and charts, and also covered some of Windows 3.0
structures and APIs. The date on mine is 1991, published by
Microsoft Press and ISBN is 1-55615-321-X. The big gray
hardcover DOS book is less complete, more expensive, has bigger
print and looks visually impressive. I don't care much for the
Hans-Peter Messmer "PC Hardware" book; he's too gabby and gets
some things flat wrong.
Another book that still gets used here is the Phoenix "CBIOS for
IBM PS/2 Computers and Compatibles" published about 1989 and its
companion volumes for PC XT and AT systems. Not much about DOS,
but deals with BIOS in wonderful detail.
Don't overlook old MSDN CD-ROMs--the earlier ones had lots of
good information about DOS-related items. I imagine that the
very early ones are pretty hard to find, but if you wanted to
know how DOUBLESPACE worked, with all of its API calls, etc., it
was the place to find it--at least until the Stacker lawsuit,
when it suddenly vanished.
Cheers,
Chuck
17 Dec
17 Dec
1:29 p.m.
New subject: Resources for DOS (was: DOS Compatable OS)
Interesting enough I just ran across (in my basement ;-)) DESQview
386 and GEM developers kit from DR, both still sealed.
14 Dec
14 Dec
1:16 p.m.
How compatable? If you go by the published API for
MS-DOS 1.x, then it
should be pretty easy, but if by "compatable" you mean "run arbitrary
MS-DOS
programs, especially those from Microsoft" you may have your work cut out
for you. You may want to check out http://www.freedos.org/.
-spc (But remember, MS-DOS 1.0 is a something of a CP/M for the 8086
world ... )
If you want the source code for cp/m-86 go here :
http://www.cpm.z80.de/source.html
There are binaries and some cbios listings that might give you a head start.
Dan
3:03 p.m.
On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:43:06 -0500
Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com> wrote:
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and
hack together a
small project OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is
there any decent resource for information on dos compatability
and how to achieve it, or is it left as a reverse engineering
exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
The PC-DOS 1.0 Reference manual has all the system calls included
in it. That material was split out to the DOS Technical Reference
for later versions.
For 'compatability' purposes, just code to the system calls and
resist the temptation to do an end-run to BIOS routines for
efficiency's sake.
15 Dec
15 Dec
1:11 p.m.
On 12/14/05, Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com> wrote:
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try and
hack together a small project
OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
There are already several DOS clones out there, some free, some not.
Why not go help out the folk working on FreeDOS or the DR-DOS
Enhancement Project instead?
http://www.drdosprojects.de/
DOS is still in use and useful, especially for people who cannot
afford modern hardware.
Failing that, other open-source projects that could do with help include:
FreeGEM
http://www.deltasoft.com
FreeVMS
http://freevms.free.fr/indexGB.html
AROS
http://www.aros.org/
Haiku
http://haiku-os.org/learn.php
Syllable
http://www.syllable.org/
... And many more!
--
Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven
AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com
Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
Gmail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
1:22 p.m.
On 12/15/05 4:11 PM, "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/14/05, Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com>
wrote:
But, that's not the point! I'm doing this to play around and improve my
coding skills by doing low level stuff I normally otherwise wouldn't do,
just a fun project :)
I'm rather bored, so I thought I might try
and hack together a small project
OS compatable with at least DOS 1.x or similar, is there any decent resource
for information on dos compatability and how to achieve it, or is it left as
a reverse engineering exercise for 'the reader' ? :)
There are already several DOS clones out there, some free, some not.
Why not go help out the folk working on FreeDOS or the DR-DOS
Enhancement Project instead?
http://www.drdosprojects.de/
DOS is still in use and useful, especially for people who cannot
afford modern hardware.
Failing that, other open-source projects that could do with help include:
FreeGEM
http://www.deltasoft.com
FreeVMS
http://freevms.free.fr/indexGB.html
AROS
http://www.aros.org/
Haiku
http://haiku-os.org/learn.php
Syllable
http://www.syllable.org/
... And many more!
2:05 p.m.
Gary Sparkes wrote:
But, that's not the point! I'm doing this to
play around and improve my
coding skills by doing low level stuff I normally otherwise wouldn't do,
just a fun project :)
Well good ... you can do all my codeing for my homebrew computer.
It has a instruction set you have never seen before and may never want
to see it again.*
Well just remember a DOS project can take a long time.That is my next
project
once I get the hardware built and most homebrew DOS on the web seem to
have been
unix based.
.
Ben alias woodelf
*It has in fact a nice simple instruction set. The only gotya is ADC and
SBC have to
be done PDP 8 style ... shift the link into the AC for 0 or 1 and clear
the link.
16 Dec
16 Dec
6:43 a.m.
New subject: Fun Projects (was: DOS Compatable OS)
Am 15 Dec 2005 16:22 meinte Gary Sparkes:
On 12/15/05 4:11 PM, "Liam Proven"
<lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are already several DOS clones out there, some free, some not.
> Why not go help out the folk working on FreeDOS
or the DR-DOS
> Enhancement Project instead?
But, that's not the point! I'm doing this to
play around and improve my
coding skills by doing low level stuff I normally otherwise wouldn't do,
just a fun project :)
Well, if it's about fun and DOS, the first thing that comes to
my mind is imporveing (or redoing) the CP/M wraper for V20/V30
Systems. Tte other one would be to get finaly GEM backportet
to CP/M (with GSX).. Or if I could move my fat ass and finaly
start to port my 16 Bit x86 multitasking environment to a 32
or 64 Bit platform ...
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
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arcarlini＠iee.org -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
bob＠jfcl.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
chenmel＠earthlink.net -
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gtn＠mind-to-mind.com -
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julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
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