Victor 9000 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Jun 1997

...
  I was running a 8086 system in 1980 that clearly blow
the doors off a PC.
 It was 8086 not 8088 at 5.0mhz and 16bit wide memory using standard 
 multibuss cards.  By late 81 that machine was 8mhz, and 82 brought a copy of 
 PC dos to it.  Early MSdos could be configured like CP/M.  The PC was slow,
 clunky, closed and expensive!  By time the XT arrived still slow, clunky and 
 expensive there are several S100 and other systems that were very fast 
 6/8/10 mhz 8088 or 8086 systems.  
I've been taking a look at Caldera's OpenDOS (aka Novell DOS 7, aka
DR-DOS), and it still looks quite friendly to running on strange hardware.
Other than a few references to our friend the A20 hack sprinkled throughout
the non-BIOS (BIOS as in CBIOS or IBMBIO.SYS, not ROM BIOS) parts of a few
modules, I've not run across any glaring PCness in the system. At first glance,
it also looks like A20 stuff is set up by the BIOS initialization routine.

In short, it should still be possible to configure DR-DOS for non-PC hardware.
I can't speak for MS-DOS because sources aren't available...

Of course, you will get no sympathy from the folks on the OpenDOS mailing
lists if you talk about running DOS on non-PC hardware; they seem to be
young enough to have never encountered the wide variety of machines that
existed before the PC took over the world.

Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu