Greetings, I'm not really a programmer, so I'm not sure how to go about doing this, but I would really like to get FreeDOS booting on the IBM PCjr. I hope I'm sending this proposal to the correct list, as I assume I'll need some developer involvement to make this happen.
The status so far: I have grabbed the most recent Kernel package and Command Interpreter off the ibiblio FreeDOS archive. I have created a bootable 360k disk on my PCjr using these packages. I have attempted to boot the disk as-is, where it seems to make it through the CONFIG.SYS statements, and then freeze either while or before loading the Command Interpreter. I have also attempted to boot the disk with the all-important PCjr RAM configuration driver, JRCONFIG.SYS, listed on the first or second line of CONFIG.SYS. For those of you who don't know, JRCONFIG.SYS works by setting some correct memory locations for the PCjr (and ensuring DOS doesn't load anything into the PCjr's video RAM), then forcing a partial reboot so DOS can start up knowing how the PCjr's memory map is actually set up. When I set up my FreeDOS boot disk in this configuration, JRCONFIG.SYS will successfully load and force the reboot, as it should, but while attempting to load the kernel during the second boot, FreeDOS spits out a message that says 'Error' and refuses to continue. I figure there are a couple of options to consider. One option would be to find a way for FreeDOS to play nicely with JRCONFIG.SYS. The other option would be to come up with a special PCjr version of FreeDOS that already knows where the video memory hole is supposed to be (and would hopefully take parameters to configure it, considering JRCONFIG.SYS actually does let you specify the size of the video memory). I guess the big question is, are any of you FreeDOS developers willing to take on this task? I'm certainly willing to test and report back with anything you need, especially if you don't have your own PCjr to test with. Thanks in advance, Michael ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
