On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 4:43 PM, Mercury Thirteen <mercury0x0...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Speaking of multiple kernels, would it be acceptable to require a minimum
> hardware platform for a new version of FreeDOS? Could we exclude the
> pre-386 crowd without backlash? Personally, I think that's acceptable and
> I'm sure Microsoft would've no doubt done the same thing by now had they
> not gone to Windows. There's no way they would still include the 8086 and
> 80186 in their modern MS-DOS, had they made one.
>
>
I'll mention that discussion on the Facebook group
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/freedos/> seems pretty split: some (mostly
Chelson and Catharinus) support a "FreeDOS 2.0" that requires 32-bit ('386
and up) and others (mostly William and Alex) say FreeDOS should continue
to support IBM PC-XT machines (for example). In particular, William has
been very vocal on that point.
*I think there's something to the argument that FreeDOS should continue to
support 16-bit, and not become exclusive of pre-'386 machines. As I said
before, FreeDOS is DOS. And DOS runs everywhere. Taking a step back and
looking at things objectively, the definition of "DOS" hasn't changed since
MS-DOS 6.22, in May 1994
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_DOS_operating_systems>. FreeDOS
aims for compatibility with MS-DOS 6.22.*
*My thought is to defer the "FreeDOS 2.0" roadmap discussion until the end
of January. Pick up the discussion again on February 1. Chelson's
kickstarter needs to raise $2,500 by Thursday, January 29 in order for it
to get funded at all. If they don't make their goal, then my preference
would be that "FreeDOS 2.0" continues to use the "1.2" FreeDOS kernel, and
we focus on userspace and drivers. (If they meet their goal, then I'm not
sure. Maybe I'd choose to wait and see, give them a reasonable amount of
time to demonstrate that FreeDOS-32 could do the job - and decide based on
that.)*
*For "FreeDOS 1.2," I prefer to keep this as an update from FreeDOS 1.1. So
no big changes there, except for the installer.*
*jh*
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