On Mon, 23 Jan 2023, E. Auer wrote: <Excerpted>
Depending on how thin the glue and VM layer will be, you will be able to run fewer or more DOS apps with it. You can run some DOS apps in CTTY serial consoles if they only use int 21 for user I/O. There are support modes for simple DOS apps in some boot managers which only implement a few most popular bits of the DOS API to run apps directly from the boot manager without an actual DOS. So why not use for example real mode DOS apps without sound, with whatever is left in terms of hardware text mode or maybe VGA as an already entertaining intermediate milestone and keep more VGA, VESA, PC speaker, mouse, protected mode apps etc. pp. for later? The "easy" solution will still be running a DOS-friendly VM inside Linux or other host OS. But not the exciting solution regarding technological challenge and "abstraction thinness". People have written hypervisors to hide malware. Porting an open BIOS and some VM ingredients into a CSM and an open source "VMware ESXi" competitor which runs DOS better than the commercial product does? In other words, a Xen for DOS? To stay in the Xen terminology, would one want a paravirtualized DOS for that? Or would one put some light weight "BIOS setup" type menu into dom0 and run DOS only as client?
This is kind-of what I was trying to hint at - a lightweight operating system that just manages the hardware and (if necessary) provides emulation for 16-bit apps. I feel like even a stripped-down Linux kernel is extreme overkill since multitasking/multiuser isn't even useful for that purpose.
But in this day and age where the solution to everything is "throw a 'Duino at it" or "throw a RasPi at it", I think too many people have lost the concept of simple, lightweight, minimalist software. And that's why you have all the kids trying to turn FreeDOS into Linux, and Linux into Windows.
The idea is this: provide a "volume manager"; a way to use the installed hardware to emulate VGA/SVGA, SB16, and the basic equipment used on DOS machines; and hooks to MS-DOS/FreeDOS to support stuff you're likely to have on a modern machine that wouldn't be supported. And since it's quite possible that in the future 8086 and 80286 mode will finally get the axe, it might be necessary to move them to actual emulation (maintaining, if possible, virtualization for 32-bit software).
I'm also kind-of thinking MacOS 7.x, that had the 68030 emulator to run parts of the OS on PowerPC systems...
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