Hi Eric! I'm glad you're bringing this conversation back to freedos-devel .. because this is a good place to discuss FreeDOS things.
Eric Auer wrote: >> >> Hi! As you may have read, some company has created an eeepc sized PC-XT >> laptop called Book8088. It ships with MS DOS on a CF card. Bocke got an >> EDR-DOS kernel and SvarDOS apps to work on it, too, but FreeDOS kernels >> crash. SvarDOS is a FreeDOS based floppy distro - http://svardos.org/ >> which is maintained by Mateusz. It also has an active forum :-) >> >> Given that others must have used FreeDOS on 8086 or 8088 with 640k RAM >> before, the assumption is that something goes wrong in/after partition >> enumeration. Maybe some unsupported BIOS functionality is called or >> there is an issue with the geometry? >> >> Now it would be useful to have a known good 8086 compatible kernel which >> has some debug messages enabled. Which FreeDOS kernel binary would you >> recommend for that? Or maybe somebody wants to join the thread on BTTR >> and work on the kernel interactively? >> >> Modified BIOS versions for the Book8088 already exist, too. Also, it >> turned out (according to VOGONS or VCFED) that the VGA BIOS has some >> issue with Windows and other software. An update exists, but apparently >> it cannot be flashed via ICP in-circuit, so one would have to desolder >> the EEPROM to update the VGA BIOS to use the full resolution and colors. >> >> https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?&id=21061&be_page=1&da=ASC&page=0&category=all&order=time&descasc=DESC >> >> shows photos telling us that one of the tested CF cards has geometry >> 1006x16x63 with 1014048 LBA sectors, but there is no int 13.48 in the >> BIOS, only int 13.8 support in the add-on XTIDE BIOS r625. >> >> A FreeDOS 2043 kernel built 2021-05-13 with FAT32 support built with >> Watcom C (hopefully an 8086 compatible build!) shows the version and >> copyright messages and lists the C: partition, but then hangs: >> >> C: HD1, Pri[1], CHS=0-1-1, start=0 MB, size=480 MB >> >> Regards, Eric Louis Santillan wrote: > > I’m oso2k on bttr. I don’t have bocke’s issue with booting my > Book8088 v2 with FreeDOS. I don’t know if they are having hardware > issues. I booted FD1.3 Floppy Edition on a Dell 316SX (386 16MHz) > and have formatted a 256MB CF and a 512MB CF. Both cards boot on my > Dell 316SX and Book8088. I shared images with the bttr folks. > > There have been various reports of various issues with some of the > chips (CPU, ROM, RAM, CGA, VGA, DAC, OPL, etc). Many of the chips > are scavenged parts from other machines. So it makes sense some of > them could be duds. > > It would be the first I’ve seen that the IDE controller is faulty but > I’ve also not researched issues extensively. I’ve been fortunate > to have a Book8088 v2 that seems to be unaffected by bad chips for > the things I’ve played with. So it sounds like that's the same person who entered bug #391 in the FreeDOS tracker: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/bugs/391/ And in bug #391, I re-shared Louis's report about how it works: : I have a Book8088 v2. I did some testing. I imaged the FD13BOOT.IMG from : FD 1.3 Floppy Edition to my a slot on my Gotek formatted USB stick. : I then used a Dell 316SX (a 386) with a Gotek FDD emulator & XT-IDE : r625 to boot FD v1.3 over floppy. Next, I FDISK'd a 256MB CF card as : FAT16 (CHS 984/16/32). Rebooted again to floppy and then ran format : C:/q/s. I then copied a few binaries from the FD floppy to the CF card. : Rebooted to verify the 256MB CF card would boot and it worked. : : Finally, popped out the CF card of the 316SX and placed it in the slot : on the Book8088. Booted & it worked. So we have at least one person (Louis) for whom the Book8088 is working. So it doesn't appear to be systemic. I heard during the first batch (Book8088 "v1") that some systems were flaky, and I would not be surprised if it's the same here. However, we have also seen other instances where CF-to-IDE was buggy, or the CF was a problem. Changing the CF card is a simple test that doesn't cost much (I just googled and found the smallest capacity at less than $20). I suggested exactly this to Bojan in bug #391: "Do you have another CF card you could try? I know that some users have reported mixed results with CF-to-IDE, and sometimes the problem is with the CF card itself. Trying with a different CF card (not just another CF card, but another size and model would be best) would help determine if it's the CF card that's the issue." I haven't seen any followup from Bojan on that in bug #391, if they have tried with another CF card. I don't follow the BTTR Forums but I looked at some of the follow ups on this thread and it seemed Bojan had made a backup of the original MS-DOS CF card, tried to install FreeDOS, and then re-imaged it back to MS-DOS. So I think Bojan has not tried another CF card? Does anyone know the status of testing with a different CF card? I don't know what the vendor may have done to set up the original CF card, and I think trying again with a *different* CF card is still a good experiment unless it's already been tried or determined not to work. _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
