Hello,
At http://linux.tu-varna.acad.bg/~lig/freedos/kernel/ are a kernel patch collection (CVSPATCH.TXT) and binaries (KERNEL.SYS and COUNTRY.SYS) that add COUNTRY.SYS file support to the kernel and move the hard-coded country data from the kernel where it belongs - to a separate COUNTRY.SYS file, as in all other DOSes. The COUNTRY.SYS file format is the same used in MS-DOS, PC-DOS, PTS-DOS, OS/2, Windows 9x and Windows NT, and is described in the Ralf Brown Interrupts List (tables 2619-2622). The so modified kernel has also been successfully tested with the CONFIG.SYS file of Windows 98 (MS-DOS 7.10). Some more countries were added. Note that COUNTRY.SYS is still under 2 KB versus 30 KB for MS-DOS 7.10 because it consists of only CTYINFO data and doesn't have any uppercase and filename tables. Of course, if (when) such information is added to COUNTRY.SYS later, the kernel code to read it can easily be added too. The aforementioned patch also moves the copyright message from the kernel to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file where it can be enjoyed for as long as needed, instead of appearing for only 3 seconds during bootstrap. (This may not be accepted but I'll never understand why. You know I'm a copyright illiterate or at least ignorant.) The patch also modifies EXEFLAT.C so it can process kernels without any relocations and make the kernel independent from the loading segment in this case. (Of course the kernel still needs to be loaded at segment 60h. Those 3 bytes the patch adds to the stub allow for future kernels, independent from the loading segment. I think 3 bytes aren't a high price to pay for that.) CVSPATCH.TXT contains other small optimisations too.
Enjoy! Lucho
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