Hi! > I was thinking that it could become necessary to start implementing a > FreeDOS version that included natively its own BIOS, and that this > combination of FreeDOS/BIOS is implemented entirely native as 32 or > 64-bit code...
In my opinion: 1. is a very good idea. Something which boots via UEFI and supports GPT and loads Coreboot / Seabios / other BEFORE DOS, so DOS can enjoy a BIOS! I think support for common motherboards is somewhat limited yet, but you could check the current status. Maybe there is generic support for a wider range of boards, given that DOS only needs a limited set of devices? I mean if Coreboot does not support hibernate or bluetooth on some fancy computer, it might still support all the pieces of the computer which are really necessary to run DOS :-) However, 2. does not sound cool. You have to consider how much software would actually support 32- or 64-bit code: Almost none. And if you have a tool which uses 64-bit code, it would almost always run a lot faster on a complex high end operating system which can provide a fancy infrastructure of drivers, filesystems and multitasking. There already is FD32 which puts FreeDOS and a 32-bit DOS extender into the same file, but the improvements compared to using a separate DOS extender (or just CWSDPMI) on a normal 16-bit FreeDOS kernel seem to be limited enough that FD32 is still not nearly as popular as old FreeDOS afaik... I do appreciate having more 32-bit DOS extended DOS software, but for 64-bit and multi core / multi CPU / > 3 GB RAM, you would first have to suggest some really cool DOS use cases :-) Cheers, Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
