Hi Ercan, Bill, others, The main question probably is WHY: If you port the kernel to another platform (I think we even once had a 68000 one) you would also have to port any app that you want to use, starting with command.com - For both together, you already need a few 100 kB of RAM which is not available in most microcontrollers. Next you would need a nice display, while people tend to use microcontrollers with at most a bit of LCD or OLED or just a serial port. And of course a keyboard with a suitable interface to connect it. And a disk, where you can store files, or at least a large space in flash...
If you ask me, this sounds a lot more like raspberry than arduino. And given that you can get a raspberry zero with HDMI screen output and USB for keyboard and flash sticks for roughly 10 USD, there is not much reason to go smaller. While raspberry already is SO powerful that you can even put Linux on it, install DOSEMU in it and run classic x86 FreeDOS with classic DOS apps in the emulation window :-) About the challenge of making a DOS install very SMALL, you can check RayeR and his ROMOS where he put a small version of the FreeDOS kernel and a simple alternative command.com variant together in some free space in a PC BIOS chip :-) But then, mainboards with pre-installed tiny Linux & browser exist as well: The idea is to be online at once without having to boot the normal operating system from disk. Hibernate and SSD of modern PC sort of pushed such BIOS goodies out again. Regards, 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
