Hi Eric > On May 24, 2020, at 1:39 AM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: > > > Hi Jerome, > > what is V8PT and which beyond-text features does it need?
I thought you knew this… Anyhow... V8PT (occasionally just V8) is short for V8Power Tools for DOS. They are a set of command line utilities written in assembly that can provide a Text based User Interface (TUI) and other enhanced features to DOS batch files without any Terminate-and-Say-Resident (TSR) programs, device drivers or a persistent memory footprint. V8PT is the backbone for the FreeDOS Installer (FDI) and without them only a primitive batch install would be possible with extremely limited and rudimentary capabilities. No beyond-text features are used by V8PT. However, there are several text features it can do that require an EGA or better card. Then there are some that are just easier without needing to support sub-EGA cards. I could list the exact features it uses that require EGA, but that is just non-relevant trivia. There are only so many hours in a day and I choose to provide the additional features. Maybe someday, I will incorporate support for cards below EGA where possible. But, not today nor probably very soon. The extremely limited number of machines out there that can run FreeDOS and don’t have EGA or better graphics makes this a very low priority. > > If the FreeDOS kernel does not boot on 8086, that would > definitely be a bug. Remember that it is a compile time > option whether you want 8086 compatible or whether it is > okay to optimize for 186 / 286 / 386. I do not think we > use any optimizations for newer than 386. > > Please describe your experiences with 8086 boot problems. Thats an easy one. It doesn’t boot. :-) Go grab PCem, see if you can get FreeDOS to boot on any machine with less than a 286 CPU. Also, user that has been running FreeDOS on a NEC V30 with 80186, did a quick test by swapping the CPU with an 8086. and said "it hangs after printing C: HD1, Pri… stuff" > >> On top of that, most drivers require 286 or better, and several are 386+. > > Your floppy distro can check for that and at least some > of the "higher CPU needed" drivers do have checks which > let them abort safely on older CPU. You can probably do > some tests on virtual computers, or check the sources :-) I already did that. (However, Only able to verifyy down to 286) I also did a quick grep on the remaining sources. to check for “286” strings. All of that led me to some interesting questions. Why does Zip support 286, but Unzip needs a 386? Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper? Why does ctmouse need a 286? It was required for most CGA and up games on our old 8086 clone. It really is a critical driver. Why does FDAPM have no support at all for < 286. Why does dosfsck need a 386? Couldn’t 8088,8086,80186 and 80286 disk have issues as well? You can’t tel me it needs 32-bit code. I just spent half a day writing 16-bit 8086 assembler code to do some manipulation, math and display 64-bit integers. > >> supporting less than 8086&EGA are a very low priority to me. > > But then, supporting floppy install does have some for you. very, very, very low priority. > >> had serious issues trying to get FreeDOS to format a 360k. > > Please explain. FORMAT should support 360k, both on 1.2 MB > drives and on drives which can only do up to 360k. There are > command line options for that, too. Not really, much to explain. Tried in QEMU, and with a couple PCem iterrations. Sometimes with a 1.2mib drive, sometimes with a 360k drive, Some with various format switch and the like. All failed. Mostly controller error. > >> While it isn’t impossible to get the FE running off 360k > > What is FE? FE is just super short for Floppy Edition. Which is short for FreeDOS Floppy Diskette Edition. It gets to be a bit much always typing “FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 Floppy Diskette Edition”. But, I do have text expander, so if you all want to see such things…. :-) > > Regards, Eric :-) Jerome _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
