Re: [Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
Hi, Apologies if this is *slightly* off-topic. On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 7:01 PM Bret Johnson wrote: > > Let me just say that the computing world would be a VERY different place than > it is now if Operating Systems > (and maybe even BIOS's) were re-entrant. For one thing, MS probably never > would have became the monolith it did. > I'm not necessarily saying I think it would have been a GOOD idea, but just > that things would be different. The BIOS idea (separate, in ROM) was invented by Gary Kildall, right? Apparently CP/M-86 had a billion derivatives including (according to Wikipedia) Concurrent CP/M-86 3.1 with optional PC-MODE, aka "Concurrent DOS", which eventually evolved into DR-DOS. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiuser_DOS#PCMODE There was also (DR) Novell DOS 7, which supported 286 task swapping and 386 multitasking. And many other (unreleased) projects like "Star Trek": running Mac OS 7 atop Novell DOS on x86. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project But Caldera focused on Linux, so even when they won their lawsuit against MS, they didn't really develop DR-DOS past 7.03 in 1999. (Tiny point releases were made to OEMs or other vendors.) I don't really understand it. It's hard to blame MS for everything. DR clearly had a lot of good releases, but many of them never caught on. I guess when you already have OS/2 and Windows and DOS (and Linux and ...), you don't need ten bazillion more. (I used to fervently read OSNews and try things in VMs or burn CDs to boot. Certainly there are dozens of worthy OSes.) ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
> duh? have you ANY idea what you are talking about? just a tiny bit? Yeah, I think I do. Let me just say that the computing world would be a VERY different place than it is now if Operating Systems (and maybe even BIOS's) were re-entrant. For one thing, MS probably never would have became the monolith it did. I'm not necessarily saying I think it would have been a GOOD idea, but just that things would be different. ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
Hallo Herr Bret Johnson, am Freitag, 3. März 2023 um 23:40 schrieben Sie: >>> But I was still wondering if anybody has seen it done before since >>> I don't think I've ever seen an actual implementation. >> >> neither did I. > Probably not worth pursuing. But even just the idea of a > re-entrant Operating System (rather than just a re-entrant > sub-function) is a pretty interesting concept. > Even modern OS's don't do anything like that. duh? have you ANY idea what you are talking about? just a tiny bit? Tom ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 released!
On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 4:27 PM Gregory Pietsch wrote: > > Twenty years in the making, FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 is now released unto > an unsuspecting world. The latest bug report/feature request that I > have tried to tackle is one that backup files aren't created if the > backup file already exists and is read-only. This is consistent with > historical (hysterical) behavior. > FYI: folks can download it from Edlin at Sourceforge, at https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos-edlin/ I've also mirrored it at the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, at https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/edlin/2.22/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
>> But I was still wondering if anybody has seen it done before since >> I don't think I've ever seen an actual implementation. > > neither did I. Probably not worth pursuing. But even just the idea of a re-entrant Operating System (rather than just a re-entrant sub-function) is a pretty interesting concept. Even modern OS's don't do anything like that. ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 released!
Twenty years in the making, FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 is now released unto an unsuspecting world. The latest bug report/feature request that I have tried to tackle is one that backup files aren't created if the backup file already exists and is read-only. This is consistent with historical (hysterical) behavior. Gregory___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
Hi, > I'm wondering if anybody has any experience, or has seen any source > code, related to manipulating the DOS Swappable Data Area (SDA) to > make DOS re-entrant. I working on at least one TSR program right > now where I think something like that might be useful but I've never seen it > done before. I think it was sort of documented in "Undocumented DOS 2nd edition", AFAIR even with some (demo) code. I needed something like that in ~1992, and spend quite some time to get it running. In the end, I got it mostly running, but not really stable in a sense that it worked pretty well unless I ran some testprograms in the foreground intended to stress this interface. It probably can be made to work, but I failed to do that, and finally gave up and used other ways with the same effect (for my TSR's purpose). > The SDA of MS seems fairly well documented in RBIL, but I'd be > pretty surprised if all DOS clones (particularly Virtual Machines > like DOSBox) are compliant so it may not be a good idea to pursue. probably right. > I suspect FreeDOS would be pretty close to compliant, but I'm not even sure > about that. I would be absolutely surprised as it never came up as a thing to do, and would be 100% untested as nobody uses the SDA to multitask the last 20 years. > But I was still wondering if anybody has seen it done before since > I don't think I've ever seen an actual implementation. neither did I. Tom ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
[Freedos-devel] DOS Swappable Data (SDA) Area
I'm wondering if anybody has any experience, or has seen any source code, related to manipulating the DOS Swappable Data Area (SDA) to make DOS re-entrant. I working on at least one TSR program right now where I think something like that might be useful but I've never seen it done before. The SDA of MS seems fairly well documented in RBIL, but I'd be pretty surprised if all DOS clones (particularly Virtual Machines like DOSBox) are compliant so it may not be a good idea to pursue. I suspect FreeDOS would be pretty close to compliant, but I'm not even sure about that. But I was still wondering if anybody has seen it done before since I don't think I've ever seen an actual implementation. ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
