Re: [Freedos-user] Arduino Port of FreeDOS

[ercanersoy]

I think developing FreeDOS Arduino port through source code changes  
and some optimizations. Microcontrollers using on Arduino is Harvard  
Architecture. For this reason, FreeDOS Arduino port is requires less  
resource than FreeDOS x86 binaries.


FreeDOS Arduino port may not be realized without major source code  
changes. But, FreeDOS ports of other hardware (Raspberry Pi, Orange  
Pi, CubieBoard, Beagle Bone, Beagle Board etc.) are developable.


Note: I don't have time for creating FreeDOS Arduino port. I won't  
develop FreeDOS ports of other hardware. I suggestted this idea for  
offering.


Best regards,
Ercan


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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

It was partitioned, with an MBR, accessible to Windows when connected to a USB 
to IDE adapter.
 
Currently it's bootable to a DOS prompt. I used the "China DOS Union" DOS 7.1 
boot floppy with a USB floppy drive to fdisk and format the DOM installed in 
the thin client. I could go ahead and put that on, but I want to make a 'guilt 
free' redistributable DOM image along with detailed instructions of exactly 
what works so others can easily put FreeDOS on any WYSE Sx0 thin client.

What I haven't yet been able to do is get a FreeDOS installer onto a USB stick 
that will see the DOM when it's booted to USB. Either won't boot or will boot 
but can't see the DOM.

If there's a way to setup a FreeDOS boot floppy with USB support, that will 
work with an IDE CD-ROM drive connected with a USB adapter, I'll try digging 
out a CD-ROM drive and connecting both it and my USB floppy.
I'm assuming that as long as nothing connected via USB grabs hold of C: (or the 
primary fixed drive designation by any name) then the BIOS will allow the DOM 
to be seen and written to by the OS that's booted from USB. The WYSE utility 
for making flash drives to install the regular WYSE approved systems has to 
work around this. I could make one of those again and image it or examine it to 
see what format structure it uses.

A 'super floppy' FreeDOS image that can be written to a USB stick might do the 
trick, if it boots as A:.
I have a USB Iomega Zip drive. How about a Zip 100 image? ;) Dunno if the thin 
client will boot off one of those, would probably assign it to C: and make the 
DOM inaccessible.

On Friday, January 12, 2018, 7:17:42 AM MST, Tom Ehlert 
 wrote:  
> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

I just reread this post.


"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
record, when no active partition is found.

is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?


Tom  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Arduino Port of FreeDOS

[Eric Auer]

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



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Re: [Freedos-user] Arduino Port of FreeDOS

[Z. B.]

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 06:30:17PM -0500, William Dudley wrote:

> The Uno wouldn't seem to have enough memory (flash OR RAM) to make this
> worth while.
> 
> The Mega2560 has enough flash (ROM) for the OS and BIOS, but only 8K
> of RAM, so I don't think it would be terribly useful either.

The most basic question is: WHY do this at all? If anyone wants OS suited
for microcontrollers, with interactivity, multitasking etc. then the proper
answer is: Forth. In this particular case amForth, avrForth or flashForth,
as examples.
-- 
regards,
Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] Arduino Port of FreeDOS

[William Dudley]

The Uno wouldn't seem to have enough memory (flash OR RAM) to make this
worth while.

The Mega2560 has enough flash (ROM) for the OS and BIOS, but only 8K
of RAM, so I don't think it would be terribly useful either.

Bill Dudley


This email is free of malware because I run Linux.

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 5:15 PM, Ercan Ersoy 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm Ercan Ersoy (creator of DOS Coreutils and FreeDOS TUI Shell) and this
> e-mail address that I use general purpose.
>
> I have an idea.
>
> FreeDOS is a operating system that has some advantages. But, FreeDOS only
> runs PC platform. I think, FreeDOS can be ported other hardware such like
> Arduino.
>
> Arduino is a microcontroller development platform and it is a
> microcontroller. Arduino has some models. People usually use Arduino Uno
> and Arduino Mega2560. Also, Arduino is a open source. Arduino models uses
> AVR microcontroller or ARM microcontroller.
>
> I use orginal Arduino Uno, Arduino Uno clone and Arduino Mega2560 clone.
> These are good platforms.
>
> As we all know FreeDOS is written C language. FreeDOS can be ported 8 bit
> AVR microcontrollers and 32 bit ARM microcontrollers.
>
> For BIOS interrupts, we can write BIOS like bootloader for FreeDOS
>
>
> Thanks for interesting,
>
> Ercan
>
>
> 
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[Freedos-user] Arduino Port of FreeDOS

[Ercan Ersoy]

Hello,

I'm Ercan Ersoy (creator of DOS Coreutils and FreeDOS TUI Shell) and 
this e-mail address that I use general purpose.


I have an idea.

FreeDOS is a operating system that has some advantages. But, FreeDOS 
only runs PC platform. I think, FreeDOS can be ported other hardware 
such like Arduino.


Arduino is a microcontroller development platform and it is a 
microcontroller. Arduino has some models. People usually use Arduino Uno 
and Arduino Mega2560. Also, Arduino is a open source. Arduino models 
uses AVR microcontroller or ARM microcontroller.


I use orginal Arduino Uno, Arduino Uno clone and Arduino Mega2560 clone. 
These are good platforms.


As we all know FreeDOS is written C language. FreeDOS can be ported 8 
bit AVR microcontrollers and 32 bit ARM microcontrollers.


For BIOS interrupts, we can write BIOS like bootloader for FreeDOS


Thanks for interesting,

Ercan


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Re: [Freedos-user] Would you use a native 32/64-bit FreeDOS/BIOS system?

[Samuel V. via Freedos-user]

Re: Would you use a native 32/64-bit FreeDOS/BIOS system?


http://sourceforge.net/u/udocproject/profile/
I have written a few Assembly code snippets that will be helpful. I should 
probably talk in the development list to see how to think up 32/64-bit native 
implementations.

For example, I have a project called x86 Portable, which allows to reuse the 
exact same assembly code across 16/32/64-bit modes. It is done by simply 
defining register-width-dependent data types like wideword, which will become 
16, 32 or 64-bit in size according to the target CPU mode.

It also includes portabilized assembly functions like movswide which will 
translate into movsw, movsd or movsq depending on the target CPU mode.

That project can be very valuable to implement FreeDOS/BIOS portably across 32 
and 64 bits.

I've also thought that to make the system even more portable, only fully 
standard C language features should be used so that the code can be compiled 
with Borland, GCC, Open Watcom or Visual Studio, and at most C++, but using 
only what could be considered old C or C++, because it will be needed to make 
the system portable across compilers to make it easily self-compiling.

The original FreeDOS could be used as the boot loader with a shell as long as a 
machine has a BIOS, and it in turn could be used to start the 32 or 64-bit 
system, and also will work for being able to return from 32, and maybe 64-bit, 
back to FreeDOS in Real Mode.

Multitasking and protection could be loaded modularly since it's DOS and it 
would work as an operating system that allows full access to the machine, so 
more complex or protective features would probably be better implemented as 
container applications, layers, drivers, modules, but not forcefully always 
loaded by default.

Talking about development, implementing FreeDOS for 32 and 64 bits natively 
could be relatively simple, apart from the work of adapting and writing 
portable C code that only uses simple language features present in all versions 
of the language.

For example, providing DOS-style structures, DOS and BIOS calls, would only be 
a matter of extending all fields, from 8 or 16 bits, to always the register 
width of the target CPU mode.

For example if a BIOS field is now 8 bits, for example for CHS or LBA, in the 
32-bit version it would need to be 32-bit and 64-bit for the 64-bit version, 
unless things like handling wider fields in software or with the FPU is 
integrated in the OS.

In the case of disks, the LBA value would need to be up to 48 bits, or 28 bits, 
because that's what the ATA standard says, so software would need to be able to 
handle 48-bit integers for disks, and probably there will be other cases where 
32-bit code will need to handle numbers bigger than 32-bit in software.

That would be the basic idea, extending small fields to the full register width 
portably. It will surely allow using the same style of BIOS/DOS calls for 
example for much bigger LBA or CHS values.

So the current FreeDOS could be used to boot and to return from 32/64-bit 
modes, and 16-bit programs could be virtualized while running in 32/64-bit 
mode, so it would be useful.

It would be a matter to dedicate 1 year for each key task in the system per 
developer or sub-group of developers.
I've proven to myself that it would be a very fast way to investigate and have 
ready things like better IDE/SATA detection, implementing file systems, 
networking, support for running native vendor drivers, the core base 
implementation to 32/64-bit; each of those things taking 1 year to be well 
implemented into FreeDOS, if possible, with sub-teams working in parallel to 
get more features.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Don Flowers]

>"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
>record, when no active partition is found.

I have a Compaq Presario that issues that statement apparently from the
BIOS, as I switch among about 4 hard drives and sometimes the drive is not
fully inserted in the connector..

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 9:16 AM, Tom Ehlert  wrote:

>
> > I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> > FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> > install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> > DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing
> Operating System".
>
> I just reread this post.
>
>
> "Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
> record, when no active partition is found.
>
> is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Tom Ehlert]

> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

I just reread this post.


"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
record, when no active partition is found.

is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?


Tom



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