[ros-kernel] Re: RE: Thoughts about loadros

[Eric K. <ek...@rz...>]

"Brian Palmer" <br...@sg...> wrote:


> As of version 11.0c, Watcom C/C++ is going to be open source.
> www.openwatcom.org
AFAICS it is only an update yet. The full version is not available. And it
is huuuuge, the update is more than 45MB. :-/

> Although it would be useful for loadros to support the registry, and being
> able to boot from DOS is handy, I don't think that turning it into a full
> boot loader would be worthwhile. There is too much that would need to be
> added that is already there in FreeLoader. To me loadros has always seemed
> like a hack that needs to be put out to pasture.
You're right, the existing loadros is a hack. But OTOH, FreeLoader is not
that much better. For each bios call FreeLoader must switch to real mode and
back to protected mode while a modified loadros runs in flat real mode, this
means it can call into the bios without mode switching and can access the
full 4GB physical memory space.

AFAIR, the main problem with FreeLoader was the 32bit disk access. IMHO it
is extremely bad to call these bios functions from protected mode. It is not
only the mode-switching but especially the fact that all parameters have to
be passed to the bios in a buffer. Brrr.. :-/

- Eric Kohl

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