From: Alex Liu (aliu@aludra.usc.edu)
Date: 05/05/92


From: aliu@aludra.usc.edu (Alex Liu)
Subject: Re: DOS EMULATION
Date: 5 May 1992 15:49:20 -0700

About DOS emulation and using BIOS/DOS calls. On my Amiga, there are several
DOS emulators available, and these emulators do not implement DOS services
but load MSDOS from a bootable floppie and just implement the BIOS in the
emulator. I think this is the best way to go. Reimplementing all the DOS
calls is way too much and if Microsoft updates MS-DOS, you will have to
update your code too. By just implementing the BIOS, since that is ROM, it
is more static and should be an easier task. (Heck, there is even a PD
BIOS that is available with ASM source code and all) The main disadvantage
is that DOS will not be able to access the Linux partition. But I would guess
that should be possible to do by writing a device driver like OS/2s HPFS.SYS
which would also let you access Linux filesystem from standard MS-DOS (outside
Linuux). This adds some extra complexity, but It is easier (IMHO) than
writing a new MS-DOS...

-- 
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Alejandro Liu           |EMail: aliu@usc.edu |All mispellings are intentional
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