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  • PC as a bootloader (was Re: Bluefish HTML Editor)

    From Lars Poulsen@[email protected] to comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc,alt.os.linux.ubuntu on Wed Sep 25 19:33:08 2024
    From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux.ubuntu


    On 2024-09-20 10:41, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    DOS is still used in a lot of industrial kit ...When all you want is
    to load a single tasked application that talks to custom hardware...

    On 25/09/2024 08:57, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Makes sense. I worked in that sector in the 90's. The only problem
    with MsDOS was the small memory available. We had to use overlays in
    the software, or load/download programs with a stub.
    Well you could in theory kick the processor into 'large' mode and use a
    lot more memory

    In the mid 1980s, my group was building a small communications
    appliance. We built a single-board PC and used a DOS clone as our
    bootloader. But booting from floppy was slow as molasses, until I wrote
    a small TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) extension that hooked the BIOS
    read call and buffered a track at a time. Simple and efficient.

    Later, we built at larger, modular system. We found it more economical
    to buy a Taiwanese PC motherboard than to roll our own system package.
    We put a DOS Extender to good use (80386 in 80286 protected mode). The multitasking part of KA9Q was in there somewhere.

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