Re: [Freedos-user] R: Running Freedos on bare metal in the future ?

[Sabina Zelená . via Freedos-user]

‎Greetings,Mr.Alessandro,thank U very much for the good news. BTW would U sell me 1 of Your 286 @ 25MHz? I now have 3 pcs of 286 PCs,but all @ 16MHz,i would like to also have a 286 @ some other frequency & I have 486sx @ 25MHz & 386sl @ 25MHz,it would be nice to also have a 286 @ 25MHz‎ & do some comparisons...mainly in gaming performance & yes,i love the Legacy architecture a lot,especially 286 to 486,but sure many here love them & those,who r saying something else,r just pretending,they do not like them...or they did not tried them...because who 1ce try Legacy HW,mostly there incredibly reliable generations,or who was born in 16bit era,simply must love this HW,because U can never really enjoy new HW,nor SW. Where U bought these 286s‎ made in 2019? ‎Do that company own copyright/exclusive rights for manufacturing these CPUs? Is the architecture still proprietary,or became public,when it became "obsolete"? So will it be legal or can even be obtained the complete descriptions of the architecture,if some1 would wish to made cheaper Legacy CPUs? Because still,this solves the overall survival of Legacy architecture,but not the other subproblem-to make it financially accessible for next generations including those not so rich to pay industrial or military prices? SW can be copied & preserved well,but the HW question is other,& everything,which will save native usage of DOS SW for next generations,is good.Native means no virtualization. Yes,i meant,i wish to cooperate with some1 able to obtain factory equipment & I will provide the building. Best wishes. With regards Sabina Zelená[=Green]. LIVE LONG & PROSPER,live & let live=DO NOT EAT,NOR WEAR ANIMALS,nor do not pay Their Murderers & oppressors,please. Shalom/Peace/Shanti/Mier/Nyugalom.‎ From: Alessandro Ciabattoni via Freedos-user Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2024 23:35 To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Cc: Alessandro Ciabattoni Subject: [Freedos-user] R: Running Freedos on bare metal in the future ? Greetings, Sabina, I think it is a bit difficult to made a motherboard or hardware without factory equipment, but I can say you that it still exists an Australian company that produce legacy hardware… now I can not remember the name, but I will search it if you want. They do not make clones like the 8088 on ATX, but still produce legacy hardware like ages ago, even the old flip-top AT/XT cases, probably because they have the original projects diagrams. I remember I had a look on this website a few months ago. In the meantime, I think there is now need to clone a CPU: even if the internet claims that the 486, 386, 286 and so on CPUs were discontinued in 2007 (circa), I can tell you that these models are still produced… incredible, but true. For example I have a about 4 or 5 Harris 286-25 CPUs with the date code 1901 (year 2019, week 01), I can send you a picture if you want, so you can check that I am not joking 😉  It is not an old stock, but a 286 made in 2019, same thing I can say about 8088 or Nec V20 processors (in my collection I have one made in 2003). It may be hard to find a seller, but this units are still produced. You still “love” the legacy era and I do the same: be sure that this era will never end as long as there exist a lot of projects that allow it to continue (the XT-IDE card is only an example about hardware… and FreeDOS is an example for the software). Best wishes, Alessandro         Da: Sabina Zelená. via Freedos-user <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> Inviato: mercoledì 30 ottobre 2024 19:01 A: Roderick Klein HTML email via Freedos-user <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> Cc: Sabina Zelená. <sabina.zel...@yahoo.com> Oggetto: Re: [Freedos-user] Running Freedos on bare metal in the future ?   ‎Greetings. I would most appreciate,if someone would be willing to assemble a team for restoring Legacy HW,mainly Legacy MoBo & CPUs production. If someone would be willing to create a plant for Legacy HW production,I would offer my house for free usage for this purpose(U know,that former school building,U r all ignoring me for pretty long time on this forum‎,maybe because I am the only female here).Y to accept the end of Legacy HW & create virtual BIOS replacements...Y to accept that UEFI garbage @ all? ‎If Legacy architecture is abandoned,it may become public accessible,or some1 could reverse-engineer Legacy processors & MoBos & start to create new old HW,this should be the future of DOS,do not accept UEFI,restore the Legacy era.Have own HW for (Free)DOS. Live long & prosper. Sent from my BlackBerry Passport,RIM OS 10 smartphone named <b>Uhura</b> after deceased Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols. <b><font color="darkgreen">With regards Sabina Zelená[=Green]. LIVE LONG & PROSPER,live & let live=DO NOT EAT,NOR WEAR ANIMALS,nor do not pay Their Murderers & oppressors,please. Shalom/Peace/Shanti/Mier/Nyugalom.</b>‎ From: Roderick Klein HTML email via Freedos-user Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 14:51.‎ To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Cc: Roderick Klein HTML email Subject: [Freedos-user] Running Freedos on bare metal in the future ?   I modified the subject of the thread. First of all I am not a software developer. I started out using MS-DOS and later moved to OS/2. I still use ArcaOS an my main OS these days (OS/2 version). It runs on bare metal with UEFI support. A small company called Arca Noae LLC has developed a UEFI loader for ArcaOS.  They way I understand this is possible as the UEFI simply switches the Intel CPU to well 4 GB protect mode (legacy mode). But with OS/2 this is easier then DOS as it does not lean that hard on the BIOS after the OS has started. With DOS and Freedos this is most likely more complex as it is more depended on the BIOS. I have never liked virtualization from a "fun" perspective. I like it when an OS runs bare metal. I do not want to start a full blown Linux Desktop then start Virtualbox and run ArcaOS or MS-DOS. I like the OS to be really lean where possible. With the current X86S project coming up this is bad news for FreeDOS as this would also possibly kill hardware virtualisation in for example Virtualbox. QEMU can do full CPU instruction I understand and you can run this way FreeDOS also on an ARM CPU. But the question is how close can you bring FreeDOS to the hardware. I have always wondered if you can not stick QEMU directly in a UEFI loader. But how would QEMU then work for Freedos ? Well the crucial idea is that the UEFI loader never makes the call ExitFromBootServices(). Instead QEMU uses the disc and USB services offered by the UEFI firmware. QEMU becomes native UEFI app. When comes to being direct the video output is send directly the UEFI GOP frame buffer. QEMU then uses the UEFI disc services to read/write the FAT 32 volume on disc. You would still have a VM but its as close to the hardware as possible :-) This sollution might even work then on ARM CPU's and systems with X86S. As the UEFI loader would provide the X86 instruction chipset. I have also read that you can use multiple CPU's cores in EFI apps. I do not know if this can help speed up the performance somehow. Again I am not a developer, the whole idea was inspired by this project: https://github.com/shadlyd15/NesUEFI As NES emulator build inside a UEFI loader and it does not even use any other OS it uses the UEFI services. Effectively UEFI is as system BIOS from my perspective. The big difference with a legacy BIOS is the "ExitFromBootServices". As UEFI expects the OS to tale over. Your thoughs and comments are welcome. Roderick On 10/29/24 08:20 pm, Michał Dec via Freedos-user wrote: If you can make a Libreboot firmware for your motherboard with CSM support then yes. W dniu 29.10.2024 o 20:08, Balázs Szulovszky via Freedos-user pisze: Would it be possible to use Libreboot as an UEFI replacement for FreeDOS?       Ekkor: K, okt. 29, 2024 19:58, Jim Hall via Freedos-user <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> írta: Rover wrote: > > Wish Intel would create a BIOS emulation layer for booting DOS/FreeDOS > > via EFI/UEFI. Ridiculous EFI/UEFI has no emulation layer for booting > > older operating systems! [..] > > However, all likely outside the whelm [realm?] of FreeDOS. Ralf Quint wrote: > Indeed. It would technically not impossible to create a boot "OS", that > boots on a UEFI system, and then provides a BIOS emulation layer to > allow for DOS (or other disadvantaged OS) to boot. But it is technically > rather challenging for any outsiders to create something like this, as > it requires to support all the various low level hardware out there > these days.... +1 This would require creating some kind of UEFI "shim" that boots the PC, provides BIOS services, then loads FreeDOS within that context. It's not impossible, but very very hard (requires a ton of effort) because you need to replicate the environment services that were provided by default through hardware on a classic PC using BIOS. UEFI actually provided this kind of emulation using "Legacy" mode. But that support was dropped by Intel around 2020. It's UEFI-only since then, no "Legacy" support to provide any kind of BIOS. One workaround (used on some HP laptops) is to book a minimal Linux environment, then launch a virtual machine like QEMU to boot FreeDOS. But this loads an operating system just to load another operating system. I suppose if you need hardware that is dedicated to running DOS, that's a solution.

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