DOS ain't dead

Hi,
I don't want to spread FUD but give a little warning. Our dear giant M$
decided that they need extra protection for their OS (maybe because they
still cannot reach security level runtime like other OSes) so they want to
utilize new UEFI feature - secure boot. If this feature is enabled it means
that your PC will not boot any other OS/bootloader without valid
certificate. Keys will be stored in UEFI image and probably only for Win8
and maybe some profi Linux distros. M$ enforce OEMs that they must enable
this feature if they want to use designed for Win8 sticker - a lot of
comming HW.
Of course UEFI secure boot could be disabled but it depends on OEMs if they
include such option in SETUP! I'm afraid that it may happen on some
notebooks/netbooks/tablets they will omit such option (not mandatory) and
secure boot will be permanently enabled so than you will be bricked with
Win8 on such device until someone will hack it... So be careful what you're
buying...

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/windo...-secure-boot-will-complicate-linux-installs.ars

Anyway I think DOS doomsday (on new HW) is comming within few years when UEFI drops BIOS services compatability module. Alternative is to get HW which is supported by Coreboot/SeaBIOS or rewrite DOS such way it will not use BIOS but UEFI API and will emulate BIOS services for DOS apps. AFAIK UEFI runs in all in PMODE.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

.delete this

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Yes, it is certanly a bad news but on other hand the DOS support is minimal even today and we have no reason to upgrade DOS machine to more robust hardware than lets say Pentium III class computer because it is more than sufficient power for DOS programs.

I think that UEFI secure boot will be only on notebooks but on desktops will be BIOS much more configurable. Notebooks are for teenagers and as we say in Czech rep. for BFUs (in english: JOU - Johny, ordinary user). Desktops are for productive people and for people interested in computers.
On desktops we will use Coreboot with SeaBIOS module and everything will work.

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DOS-u-akbar!

> even today and we have no reason to upgrade DOS machine to more robust
> hardware than lets say Pentium III class computer because it is more than
> sufficient power for DOS programs.

Yes if you have dedicated DOS machine and some KVM switch. But I rather like to have one universal PC that can boot multiple OS. But this is not that I wanted discus in my 1st post.

> I think that UEFI secure boot will be only on notebooks but on desktops
> will be BIOS much more configurable.

Secure boot is feature of all UEFI >some version. It only depends if there will be option to turn it off - customization of SETUP made by OEMs. I hope most of generic HW allow it but not sure about some marks like dell, hp, intel (often used in companies)...

> Notebooks are for teenagers and as we
> say in Czech rep. for BFUs (in english: JOU - Johny, ordinary user).
> Desktops are for productive people and for people interested in computers.

Notebooks for BFU? What about technicians who are driving around and setting/fixing various devices in the field (sometimes communicating with old machines that requires specific DOS control SW)?
BTW few days ago I was looking again for notebooks with real COM & LPT ports. There are still exist such ones - 2 models from Fujitsu (one with num.keypad - awesome :) and some from Toshiba but all only with 1 COM, no LPT. I need LPT e.g. for my SPIPGM or AVR, x51, EPROM programming, printer ETC. So probably best I can get is older Fujitsu Lifebook E8420 with C2D and both ports, unfortunately it's quite bigger - 36x26cm than my EVO n600c...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> I need LPT e.g. for my SPIPGM or AVR, x51, EPROM programming, printer
> ETC. So probably best I can get is older Fujitsu Lifebook E8420 with C2D
> and both ports, unfortunately it's quite bigger - 36x26cm than my EVO
> n600c...

At least in certain situations, you might be able to use my USBPRINT program and a USB-to-parallel-port adapter if your computer doesn't have an actual parallel port. It depends a lot on your on your hardware configuration and exactly how the programs work (whether they communicate through the parallel port using the BIOS or using direct I/O).

USPRINT provides some extended parallel port BIOS functions that allow two-way communication with the devices, as well as allowing blocks of data to be transferred in either direction (instead of allowing just one byte at a time the way a normal BIOS does). Even if the programs won't work natively, it may be possible to "hack" them so they do work with modern packet-based hardware like USB.

BTW, USBPRINT also provides the extended BIOS functions (including two-way communication) for standard parallel ports, so you don't even necessarily need USB for it to be useful.

In my case I mostly need to flipping few pins very fast, e.g. for simulating SPI serial bus - various bitbang interfaces via direct access to LPT registers. And I think this will be very slow via USB (compared to transfering byte stream like when printing) so I stand upon a real LPT that can do it >100kHz...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> In my case I mostly need to flipping few pins very fast, e.g. for
> simulating SPI serial bus - various bitbang interfaces via direct access to
> LPT registers. And I think this will be very slow via USB (compared to
> transfering byte stream like when printing) so I stand upon a real LPT that
> can do it >100kHz...

Most PCs nowdays have hardware SPI busses in the superio chip?

> In my case I mostly need to flipping few pins very fast, e.g. for
> simulating SPI serial bus - various bitbang interfaces via direct access to
> LPT registers. And I think this will be very slow via USB (compared to
> transfering byte stream like when printing) so I stand upon a real LPT that
> can do it >100kHz...

You're correct -- there's no way USB (or any other type of packet interface, like Ethernet) can compete with direct hardware when it comes to latency. There's no way USB could work for simulations like SPI. But, it might be suitable for something like programming EPROMs.

> Most PCs nowdays have hardware SPI busses in the superio chip?

Sure, all nowdays PC use SPI flash to store BIOS. But this bus is not externally accesible (neither internal header) and also programming is not such straighforward as programming the LPT.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Is anybody really surprised by all of this? Sure, malware is a big problem, and I (halfway) wouldn't be surprised if that was part of their motivation. But then again, I doubt it.

It's too early to say for sure, but clearly they are "testing the waters" with these announcements. The OS is far from finalized as they wouldn't even commit to a year (2012) nor name (Windows 8) and had to retract Ballmer's statement!

Face it, they are putting all the pressure on the OEMs, who already eat out of their hand. I see no reason why they wouldn't all put "disable" features in them, but Red Hat already found out that some won't. Sad, really.

The upside is that (supposedly) Hyper-V will be included by default. But the weird twist to that is that it requires VT-X, which Intel is notorious for not including on all models. So MS is kinda pushing them back too, which is odd. I honestly would be surprised (though glad) if Intel gave in to that, but who knows.

In short, they want to be like Apple, "walled garden", app store, big app fees (30%), more consumer like a video game console or appliance, less open and modifiable like the IBM PC traditionally has been (which is arguably a mistake since that was why it succeeded).

It's also kinda sad (to me) that all this tablet, smartphone hype has permeated society so badly that it transforms Windows into a glorified mess (WinRT), yet another incompatible thing that nobody wanted. But at least Windows is going to ARM (though probably only in a limited fashion), which has been a plea for years from some people.

I dunno, only time will tell. (Though surprisingly their betas still have 32-bit versions too, not just 64-bit. But Win2000 also had a DEC Alpha version in betas too that was canceled at the last minute. Even OS/2 had a rare, quickly-abandoned PPC port. So there's no sure thing. Oh well.)

> The upside is that (supposedly) Hyper-V will be included by default. But
> the weird twist to that is that it requires VT-X, which Intel is notorious
> for not including on all models.

Will Hyper-V allow me to run any other OS virtualized? DOS? OS2? Linux? various experimentals? If it would run such miracle I would like to pay intel for VT-X CPU :) I doubt it I think it's only for windows maybe linux.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > The upside is that (supposedly) Hyper-V will be included by default. But
> > the weird twist to that is that it requires VT-X, which Intel is
> notorious
> > for not including on all models.
>
> Will Hyper-V allow me to run any other OS virtualized? DOS? OS2? Linux?
> various experimentals? If it would run such miracle I would like to pay
> intel for VT-X CPU :) I doubt it I think it's only for windows maybe linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-V#Supported_guests

Pretty much Windows and minimal Linux support only, from what I can tell (without having tried it myself, sorry).

But you can always download VirtualBox or VMware.

> > The upside is that (supposedly) Hyper-V will be included by default. But
> > the weird twist to that is that it requires VT-X, which Intel is
> notorious
> > for not including on all models.
>
> Will Hyper-V allow me to run any other OS virtualized? DOS? OS2? Linux?
> various experimentals? If it would run such miracle I would like to pay
> intel for VT-X CPU :) I doubt it I think it's only for windows maybe linux.

Fat chance anyway that hyperv will only be in more expensive editions, and not the OEM "home" versions more commonly used.

Just like the fabled XP virtualization in Win7

> Fat chance anyway that hyperv will only be in more expensive editions, and
> not the OEM "home" versions more commonly used.
>
> Just like the fabled XP virtualization in Win7

It's not nearly finalized yet, so anything could change. It's not set in stone. But I've read online (ultra reliable, I know) that it will be in home versions too.

But your remark made me curious, and rereading the Wikipedia article does indeed mention it's only supported on AMD64, not 32-bit. (Granted, you could argue that you don't need it if on 32-bit as NTVDM is good enough.) But who knows, maybe they'll fix that.