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Update of Ralf Brown's Interrupt List? (Developers)

posted by bretjohn Homepage E-mail, Rio Rancho, NM, 31.10.2020, 15:55

This could open up a really big can of worms. We owe a great debt to Ralf Brown (and all the others who helped him put the list together and maintain it). If it weren't for RBIL, DOS/FreeDOS would not be nearly as far along as it is. RBIL is the "Bible" that everybody uses to write their programs. It is BY FAR the most accurate and complete source of information there is even though it hasn't been updated in a VERY long time. There is even a LOT of information in there that people found by trial-and-error (bugs, secret/hidden functions, etc.) and not just reprints of the "official" documentation.

The can of worms is going to be finding a person or group of people willing to maintain the data. That is a HUGE commitment. I would definitely like to see it happen, but the amount of work required to just gather the missing years of data is far more more than I think most people even realize. In addition to the few things you mentioned, there really needs to be information on all the technology changes and "standards" that have been developed over the last twenty years (CPUs, disks & disk formats, memory, BIOS & EFI & UEFI, virtualization, networking, etc.), just to name a few.

If someone wants to take the lead on this, I'm sure many others would be willing to help, including me to at least a small extent. But I think this really needs to be almost a religious commitment on somebody's part (like it was for Ralf) and not just limited to a few items that one particular person would like to see.

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