DOS ain't dead

MODE command (Developers)

posted by kerravon , Ligao, Free World North, 01.11.2021, 20:02

> > What do you think?
>
> Sorry, i cant answer by reasons:
>
> 1. This is architectual question. So, at first, need understand "what you
> want receive in the end?" (what kind of OS design)

I don't really understand this. I'm basically trying
to connect to something that looks like a BBS. That's
the paradigm I like. I don't like doing TCP/IP calls.
I like the simplicity of a serial port.

There is flexibility in the OS design. The main thing
is that it should look like MSDOS, and run a compiler
and other command-line tools, plus micro-emacs using
ANSI control characters, and everything should be
written in C90, or MSDOS-like calls, not Posix which
requires silly things like fork() and lacks essential
things like a simple syscall to obtain memory.

> In original MS-DOS has been broken principle
> "Everything is a
> file". Imho, this is good idea (Everything is a file), but can broke
> compatibility.

I'm happy to break compatibility, and I do indeed
want everything to be a file, but not a Unix file
descriptor - I want all my applications to operate
by doing C90 calls. There are some applications that
require scanning a directory - for those applications
I want to use an MSDOS-like call, not Posix.

I don't mind breaking compatibility to achieve this
goal, and I don't mind sacrificing things like a lack
of timeout facilities because that doesn't exist in
C90. I want protocols that aren't dependent on that,
like the NNTP protocol.

> Most often, drivers were used as a type of TSR (instead in
> driver sense). And need to remember, com/lpt used not just for networking -
> there are many industrial equipment (machine tools) that still work with
> DOS.

And I would like those applications to be rewritten
in standard C90. Any reason why a machine tool can't
be operated by doing fopen("com1", "r+b"); ?

> PS: Personaly for me, most interesting will be text-mode multitasking with
> networking (like deskview) in 32-bit DOS. But this is another story (need
> to do huge investigation).

My focus is on getting single-tasking working to my
satisfaction. A 32-bit version of MSDOS that I am
happy with. Currently I provide 3 different visions
of that.

BFN. Paul.

Complete thread:

• MODE command - kerravon, 14.10.2021, 12:34
  • MODE command - bretjohn, 14.10.2021, 17:36
    • MODE command - kerravon, 15.10.2021, 00:29
      • MODE command - bretjohn, 15.10.2021, 07:29
        • MODE command - kerravon, 15.10.2021, 07:42
          • MODE command - bretjohn, 16.10.2021, 00:50
            • MODE command - kerravon, 16.10.2021, 02:07
              • MODE command - RayeR, 18.10.2021, 21:44
  • MODE command - DosWorld, 22.10.2021, 03:35
    • MODE command - kerravon, 23.10.2021, 01:50
      • MODE command - DosWorld, 01.11.2021, 19:05
        • MODE command - kerravon, 01.11.2021, 20:02
          • MODE command - tom, 02.11.2021, 18:53
            • MODE command - kerravon, 02.11.2021, 21:22