Hi, On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Eric Auer <[email protected]> wrote: > > I agree that the best way to install DOS on a very old PC is to use a floppy > distro.
What practical choices do we have? 1). Stick to lowest common denominator. E.g. 8086 with conventional memory only (say, full 640 kb). 2). Separate binaries for different machines. E.g. 8086 (raw), 186 (EMS), 286 (XMS), 386 (VCPI), 486 (DPMI). Usually this means separate code via compile-time ifdefs. 3). Some kind of hybrid binary setup with runtime checks for whatever is available (e.g. CPUID). I've done all of the above. And the same theory applies to floppies, CDs, USB, etc. You can make a hybrid that supports most or all of these. But it's much harder. And portability and compatibility are just generally very hard. Do you want everything to run in bare DOS? Do you want to dual boot DOS and Windows? Or do you run your DOS stuff inside Windows? (See what I'm saying? Is it better to have a single DOS app run in both DOS and Windows or separate binaries for each?) So you have to decide which method is best for you. Either you want a "one-size-fits-all" / "all-in-one" or you want separate pieces for separate purposes. If you decide that a small subset is superior to obsessing over every obscure feature and goal, then that's fine too. But none of this is easy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
