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baslinux - prog cleans up DOS mem mgmt--was Re: [BL] (no subject)

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  • From: James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: prog cleans up DOS mem mgmt--was Re: [BL] (no subject)
  • Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:51:58 -0600 (CST)

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Ken Martwick wrote:

> I'm sorry I was confusing. The boot floppy I mentioned is only used once
> to get the clean BIOS interrupt vectors for a particular PC. The 200k
> size includes all the programs and source code. My code is GPL and the
> other programs are also open source.

Thanks Ken. I think I might be getting it now. So, the floppy is used
only to get a copy of the "clean" vectors as seen by the BIOS? It somehow
records them, e.g., in a file? And it's necessary to do this first, I
suppose, since, on each individual PC, the state of clean vectors might
vary somewhat? So, I'll conjecture that your program works something like
this: prospective BL user (pBLu hereafter) first boots from the floppy
which records clean vectors for his machine and puts them in some file.
Is this the vectors.bin file you mentioned in your initial post? Then,
pBLu reboots into DOS, inserts that floppy and copies over the clean
vectors file to his/er DOS partition. Or perhaps s/he copies it over to
the DOS partition while running from the booted floppy? In any case, the
clean vectors file gets put on the hard drive--in the same directory as
your fix1f.exe. Once pBLu has a copy of the clean vectors file, the boot
floppy is no longer needed. And once pBLu has a copy of the clean vectors
file on his/er hard drive, s/he needs only to put fix1f.exe in the same
directory as it, run fix1f.exe, then run boot.bat and fire up Xvesa--which
should run just fine, despite the fact that memory mgmt programs were
running in DOS. Have I understood how this all works? If so, is my
assumption that vectors.bin is the file that recorded clean vectors from
the BIOS (using the boot floppy) correct? So your program relies on
values in this file to write clean vectors so one can boot more cleanly
into Linux? This is what I deduce from your descriptions so far.

And, within the 200K you mentioned, is there some diskette image one
records to a floppy, or perhaps a batch file one runs to create the
bootable floppy? Further explanation of how the user gets or produces the
bootable floppy will be appreciated, as will further feedback on my
assumptions about how all this works, offered above.

Thanks, James




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