OS Development Under MS-DOS

[Nathan]

Yeah, I saw that now, it's for Protected Mode.

[rdos]

Weird thread.

I disagree about GRUB not being able to load non-flat binaries. It can be done with a dummy (assembly) module that sets up the memory model the OS uses. While I haven't tried it, I bet it would be possible to return the processor to real-mode as well.

The bigger problem with Turbo C, and MSDOS tools, is that they will emit DOS function calls, which will not work without some kind of emulator (at boot time).

[gerryg400]

I'm not sure I follow this thread correctly. But, I have done a lot of 32bit protected mode development under dos. I used borlandc++ as an editor and an IDE. But when compiling used the 32bit command line version of their compiler.

I have a DOS program that uses XMS extensions to find memory above 1MB mark, loads the 32bit OS image there, switches to protected mode and executes the OS. When the OS terminates, you can return to dos without rebooting. It makes for a very smooth code/test/debug cycle.

I haven't done this for many years but still have the source code somewhere.

- gerryg400

[Nathan]

Weird thread.

I disagree about GRUB not being able to load non-flat binaries. It can be done with a dummy (assembly) module that sets up the memory model the OS uses. While I haven't tried it, I bet it would be possible to return the processor to real-mode as well.

The bigger problem with Turbo C, and MSDOS tools, is that they will emit DOS function calls, which will not work without some kind of emulator (at boot time).

Hmm, we could try DJGPP?

[Nathan]

I think it is possible to use DJGPP.

I will see if I could try to use the emulated 386 add-in for PocketDOS and see if it works.