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heh, well I dont think I was being rude... well anyway im sorry if you feel that way...

Yes you were being VERY Rude, PlayOS made this code to HELP People to start off, so i wouldn't call it 'STEALING'

I am just a guy who is trying to start an OS, and anything that will make the job easier is VERY appreciated. I know C++ & some C, but i dont know assembler. The only thing in assmebler is the BootSector (1% of the Code) so i will not learn it just for this.

Keey up the good work PlayOS,

And for you rude guy, if you got nothing good or helpful to say, why don't you just piss off.

ciao

Well, Berserk, how did FritzOS work?
I will ( I think ) put instructions for compileing and putting FritzOS on a disk in Win32.

Here is some beta info, test if it works, please:

If using the floppy image, extract the .rar file that contains the fritzos.img with the program WinRaw at http://www.rarlab.com

Use RaWrite to put FritzOS on a floppy by:
Downloading Win RaWrite: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

Open rawwritewin.exe ( after extracting downloaded rawrite ) and click "..." on the Write tab. Browse to fritzos.img . Make sure the number of copies is 1. Click "Write." When it is done, click "Exit" and reboot to test FritzOS.

I will post compiling instructions as soon as figure out how...

Hope that helps,

Berserk wrote:
And for you rude guy, if you got nothing good or helpful to say, why don't you just piss off.

ciao

Whoa, calm down, I said I was sorry

Ok,

Your forgiven for your rude behavior.

Now for Mr Fritz. I like your OS, it's very good. i checked out the source code & i see that there are many good functions. But what are the .sh files for??

And for the graphics.h header, looks good, BUT WHAT THE HELL IS 13h mode??

Nice OS Mate, keep up the good work, i believe you could make something big. You never know, you might even put Microsoft out of business Anything can happen!

ciao

Ok, lets see if I can be helpful
Mode 13h is a VGA display mode, its 320x200 and is 256 color, is sorta 'default' and you can pretty much garantee it that it will be supported on whatever your OS is likely to run on... (ie it doesnt have non-standard interfaces like Super-VGA, where every other card uses a different interface method)... so yeah... hope I helped...

Ok,

Is there a way i can make my OS Boot to 800x600 resolution? i don't care about the colour mode (256 or higher will do)

But has anybody actually managed to make their OS go to 800x600?

I think the highest in VGA is 640x480 256 color, anything higher than that and you need Super-VGA, and like I said theres several different interfaces that cards use, so you would most likely have to a lib for this, and/or theres VESA which provides a standard interface for Super-VGA... im not sure how supported this is though...
maybe you want to check this out: http://www.monstersoft.com/tutorial1/VESA_intro.html

ahhh.....

i'll put off the 800x600 for a little while.

To get input from the keyboard, do i need to program a keyboard driver???

i so badly need an input function.

one more thang,

how do initialise graphics mode 13h?

in the bootsector provided by PlayOS, or is it already initialised

Hey,

Don't worry bou't mode 13h, i figured out how to apply it to my bootsector. YAY, now i am going to chuck away all this example material and start from scratch, a bootsector kernel, evrything!! Now that i understand a bit of assembler. I am going to do it myself. Thank's PlayOS, but i will not use your BootSector or Kernel. I will make my own and put my own Copyrights! I don't want anybody else's name on my OS.

There will be alot of questions i will ask about every single line of the bootsector!! As for the kernel, i don't need any help with it. I am learning C++ and know some C aswell. i will manage, i will make a C++ kernel.

I just got one question for now (i will have alot later)
Actually i got two questions!:

How do i intialise the keyboard? So i can take input?

and this is a question for Tom:

In the file 'graphics.h' of fritzOS, there are two definitions that i am curious about, these are:

#define SCREEN_WIDTH 320
#define SCREEN_HEIGHT 200

what are these for? what would happen if i changed it?

If i put SCREEN_WIDTH 800
SCREEN_HEIGHT 600

would the resolution change? to 800x600?

do i need these defenitions for mode 13h?

and also:

does mode 13h only have 256 colours??

Also Please note:

i am not going to use your graphics.h file, i am just curious about the definitions!

Please help,
ciao

Well, the FitzOS's graphics.h file is now unsupported. Don't use it. and you can't change to 800x600 by changeing those defs, they are for keeping track of how big the screen is in 13h mode.

FritzOS Prekernel 0.7 will have keyboard fucntions. You can use tthose

But now, check fritzos.sourceforge.net

And, the .sh files are Linux install files. You need linux to install those. I will include help for installing and compileing FritzOS in Win32.

Hope that helps, and..
FritzOS 0.7 will have more comments, and will be easier to understand, will have a 2nd stage loader, and other good stuff.....

Berserk wrote:Thank's PlayOS, but i will not use your BootSector or Kernel. I will make my own and put my own Copyrights! I don't want anybody else's name on my OS.

Spoken like a true OS Developer, this is probably the best thing you can do, the example is only really meant to help people learn.

And while you might not need help with C, you will definately need help with the kernel, we all do.

Anyway, good stuff, keep it up.

Ok,

I probably will need help with the kernel! I'll ask if i have any questions.

Should i use mode 13h??? Is there a better mode?? (that is also easy to initialise.)

And for Tom, i will have a look at FritzOS when the keyboard functions are done.

Lastly, How can i output text in mode 13h?

Is there a way i can change the mode to display text??

And also, PlayOS, could you please explain the outb & inb functions in more detail! i don't understand what they are for!

ciao

These functions send (outb) or retrieve (inb) data from ports, a port is a special location that is used to access data from different pieces of hardware, if you have seen keyboard code then you would of seen something like in al, 0x60 what this does is reads data from the keyboard port, to do this with the inb function you would just do value = inb(0x60) so basically these are just wrappers around the port access instructions in and out.

About mode 13h, I personally dont like this mode at all, the only good thing about it is that the memory fits into one segment so there is no need for bank switching. When I get to the GUI of my OS I will be using something like VESA, VESA 2 is very well supported now, and VESA 3 is coming along well, I have VESA 3 on my machine, so I will be using it, even though it is not widely supported at the moment, in the next 1 - 3 years it will become just as common as VESA 2 and I dont expect my OS to be fully functional much before that. Besides this I will have a fallback into VESA 2, and if neccessary even VESA 1.2 which is ALMOST guarenteed to be on all machines. VESA definately supports 800x600 and I cant see any hardware manufacturers leaving out.

You will find a wide range of opinions on this forum about VESA, and mine is that it should be used for GUI because it can be, and I am not going to attempt to get drivers made specific, not in the near future anyway.

Does anyone know what windows does when there is no driver installed, every windows I have ever installed goes to some crappy 16 color mode which I assume is VGA standard. Why doesn't it use VESA? Anyone?

Hope this helps.