VOGONS


BIOS release date

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First post, by venetian

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While viewing ROM BIOS memory under DOSBox 0.74, my debug (WinXP built-in version) shows:

debug.exe
-d f000:fff0
F000:FFF0 EA C0 12 00 F0 30 31 2F-30 31 2F 39 32 00 FC 55 .....01/01/92..U

The same values are shown while running DOSBox on other PC's, with different BIOSes.

Is there a way to see _the_real_ ROM BIOS from inside DOSBox?

Reply 1 of 7, by Qbix

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no and it is not intended that it should.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 2 of 7, by venetian

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What is the reason?

Reply 4 of 7, by Qbix

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dosbox is an emulator. not your real pc.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 5 of 7, by mr_bigmouth_502

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DosBox is like a separate computer within your computer. If you use it to run a BIOS ROM-reading tool, it'll only show what's in DosBox's BIOS, NOT what's in your computer's BIOS.

Reply 6 of 7, by BigBodZod

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keropi wrote:

this reason is so sweet and awesome that if you knew your head would explode!
Qbix saved your life just now, be thankfull

Haha, just like the Monty Python skit about the funniest joke in the world 😉

Back on topic, there really isn't any reason for having any virtual machine be able to read the real/physical CMOS/BIOS rom on the motherboard.

I don't see any practical or useful reason why you would want to do that anyways.

No matter where you go, there you are...

Reply 7 of 7, by Zup

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Security. In most cases, a virtual machine has to be an isolated environment, without no access to real hardware.

What would happen if you VM throw an illegal call to the video subsystem or accesses some ports wildly? In an isolated VM, the virtual hardware would fail and the VM could hang or worse; but the host would survive. If the VM is not isolated, it could hang the entire REAL machine. In an environment running several VMs in a server that would be surely a problem; at home it would trash your data.

In "real" VMs (Virtualbox, VMWare), most hardware is virtualized as well as network connections (although a VM surely will have access to the network) and disk (or disks are independent from host disks). Note that DOSBox is more like an emulator: although it virtualizes network, graphics and sound; it "shares" disks with the host. A virus could escape the "virtual sandbox" through disk, but it won't get very far (a DOS virus running in Windows 7?).

I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...

I'm selling some stuff!