Freedos 086 FAT32 build exist. Thats about it, i doubt that DR-DOS enhanced 7.01.07 will run on a XT, maybe with NEC V20/V30.

Newer versions of PTS/Paragon DOS do support FAT32, I believe.
They are optimized and advanced, though, so they likely won't run on not-advanced machines (XTs).

IBM PC-DOS 2000 will run on XTs, however.
It supports FAT32, I think, but is in English only. It was spread via IBM servers to customers, I assume.

Datalight's ROM DOS *may* also support FAT32 perhaps, not sure.

Good luck!

Edit: Speaking of FreeDOS, the FAT32 support may slow down things a bit (DIR command etc).
It's because of the larger addresses used and the increasing of capacity.
Also, there's PC-MOS/386 still. V5 became open source.
In the past, it had its own partition types that supported bigger partitions back in the day than what was usual (>32MB).

Cyberdyne wrote on 2020-11-09, 06:23:

Freedos 086 FAT32 build exist. Thats about it, i doubt that DR-DOS enhanced 7.01.07 will run on a XT, maybe with NEC V20/V30.

I seond that. The NECs make PC/XTs more advanced.
IMHO, it makes little sense aiming for the modernization of an XT,
but keeping that rusty old 8088 in charge. 😉
Unless, there's a compatibility issue, of course.

PC-DOS 2000 doesn't have FAT32

Can the 8088 address 32bit storage space? Or do you get FAT32 file system support but only 16bits of addressable storage?

Nope. 8088/8086 processors are 16 bits ALU based.

Cheers,

I understood that you could use the DRFAT32.SYS from DR-DOS with other versions of DOS, though I haven't tried it myself (let alone on an 8088).

EDIT: Some more info here.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.os.free-dos/c … 0ZF4tJQwJ?pli=1

Evidently not very memory-friendly at all, alas, but might do in a pinch?

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-11-09, 17:16:

PC-DOS 2000 doesn't have FAT32

That's right. My bad, I haven't really PC-DOSes that new (I used v3.30 mainly).
What I was thinking of was PC-DOS 7.1, which came after PC-DOS 7.0 (aka 2000).

http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/dosfat32.htm

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-11-10, 00:32:

Nope. 8088/8086 processors are 16 bits ALU based.

Cheers,

That's true, though there are tricks that allow, say, a Nintemdo 64 emulation on a x86-32 system.
So technically, an 8-Bit system can simulate a 16/32/64-Bit system also.

Albeit with lots of trickery (bankswitching, combination of two or more separate registers) and impaired performance.

Speaking of FAT, FAT16B used a 16-Bit address space with a 32-Bit sector index.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/file-systems-101-fat/

There's a few variants like:

http://svarog86.sourceforge.net/

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-10, 03:37:

There's a few variants like:

http://svarog86.sourceforge.net/

Oh, it still exists ? Cool! I think I used this thing on my XT years ago, because it was limited to the 8088.

The 2015 files are available here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/svarog86/files/2015-05-29/

"Svarog86 comes on a variety of floppy disk formats. Hence every release is available in a few different images, where every image fits one floppy disk format:

sv86-360.img - 360KB diskette (5.25", double face, double density)
sv86-720.img - 720KB diskette (3.5", double face, double density)
sv86-1200.img - 1.2MB diskette (5.25", double face, high density)
sv86-1440.img - 1.44MB diskette (3.5", double face, high density)
sv86-2880.img - 2.88MB diskette (3.5", double face, extra-high density)
Source: README.md, updated 2015-05-27"

sv86files.txt:
"Svarog86 comes in multiple floppy disks flavours.
Since every floppy disk has a different capacity, some adaptations need to be done.
Below is the listing of all files that Svarog86 contains, for every floppy disk format:

attrib.com
autoexec.bat
command.com
config.sys
config.txt
ctmouse.exe
diskcopy.exe
fc.exe
format.exe
install.txt
kernel.sys
mem.exe
mode.com
more.exe
move.exe
part.exe
sort.com
sys.com
te.com
te.doc

Additionally, diskettes of 720K or more contain the following:

edit.exe
edit.hlp
tdsk.doc
tdsk.exe
tree.com

[EOF]"

This is a slightly-off topic question, but..

Can MS-DOS 7.x or FreeDOS operate if an older version number is set ?

- I'm asking, because I think of running a newer DOS on an old PC, but I'd like to continue using the MS-DOS 6.xx utilities
and some older utilities from the late 90s/early 90s, like PC-TOOLS Deluxe, for example.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-11-10, 00:32:

Nope. 8088/8086 processors are 16 bits ALU based.

Cheers,

As long as a system implements a carry flag it can have precision larger than the native word size. Look at modern computers, doing 128/256/512 bit crypto all the time using only 32/64 bit registers.

Interesting. How much storage can an 8088 system see then? The full FAT32 address space is 2TB. Is it really all of it?

PC-DOS 7.1 done NOT support FAT32 only some experimental buggy kernel exist. Same for DR-DOS 7.04 7.05. MS-DOS 7.xx need a 386 to work. And FreeDOS FAT32 does run in a XT class machine and can use FAT32. In reality FAT32 is more or less Microsoft owned stuff. Oh DRFAT32.SYS is verry buggy in everyday life, and do not use it with other DOSses than DR-DOS 7.x. Better use enhanced DR-DOS that has FAT32.

Not to be a contrarian, but I don't really see the use of >8GB partitions on an 8088 system other than bragging rights. There's no technical reason that an 8086 build of FreeDOS with FAT32 wouldn't work, but you can probably forget about "fast" or "efficient".

PC-DOS 7 / 2000 is leaner and meaner than FreeDOS anyway, and less of a RAM-hog, which is important on XT systems. And an XT-IDE card/BIOS will take care of storage options.

I wonder if it would be possible to add support for exFAT to FreeDOS. Not because it would add anything useful, but just for the fun of it. 😄

VileR wrote on 2020-11-10, 19:12:

Not to be a contrarian, but I don't really see the use of >8GB partitions on an 8088 system other than bragging rights. There's no technical reason that an 8086 build of FreeDOS with FAT32 wouldn't work, but you can probably forget about "fast" or "efficient".

PC-DOS 7 / 2000 is leaner and meaner than FreeDOS anyway, and less of a RAM-hog, which is important on XT systems. And an XT-IDE card/BIOS will take care of storage options.

Yip. A XTIDE card works well on my Redstone XT Turbo system. I use a 2.4 gig BigFoot and DR Dos 6.0 with updates on it.

If you want lean and mean you use MS-DOS 3.3x (O if under 32MB partitions neended, 1 if you need 512MB partitions.) MS-DOS 5.0 for 2GB partitions. Thats about it, all else for XT class machine is total overkill and resource hog. And stay clear of MS-DOS 4.xx whatever.

I'm using MS-DOS 6.22 with drivparm. I use also mobile rack. So one of the tray I have is 8gig hdd for backup purposes. Instead of doing 4 partitions, I thought maybe it would be good to do two partitions or something.
I also discovered flash cards under 128mb are flying. 2 gigs I have is ok too, but takes little more time in Norton/Volkov.