wrote:Isn't FAT32 on a 286 is irrelevent no matter what OS you are running?
It is irrelevant insofar as Win9x won't run on a 286, but it is useful if you just want to have lots of storage without having large clusters or multiple partitions.
wrote:It is irrelevant insofar as Win9x won't run on a 286, but it is useful if you just want to have lots of storage without having large clusters or multiple partitions.
So Fat32 on a 286 system is possible using freedos or DrDos 7.01 up ?
The reason I ask is because other alternative Dos that natively support Fat32 such as like PTS-32 and Real/32 require 386 or greater.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
I didn't even think about MS-DOS 7.10 or any other with FAT32 support being able to run on a 286 or not. You definitely have a point.
Found this for FreeDOS: http://freedos.10956.n7.nabble.com/Run-in-286-td4224.html
EMM386 of course won't work, HIMEM.SYS neither (use eg. FDXMS286 instead).
My guess is that DOS kernels probably won't need 386 instructions. 286 had some useful additional instructions for real mode (also included in NEC V20/V30) which could be used by some old DOS compilers like Turbo Pascal (starting probably from version 4 or 5). 386 is most interesting for protected mode and 32 bit instructions. Protected mode shouldn't be used by a DOS kernel, only EMM386/HIMEM.SYS. 32 bit instructions can be used in real mode with prefixes, but I doubt this is very useful for an OS (I did try that at the time for own programs). There are probably some other additional instructions, but AFAIR nothing terribly important.
I'd probably just try to boot different DOSes from floppy and see which work and which crash.
wrote:I didn't even think about MS-DOS 7.10 or any other with FAT32 support being able to run on a 286 or not. You definitely have a point.
It is a 286 thread after all 😉 Just tried the current FreeDos 1.0 boot disk. It certainly doesn't boot off a 286 😉 I would have thought it would come under the label "old PC". I did expect that having read this thread prior though http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulato … os.general/6638 The link to images for those who want to use it on lesser than 386 kit http://jorisvr.nl/freedos.html for those interested. Just tried the first image and it does boot fine. Checking the amount of available free conventional memory after boot is quite abysmal at 491k compared to legacy Dos. DrDos 6.0 shows 655k for instance.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
I meant I didn't suspect that anyone would bother to use 386+ instructions for real mode, but since 286 is so ancient one could as well use those.
Interesting that you found that special freedos images! The additional instructions are certainly not necessary in real mode, but maybe convenient.
Regarding 655k: You mean 655360 bytes? Conventional memory free? I don't see how that would work. Assuming you have at least EGA or VGA and not some mapped memory instead at A000 (OK, might even work with a Tandy), there is still some memory reserved (1k for the interrupt table, some more bytes for BIOS data area) so even if you have the HMA and lots of UMBs (which you probably don't) you can't approach 655360 bytes - that's more likely the total conventional memory.
You are right, it's 542k free(unaltered installation disk so has a few drivers loaded). Bit of random moment on my part. That's with no memory manager. It's still quite a difference.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Snorg I own a boxed copy of Geoworks. If you want I could try and image the diskettes for you, I know vogons is against pirating but I mean cmon it's freaking 30 years old. 🤣
(Assuming the diskettes are still good)
Check me out at Transcendental Airwaves on Youtube! Fast-food sucks!
It's available on Trixters ftp server and Vetusware. It's a shame BreadBox doesn't make 1.x available though, even at a minimal cost, because it is a different code base than v2.x up.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
I've just tested the freedos boot floppy on a real 286
It has a bug with XT-IDE bios
It booted without detecting hard disk, I had to set a dummy hd in pc bios.
Freedos complained during boot but it was normally accessible as C:
Fdisk destected it as 2nd hd with dummy hd as 1st.
I've not yet tested if freedos can be booted directly from hd
Ms-dos 6.22 doesn't have this bug
Type win to loose the power of your computer !
How does disk #2 on this page fare, StickByDos? https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/ It booted up fine on my 286, had a bit more conv. memory free and apparently supports Fat32, which I've yet to try out. You can only use boot options 1(no memory manager) or 2 (loads FDXMS286 which will bump free conv. memory up to 537k. It's also loading a few other things so I'll prune them to get more) All other options are 386+ specific and will hang the system.
Disk #one is for 386+ only. Disk #three is for XT class systems, both with Fat32 support as well, no dought with configuration options for 286 and 386+ systems.
Ok, after a bit of playing around I could only get 544k max. or 547k with kssf.com by typing CALL /S. This swaps out command.com using kssf.com. Not much of an improvement. I get more than that using MS Dos 5 with parallel port back pack cdrom and LS120 dive drivers loaded. So long story short I personally wouldn't even consider it a viable option on my 286 class kit. The Fat32 support might be useful the someone though.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
I couldn't test this image, my 1440k disk are so worn. So I made a 720k with ke2041_86f32.zip and com082pl3-bin8086.zip
It booted correctly with XT-IDE BIOS
With VSPAWN.COM, I could only get 546k with 75k eaten by COMMAND.COM
Type win to loose the power of your computer !
To put it in perspective here's vwestlife's free conventional mem. comparison list, without any memory managers loaded, of various MS/PC Dos variants:
"I just went through all my boot disks, and ran CHKDSK on each one to display the amount of free RAM (out of 640K) on each one, using a totally clean boot (no CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT):
PC DOS 2.00 ... 630,672 bytes
PC DOS 2.10 ... 630,672
PC DOS 3.10 ... 616,432
MS-DOS 3.10 ... 616,432
PC DOS 3.21 ... 609,392
PC DOS 3.30 ... 600,528
MS-DOS 3.30 ... 600,368
IBM DOS 5.00 ... 593,328
MS-DOS 5.00 ... 593,328
MS-DOS 6.00 ... 592,256
IBM DOS 6.10 ... 593,056
MS-DOS 6.22 ... 592,256
PC DOS 6.30 ... 593,024
PC DOS 7.00 Revision 0 ... 593,840
PC DOS 2000 (7.00 Revision 1) ... 593,760
I also have an MS-DOS 4.01 boot disk, but not a copy of CHKDSK which will work with it, so I can't give it an accurate free RAM amount, but judging by what other utilities report, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 590,000 bytes. So IBM claimed that PC DOS 7 offered the most free RAM of any version of DOS since 3.3, and that does appear to be true!"
Doing the same with DrDos 6.0, by making a copy of the install disk then cleaning it up so no device drivers were loaded gave me 588,544 bytes
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Doens't DR-DOS come with "EMM286"? That should help you get some UMB memory (if it's available). It should be possible to get most of your 640kb back. Even on an XT, I can get about 620kb.
Also, 8MB is possible on any 286 as long as you have a free 16-bit ISA expansion slot. As Creepingnet pointed out, you can get extended/expanded memory cards. However, they are not as fast as they run at the speed of the ISA bus, not the system clock. I have 16MB installed on my IBM AT using two 8MB expansion cards, in this machine there is no penalty as the CPU and ISA bus run at the same speed.
I believe some of those HT12 and C&T NEAT based boards are capable of handling 4MB SIMMs...anyone tried?
"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium
wrote:Doens't DR-DOS come with "EMM286"? That should help you get some UMB memory (if it's available). It should be possible to get most of your 640kb back. Even on an XT, I can get about 620kb.
This was just a boot without help comparison just compare the difference between various Dos. It really shows that FreeDos is not even in the same ball park as legacy Dos on "lesser" than 386 systems with regards to free conv. memory.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
NEAT can't handle 4MB SIMM but can handle 8 SIMMs and when you have 8, you can enable a 4 way memory interleave mode
In 12.5MHz vs 16MHz 286, with NEAT you can can choose ISA bus clock as CPUCLOCK, CPUCLOCK/2 or ATCLOCK and the processor running at CPUCLOCK or ISA clock
With 12.5MHz, you can make your system running at 12.5MHz
With 16MHz, it get harder to have a stable system with 16MHz bus, maybe, with a XTAL swap, you can put 12.5MHz ATCLOCK and still be able to slow down with CPUCLOCK/2 as ISA clock and processor clock
IIRC, DR-DOS come with HIMEM.EXE and EMM386.EXE
DR-DOS EMS386 is a combination of HIMEM and EMM386
It says in its documentation that HIMEM is for 286 and EMM386 is for 386+
DR-DOS has a task switcher but it require at least 4MB of EMS
On some board, you can disable RAM and let it handle by EMS board, for use of EMS task switcher
Type win to loose the power of your computer !
DrDos 6.0 uses HIDOS.SYS for relocating the kernal etc on a 286 class machines This is from my manuals MemoryMAX chapter table. Renamed HIMEM.SYS in later versions I gather(ie Novell Dos 7 up).
DrDos 6.0s TaskMAX can run on any 286,386, 386sx or 486 with 1meg of ram. This is also from the manual. This was one reason why I bought DrDos 6.0 in the first place for my old 286/16 to run in conjunction with GeoWorks Pro 1.2.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
DOS 7.1 runs on 8088.
FAT32 has only a 32bit adressing. This means nothing. Even a 8bit CPU can read it, if you write the code.
Example:
BEOS uses 64bit Journaling Filesystem, the PPC CPU the BeBox used was only 32bit and the Pentium 3 too.
FreeDOS is another Situation..
There are 386 Kernels and 286/8088 System Kernels.
For 286/8088/V20/v30 you have to choose FreeDOS 1.0 and even this works not well.
If you look for a Free DOS Version.
Just get Caldera OpenDOS/Dr. DOS
http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pc/caldera/
Its Free for Non-Commercial Use.
https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board
On my 286/10/EGA I use multiboot (xfdisk)
- Dos 3.3 -> Volkov4
- Dos 5.0 -> Volkov4 -> hdmenu -> geos1x -> gem1x -> win1x/2x/3x
- PTS-Dos 2000
Doc
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
wrote:DOS 7.1 runs on 8088.
FAT32 has only a 32bit adressing. This means nothing. Even a 8bit CPU can read it, if you write the code.
I haven't seen anyone who has gotten MS Dos7.1 on a 8088 or 286 with fat32 support at all. Special FreeDos kernals as linked to above yes but not MS Dos 7.1.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
When I had got my 286-12 in the 90s, I once tried to boot my father's PC's start-up disk with MS DOS 7.0 (he ran Win95 RTM)..
It failed. MS DOS 7.0 complained about the PC not being a 386 or higher. 😢
Edit: I don't know about MS DOS 7.1 or higher, though.
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