DOS ain't dead

MSDOS close to Unix (Developers)

posted by kerravon, Ligao, Free World North, 27.12.2021, 04:31

> to the new system calls as XENIX CALLS.

Thanks for that interesting link.

I did some more reading on Xenix and it looks like
Gates wanted to use Unix eventually, but couldn't
do it immediately due to limitations of PC hardware.

I am interested in an OS that CAN be implemented on
limited hardware. MSDOS is known to be able to be
implemented on limited hardware, so I'm interested
in that API.

As far as the core API is concerned, the only things
I notice are:

1. A GetCommandLine() function is needed to mask the
different ways that command lines are accessible to
an application.

2. posix_spawn or similar needs to be available, forget
about fork and exec.

3. Memory allocation needs to be provided - some sort
of allocmem() function - which should take a number
of bytes and return a far pointer.

And then we have a set of syscalls that are viable for
small computers with 64k memory or whatever, and still
be viable for more powerful computers.

Complete thread:

• MSDOS close to Unix - kerravon, 26.12.2021, 08:17 (Developers)
  • MSDOS close to Unix - kerravon, 26.12.2021, 08:18
  • MSDOS close to Unix - tkchia, 26.12.2021, 09:05
    • MSDOS close to Unix - kerravon, 27.12.2021, 04:31
      • MSDOS close to Unix - jhall, 27.12.2021, 20:02
  • MSDOS close to Unix - DosWorld, 10.01.2022, 20:35
    • MSDOS close to Unix - kerravon, 11.01.2022, 02:19