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I made my own DOS implementation (Announce)

posted by samwdpckr, 01.02.2024, 15:36

> As one key feature I would
> see the ability to boot on new UEFI CSM-less systems as they are spreading
> out.

That's not technically possible. IBM PC-compatible BIOS has runtime services, and simple operating systems (including various DOS implementations) use them to access the hardware.

It's thanks to those runtime services that DOS always worked on everything, from the original IBM PC and XT machines with SCSI drives and MDA/CGA monitors to the "new" computers with IDE or SATA drives and graphic adapters that may not be even fully compatible with VGA.

BIOS made it possible to develop operating systems without having to write individual drivers for each piece of hardware. The operating system did not need to access the hardware directly - instead it could just call the standardized universal BIOS services to do basic things like disk I/O and write text on the screen or capture keystrokes.

With UEFI that is no longer the case. Now every operating system has to have driver code for every possible hardware combination out there. It should not come as a surprise that writing drivers for every piece of hardware is just not possible for small operating system developers who write operating systems as a hobby.

UEFI is Microsoft's plan to stop people from making their own indie operating systems. They want a future where everyone will use either Windows or a Microsoft-signed version of Linux.

It also seems that many new computers have firmware bugs that completely prevent them from booting any other operating systems than Windows and maybe Linux. I have some new laptops that cannot even boot Linux. In most UEFI machines the so-called CSM module is so buggy and badly implemented that it cannot really do anything, and even the basic BIOS int 13h services are broken.

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