Date:	Thu, 29 May 1997 11:13:54 +1200
Message-Id:	<v01540b02afb3158c9233@[130.217.243.103]>
Mime-Version:	1.0
To:	"Mike A. Harris" <mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca>, pierre AT tycho DOT com
From:	pl5 AT waikato DOT ac DOT nz (Perry Lorier)
Subject:	Re: BIG suggestion for Opendos Features
Cc:	OpenDOS Mailing List <opendos AT delorie DOT com>

>The fact that older machines won't benefit from some of the
>additions to OpenDOS/16 is irrelevant.  EMM386 is a good example.
>Should we remove it from OpenDOS/16 because 286 users can't use
>it?  I think not.  Should we remove Windows 3.x support from OD
>because 286 users can't run windows?  No.  So why should we halt
>any efforts to improve OD/16 for 386+ users?

I personally think we should have a XT/286/386 optimised version of the
kernal, we can make use of optimisations (like compacting multiple
SHR/SHL's in the kernal, which I've done already) and also remove some of
the dead stuff in versions that aren't going to be able to support it.  (eg
Windows 386 enhanced mode compatibility/optimisations aren't going to be
required on 286/XT versions)

I think we should have something like:
IBMBIOX.COM  IBMDOSX.COM
IBMBIO2.COM  IBMDOS2.COM
IBMBIO3.COM  IBMDOS3.COM

I also think a boot manager that boots before the OS (a bit like lilo,
possible even lilo) that you can select a multiboot section, and/or an OS
and have it detect which CPU your running on and run which kernal you need
accordingly.

None of this is particularly hard... Adding the minor changes for the
optimisations for the ASM for the above isn't difficult, and changing the
"Target" on the C compilations is trivial.  Having it autodetect on startup
which kernal to load is the tricker part :)

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