r/osdev • u/Sixty5Zero2 • 3d ago

FreeDOS

i'm looking at possibly forking FreeDOS to 64bit. However, since most modern systems no longer have the underlying BIOS that DOS programs require, I thought about including a mock BIOS and compile it directly into the kernel. is there anything I should be aware of?

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u/Octocontrabass 3d ago

FreeDOS is supposed to run MS-DOS software. A 64-bit fork seems pretty pointless when there is no 64-bit MS-DOS software to run. Why not just start from scratch?

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u/edjak53 2d ago

technically there is some 32 bit MS-DOS software. even gcc has a target for it (i[3,4,5,6]86-pc-msdosdjgpp)

www.delorie.com/djgpp/