[colorforth] Success...my first boot screen

[Mark Slicker <maslicke@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Myron Plichota wrote:

> marrandy wrote:
> 
> > As the BIOS is there in the Boot ROM,  why not use it ?
> > 
> > It's not like another OS is being loaded.
> > 
> > It's there irrespective.
> 
> The PC BIOS runs strictly in 16-bit real mode. Once you enter 32-bit
> protected mode you leave it all behind (and good riddance!) unless you
> provide something like DPMI (a gateway). Linux re-invents the services
> left behind but has to deal with the plethora of different hardware that
> it may find on system X. Floppy disk controllers and video cards are
> just the tip of the iceberg.
>

There exists a flat 32-bit real mode, I just found out about this. See:

http://www.nondot.org/sabre/os/files/ProtectedMode/FLAT.txt

With this you can make bios calls, and run 32-bit code.

I might try to make a colorForth version in flat real mode with bios calls
for floppy and video. There should be no difference in functionality,
except hopefully this will work on many more machines.

Mark

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