Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 22:12:31 -0800 From: Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> To: 'Sergey 'DoubleF' Zaharchenko ' <doublef@tele-kom.ru>, Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> Cc: "''freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' '" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Using int 13 while BSD is running Message-ID: <E50A109EE98AA049BAA09D725DB0714F01AD3BB0@mail.tapeware.com>
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Aren't the nodes "/dev/ad[0-9] (ide) or /dev/da[0-9] (scsi/usb)" created by their device drivers, i.e. protected mode device drives? That would mean that I would have to make sure that the hardware is supported by a device driver, whereas if I had raw int 13 access I would be garanteed access to the drive the system booted from, and any other bios addressable device, without having to load any driver for the hardware. -Jason -----Original Message----- From: Sergey 'DoubleF' Zaharchenko To: Jason Dictos Cc: 'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' Sent: 3/9/2004 9:12 PM Subject: Re: Using int 13 while BSD is running On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 14:03:34 -0800 Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> probably wrote: > The situation is > this, currently we licenses Caldera DOS for a program we wrote which > uses the int13 extensions to manipulate the systems hard drive (i.e. > to recover partition tables and what not). This forces our application > to be written in 16 bit mode, but it does allows us to not have to > worry about loading any driver which would be hardware specific to > access the hard drive. Through the /dev/ad[0-9] (ide) or /dev/da[0-9] (scsi/usb) you can get access to any byte in you harddrive. They `look like' ordinary files to most programs. Just seek the appropriate number of bytes and read what you want (0-512 is the mbr, for example). You don't even need to write a line in assembly for that, just plain C (or even shell-script, if you prefer that). > Is there > any way to write a driver for BSD which would put the processor into > real mode, therefore allowing us to use the int 13 api of the bios to > read and write hard drives? Putting the cpu back into real mode is kind of perversion. And I don't think FreeBSD provides any real mode interface. Whatever you would see in real mode, you can bet it isn't a FreeBSD driver for your harddrive. -- DoubleF Romeo wasn't bilked in a day. -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo" ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
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