From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Nov 3 18:05:36 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA24656 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 3 Nov 1997 18:05:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA24645 for ; Mon, 3 Nov 1997 18:05:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.gsoft.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA00639; Tue, 4 Nov 1997 12:30:32 +1030 (CST) Message-Id: <199711040200.MAA00639@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Terry Lambert cc: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith), jamil@trojanhorse.ml.org, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BIOS information preservation (was Re: >64MB) In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 03 Nov 1997 19:39:36 -0000." <199711031939.MAA22218@usr09.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 12:30:32 +1030 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Anyone likely to complain if I add a new datastructure to i386/bios.c and > > start populating it with stuff that various parts of the system glean > > about the BIOS environment? Or should I be using a procedural lookup > > interface for this? > > My preference would be for a generic mechanism for use in thunking any > BIOS call to a VM86() for processing in that environment. There is a > good "MindShare" book on Protected Mode System Architecture, actually... Jonathan Lemon has one; I've been playing with it but it's a little too far out of date (I think), certainly I've been getting some unhelpful results. The implementation gives you a kernel process (vm86daemon) which runs in vm86 mode; you throw stuff into its address space and call it, which I guess equates to "thunking" in MS-speak. > In any case, a mechanism similar to the SCO "vm86()" system call > would be good (plus it would help with IBCS2 emulation). We have this already; see doscmd for an example of this in action. [... reading Word documents ...] > The VC++ code contains full source code for the "WordPad" program. > > Unfortunately, you need a Win32 (as you suggest) because there is a DLL > involved in reading the Word Format documents. Is this DLL part of Win32, or part of WordPad? If the former, how does MS's stance on pushing the Win32 API onto *nix platforms impact its potential availability? (Actually, given that Willows can call Win32 native DLL's even from *nix-mode, this may be less of a problem than it sounds.) mike