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To: Gary Kendall <gdk@ccomp.inode.COM>
cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.AU>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.ORG
Subject: Re: Sizing mem > 64MB at boot-time 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 25 Aug 1997 15:05:53 -0400."
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Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:06:25 +0930
From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.AU>
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>     I saw Jonathan's post re real-mode access from the kernel, and I got a
> copy of the code (which should prove to be quite usefull for DOS emulation),
> but it won't solve the problem I'm trying to solve.  I want the boot program
> to size the memory so that the kernel, during initialization, can use the
> memory size to allocate buffers, etc.  Jonathan's code doesn't come into
> play until the machine has already booted the kernel, and is executing it.
> His real-mode code is through a system call interface, and as such, happens
> "too late" for my purposes.

Gotcha.

>     However, it would be nice if someone familiar with the biosboot code
> and/or Intel processors could look at what I have written and point me in
> the right direction with respect to accessing a buffer while in real-mode.

I've been looking for this sort of help for a while; I think Jonathan 
is still The Man to see about this.  If you're serious about the 
three-stage-boot thing, then there are lots of things have been said 
about it; you should start by looking at the standalone libraries that 
the NetBSD people have, and then come back and we can talk 8)

mike