skrzyp

Do you know if it would be possible to put many different #DOS versions (#msdos 4.x-8.x, #FreeDOS 1.4, #SvarDOS ) on a single FAT16 partition, each one in its own subdir (MSDOS5, MSDOS6, FDOS14, etc.) and have a boot loader that’s loading each variant of MSDOS.SYS + IO.SYS (or others) for every DOS version?

Just because FPC community doubts validity of DOSBox (i.e https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,71748.msg561036.html#msg561036 but not only) and rambling about everything except what I report on their GitLab ( https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/source/-/issues/41337 )

Jul 19, 2025 at 10:15pmWeb
Show threadskrzypJul 19, 2025

One of my proposals is to have a GRUB4DOS with “fake” bootable floppy images with io.sys + msdos.sys (or kernel.sys etc if FreeDOS) loading from directory on such FAT16 partition via “map —mem msdos5.img (fd0)” (cc: @domi ) but even if my target config is something between 486DX2/1MB - PMMX/32MB I still wonder about memory usage/layout. And I’ll lose access to the actual floppy drive from 86box, probably.

So there might be other, less atomic options possible.

Show threadskrzypJul 19, 2025

Of course, the plan is to test FPC bugs (and the ported Mario & Luigi) on every DOS version which can run on such configuration to come back with detailed report and shot down all of the complaints and weird discussions.

And yes, there’s most likely more than one bug, so that’s why I’m doing it.

On top of that - for fun, of course. I plan to have such setup for not only FPC stuff but general tinkering and gaming.