[Floppertalk] [hashmani@hotmail.com: Booting PC with dos]

jleyda floppertalk@oldskool.org
Tue, 22 Feb 2000 13:53:29 -0700


A plug-in ISA card with an option rom that gets installed during POST could
hook INT 19 and fake a boot from there.  

Ie, INT 19 gets called at the end of post and this option rom will get
control and load software instead of trying to load off the hard drive or
floppy.
To get this type of system to "play nice" with existing installed hard
drives and floppy drives could be a difficult trick, but it is doable.  I
worked on a bootable flash device that had 8mb of NVRAM for it's memory.
You could boot to it, format it, sys it, copy files to and from it whatever
you wanted.  It acted exactly like a normal hard drive, except it was
physically loceted on a 72 pin SIMM installed in a system.  THe software we
used on it was called "CardTrick" by a company called Datalight, Inc.  They
provided an option ROM and all the int 13 interface stuff required to talk
to it.  It was basically just like a SCSI controller ROM in that it hooked
INT 13 and only sprang into action when the drive number matched it's
device.


As for copying files into ROM, a simple EEPROM programmer can load any file
into a ROM device.  THat's the easy part!

-jeff!


> Now this is an interesting request...  Jeff, any tips?
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from junaid Hashmani 
> <hashmani@hotmail.com> -----
> 
> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 09:41:59 +0500
> From: junaid Hashmani <hashmani@hotmail.com>
> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I)
> To: trixter@oldskool.org
> Subject: Booting PC with dos
> 
> hello
> You have very good web site, flopper
> i want your help, please guide me 
> how to make a pC boot from ROM on ISA card, how i can copy my dos
> command.com and other files to ROM
> your help will be highly appreciated
> junaid
> junaid hashmani
> desigEngineer
> Wavetech satellites systems
> 7A-AL ATA APT,
> KIMAT RAI ROAD
> ARAMBAGH
> KARACHI-74200
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> -- 
> Jim Leonard         http://www.oldskool.org/        Email: 
> trixter@oldskool.org
> Like PC games?  Help support the MobyGames database:  
http://www.mobygames.com/
February 22, 2000: I have 302 email messages to be answered--and I *always*
answer all of my email.  It may take a while to get to them, but I do.
Honest.
--

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