ELKS with no BIOS dependency

[toncho11]

Some computers did no have IBM BIOS, but did use 8086/8088.
These are for example:

• Sanyo MBC 555
• Apricot F2 or F10

Both the Apricot and Sanyo load a kind of BIOS from a diskette (RAM BIOS) just before loading their custom version of MS-DOS 2.11. ELKS not having a BIOS dependency by using direct floppy and HD drivers opens the door for the eventual porting of ELKS to these computers.

OK. I have the Sanyo MBC 555 :)

[ghaerr]

I have the Sanyo MBC 555 :)

You do have a stash of some older stuff!!

ELKS not having a BIOS dependency by using direct floppy and HD drivers opens the door for the eventual porting of ELKS to these computers.

Well... possibly. This article says the MBC-550 floppy format isn't compatible with the IBM PC. I'm not sure whether the direct floppy driver would work without being specially rewritten. Did the MBC use a NEC 765 FDC?

It also seems the MBC-550 video and hardware clock may not be IBM compatible.

I would say that one could probably get the system up on running on ELKS, but not without a lot of special programming, including a new boot loader, FDC driver, video and hardware timer drivers. It would probably be approximately the work of getting the 8018X port that was accomplished after all BIOS requirements were removed from certain ELKS configurations, plus a floppy FDC driver.