On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:40:41 -0700, Didi <dp@tgi-sci.com> wrote:>I only vaguely remember those MCUs with that >much RAM so I don't know whether they have the interfaces which >can be tweaked to do monitor and floppy256 kB on a signal controller is no problem: http://www.microchip.com/ParamChartSearch/chart.aspx?branchID=8165&mid=14&lang=en&pageId=75 But I am not sure whether these can do it.
(MS-)DOS PC on a microcontroller??
Started by ●October 23, 2007
Reply by ●October 24, 20072007-10-24
Reply by ●October 24, 20072007-10-24
On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:56:15 +1300, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.maps.co.nz> wrote:>Short answser : No >Longer answer :... Thank you for your detailed answers. :-) I took this (hard) example (replace the interior of a MSDOS PC by a microontroller) to make clear what I was thinking about. It is clear to me, that flash and displays are the better alternative to the floppy and monitor.> Having said all the above, there is renewed focus by many X86 players, >at the 'sub 1W market', for highly portable devices. Indications are >Intel has some devices coming that might get close to your "job >definition", but they will not focus on DOS - so someone would need to >hack that.By the way: I have to attend to some old industry robotors and PLCs, which are still in use and do it well. And these have to be interfaced by MSDOS and RS232. For these applications I have to use very old ebay notebooks at 33Mhz. It is not possible to run the communication on a modern notebook, neighter with an emulator nor freedos. Further some of them have to run with a date before 2000. ;-) Otherwise they do not compile correctly, although they have no time and date features. Concerning the <1W Intels: Could you imagine, that we will get handhelds, which will be able to run the old DOS software?
Reply by ●October 24, 20072007-10-24
On Oct 25, 12:02 am, Paul Rosen <pr...@lycos.de> wrote:> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:40:41 -0700, Didi <d...@tgi-sci.com> wrote: > >I only vaguely remember those MCUs with that > >much RAM so I don't know whether they have the interfaces which > >can be tweaked to do monitor and floppy > > 256 kB on a signal controller is no problem:http://www.microchip.com/ParamChartSearch/chart.aspx?branchID=8165&mi... > But I am not sure whether these can do it.I don't know the PICs, never used any of them. I had a look at the Freescale parts I suggested and it appears that we are not that far yet - single chip MSDOS PC emulation. The monster DSPs with enough RAM will likely do it all easily, but they come with no flash. There are a few PPC MCUs which come close, but don't have enough RAM and interfaces. The PSCs (Programmable Serial Interfaces) on the MPC5200 and on other parts are definitely usable for emulating a floppy disk controller and a not too demanding monitor output, but the 5200 needs flash and RAM (this is the part I know how to do it with). A small CPLD will be needed to make all it takes for the monitor and FD interfaces. Another few years and some MCUs with >512k RAM and flash + the tweakable serial ports with FIFOs are bound to come out, but I guess we don't have any yet available. However, I have not looked around to exhaust all possibilities so I may well be missing some. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------
Reply by ●October 24, 20072007-10-24
Paul Rosen wrote:> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:56:15 +1300, Jim Granville > <no.spam@designtools.maps.co.nz> wrote: > > >>Short answser : No >>Longer answer : > > ... > > Thank you for your detailed answers. :-) I took this (hard) example > (replace the interior of a MSDOS PC by a microontroller) to make clear > what I was thinking about. It is clear to me, that flash and displays > are the better alternative to the floppy and monitor. > > >> Having said all the above, there is renewed focus by many X86 players, >>at the 'sub 1W market', for highly portable devices. Indications are >>Intel has some devices coming that might get close to your "job >>definition", but they will not focus on DOS - so someone would need to >>hack that. > > > By the way: I have to attend to some old industry robotors and PLCs, > which are still in use and do it well. And these have to be interfaced > by MSDOS and RS232. For these applications I have to use very old ebay > notebooks at 33Mhz. It is not possible to run the communication on a > modern notebook, neighter with an emulator nor freedos. Further some > of them have to run with a date before 2000. ;-) Otherwise they do not > compile correctly, although they have no time and date features.That sounds at the restrictive end of compatibility issues I've seen - but the real world can be like that :) If you have the source code, you should be able to make it a little more portable/tolerant than above.> Concerning the <1W Intels: Could you imagine, that we will get > handhelds, which will be able to run the old DOS software?Not ex supplier, and not with RS232 ports :) Someone may hack one, or even build one from scratch, as a module. -jg
Reply by ●October 24, 20072007-10-24
"FreeRTOS.org" wrote:>... snip ...> >> And the question is: Are nowadays singlechip microcontrollers >> powerful enough, to manage this problem. > > This is a completely different question. As PC's started off > using 8088s (or 8086s, or whatever), then the answer to this > question is definitely "yes".Please don't strip attributions (the "joe wrote:" lines) for material you quote. PCs started long before IBM entered the market. The earliest were 8008 based, and there were not many of them. The next, and popular, level was the 8080, later replaced by the Z80. Both ran CP/M as the DOS (and other OSs). They also can be easily replaced by todays microcontrollers, although the timing complexities of the floppy drive may require separate floppy control circuitry, as may the video output. I built the equivalent of 8008 pcs about 1971 or so, and of 8080 pcs about 1974. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Reply by ●October 25, 20072007-10-25
Paul Rosen wrote:>That means only ONE! microcontroller-chip with >only some drivers or transistors to make the signals of the >microcontroller strong enough to drive a floppy, a keyboard and a >Hercules monitor.Limited value. Nobody makes the moniotors anymore, and non-USB floppies and keyboards are on the way out
Reply by ●October 25, 20072007-10-25
invalid@example.com wrote:> Paul Rosen wrote: > >> That means only ONE! microcontroller-chip with only some drivers >> or transistors to make the signals of the microcontroller strong >> enough to drive a floppy, a keyboard and a Hercules monitor. > > Limited value. Nobody makes the moniotors anymore, and non-USB > floppies and keyboards are on the way outBesides which Hercules never made a monitor. They made a monochrome interface card. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Reply by ●October 26, 20072007-10-26
On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:31:57 -0700, Jim Stewart <jstewart@jkmicro.com> wrote:>gedankenexperimentI am astonished. Is this really an english word imported from the german language or did you use it because my german .de adress?>Might I ask whether this is a gedankenexperiment >or a real-world project?You can find the answer in my posting downwards. Indeed it is a "gedankenexperiment" and as I wrote in my OP it is useless (in the $/�-world ;-) ).
Reply by ●October 26, 20072007-10-26
Paul Rosen wrote:> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:31:57 -0700, Jim Stewart <jstewart@jkmicro.com> > wrote: > >> gedankenexperiment > > I am astonished. Is this really an english word imported from the > german language or did you use it because my german .de adress? >It is not imported into English (probably because few English-speakers can spell it!), and should therefore be written /gedankenexperiment/ (in italics), but it is a well-known technical term. It was made famous by Albert Einstein - most of the "experiments" for relativity and quantum mechanics were "gedankenexperiments", or "thought experiments", although the term was used before that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedankenexperiment
Reply by ●October 26, 20072007-10-26
On 2007-10-26, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:>>> gedankenexperiment >> >> I am astonished. Is this really an english word imported from the >> german languageI've certainly heard it used many time by many different english speakers (usually technical scientific types).> or did you use it because my german .de adress? > > It is not imported into English (probably because few English-speakers > can spell it!),We english speakers don't usually let that stop us... -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! Someone in DAYTON, at Ohio is selling USED visi.com CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN
