From: marcov@stack.nl   
      
   On 2006-07-26, inflater  wrote:   
   >> that works - it will take you a long time - I wish you luck.   
   >>   
   >> PS have a look at GEM now available in public domain.   
   >>   
   >>  :)   
   > Well...   
   > First, I am a 13 year old   
   > and secondly i live in Slovakia and i dont handle English well because   
   > i am learning German language.   
   > Tell me answer to this questions:   
   > 1) If I make simulated functions for DOS in Pascal and inline ASM, it   
   > would be a big mess, something like a DOS clone. I DONT WANT DOS CLONE!   
   > NORMAL OS, DOS independent! FreeDOS is not that what i want.   
      
   I've the feeling is that the biggest conceptual fault that you make is   
   equating an API with an OS. Two totally different OSes can have the same   
   API, yet be internally totally different (win98 and winNT e.g.)   
      
   e.g. Free Pascal (which you desperately need to look at, making 16-bits OSes   
   these days is insane) supports Dos on 15 OSes on 5 different architectures.   
      
   Why? A lot of stuff is simply independant of the OS. Like seeing if a file   
   exists in a directory etc.   
      
   If you have some GUI, it will need to do things. Now it will do stuff with   
   intr and Dos calls. Only the dos() (or $21) calls are real dos functions,   
   e.g. $10 calls are VGA bios. So _NOT_ all Dos.Intr calls are to DOS, some go   
   to the bios.   
      
   > 2)I search on Google those freaky "tutorials", how to make OS in Pascal   
   > but i have not found tutorials for beginners on how to make your own   
   > OS, DOS independent.   
      
   That's because making OSes is not the easiest subject. Keep in mind that   
   there is nothing. Everything that an application (or GUI, which you can see   
   as one) does which involves access to hardware, sooner or later, must be   
   abstracted by the OS, or be available in the GUI, or the application must   
   implement its own interface to the hardware.   
      
   !!!!! So before you can stuff a GUI on top of your OS, your OS must have a   
   functional substitute for each and every function that a GUI would use.   
   Maybe you can skip a few by e.g. letting the GUI do _some_ hardware access   
      
   > 3)To all readers: Sorry for being a bit indecent:   
   > GEM and those freaky GUI programs like Graphical Vision or someting   
   > including MOS (Master Operating System),  are totally rotten and   
   > disgusting.   
      
   That's because TP and 16-bit programming is already 10 years in the past,   
   and heavily in decline.   
      
   > They are shareware (except GEM and now MOS)   
      
   Then there you have two. Your other alternative is to make your own.   
      
   > and they are fully incompatible with own OS programming in Pascal. They   
   > are using the stupid DOS unit and all other sh**s like VESA.   
      
   Then fix that. There is nothing that will target your OS that doesn't exist   
   yet. There has to be some substitute for those calls in  your OS.   
      
   Note that Vesa is not DOS, but simply a graphics bios. In TP, INT functions   
   are typically done via unit dos, but this can be replaced by some simple   
   assembler   
   in two minutes.   
      
   > I dont need VESA! \   
      
   That's great!!!! Should I interpret that as that you have an own video   
   driver abstraction in your OS? E.g. a way to draw a line etc ?   
      
   > need WORKING GUI written in Borland Pascal 7.0 without DOS unit.   
      
   > By the way, GEM is very old like republic :))   
      
   BP7 is 1994, it is 2006 now, what do you expect?   
      
   > Can you tell me PLEASE, the name of OPEN SOURCE, 100%DOS-FREE GUI????!!!!!   
   > I am getting sick of this!!!   
      
   X Windows. But that is major league, not toy stuff anymore. I hope you have   
   a few decades to spare.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)