From: muta...@gmail.com   
      
   On Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 10:30:49 PM UTC+11, JJ wrote:   
      
   > > BTW, I mentioned that hard disks would be limited to 2 GiB   
   > > in size, but that would be the 32-bit version of the BIOS. A   
   > > 64-bit version would be limited to 2**63 bytes.   
      
   > I don't see why software based 64-bit integer in 32-bit BIOS is not   
   > possible.   
      
   My intention is that the real 32-bit BIOS that handles   
   2 GiB disks is "emulated" by a 32-bit BIOS that uses a   
   standard C90 library. With a version on the Amiga too.   
      
   With an appropriate memory model I could have 64-bit   
   longs on an 80386 though. I'll pencil that in as something   
   to do one day.   
      
   > > Anyway, my question remains - I can see that it is possible   
   > > to put a partial C library into the BIOS to cope with hard   
   > > disks - but can the same be done for CDROMs or does the   
   > > C90 standard need to be expanded on to include new calls   
   > > to deal with CDROMs and/or mainframe CKD disks?   
      
   > It's fine as long as the library doesn't use DOS service interrupts.   
   > Otherwise you have to include the DOS services into the BIOS.   
      
   That is not my concern. That concern affects hard disks   
   and CDROMs equally.   
      
   My concern is about the nature of CDROMs which I believe   
   have variable-length tracks, if not sectors, so I'm not sure   
   that a scheme can be invented, at the BIOS level, to seek a   
   fixed number of bytes as opposed to seeing a track number.   
      
   BFN. Paul.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)