From: muta...@gmail.com   
      
   I arrived here in the Philippines in the middle of May.   
      
   When I was eventually in a position to post here,   
   I wasn't able to find the trick - since I am using an   
   Android phone I need to open Google groups as a desktop site,   
   otherwise "new message" is not available.   
      
   I traveled light to the Philippines. I figured I would just buy anything I   
   needed when I got here.   
      
   I took a 1.5 tb hard disk with my life on it.   
   I bought my first smartphone a few months before I left. An Android for US$55   
   or something. Running Bochs with pdos and freedos and a bit of data. And 3 USB   
   sticks containing pdos, freedos and uc8086.   
      
   Very soon after I got here I was reunited with an old laptop.   
   It had windows and a virus on it 5 years ago,   
   but had been used for remote pdos testing since then.   
      
   When I got it, it had degraded further- only windows recovery mode command   
   prompt worked.   
      
   However, all my USB sticks worked, but not together.   
      
   I hadn't got very far when I fell down stairs and fractured my ankle.   
      
   The pc doesn't have a working battery but does   
   have a com port.   
      
   I couldn't use it because I couldn't easily   
   get to an electrical outlet, and I preferred to stay   
   with the air conditioner too.   
      
   When I got closer to my destination I briefly had access to another windows   
   laptop.   
      
   Otherwise I only had windows recovery mode allowing me to run diskpart and   
   hexdump   
   and copy files.   
      
   Then sometime later even windows recovery mode failed to boot, but I hadn't   
   been using it anyway.   
      
   So for the first time ever I was able to install pdos onto a real hard disk.   
   About 70 GB. The pc is from circa 2011 I think.   
      
   It is my nature to freeze and reevaluate   
   dependencies on software.   
      
   I have lost access to git, but not my websits, using my Android.   
      
   I have started pdnet but only have messages from people who come to our house.   
      
   I have ordered lots of cheap android phones on the   
   internet. One 4 GB phone costing US$15 delivered is the cheapest.   
   Every phone was able to run pdos, but   
   some required an older Bochs.   
      
   Originally I used a USB stick to transfer data from the laptop to the android   
   and back. I had a   
   practical use for pdos-generic after an   
   enhancement as it allowed me to manipulate   
   a vhd, not requiring copyrighted mtools.   
      
   But I eventually obtained a dodgy android phone that allowed USB mass storage,   
   exposing an SD card, if available, as a normal hard disk,   
   or internal user memory as a hard disk   
   without an mbr. Pdos was enhanced   
   to allow that. Freedos can't.   
      
   I can boot my laptop from this android phone   
   that cost maybe US$20.   
      
   1300 pesos it was.   
      
   More importantly, I can write data to the android, from pdos or maybe freedos,   
   and then not have to   
   disconnect anything physically, and send the data via Bluetooth, using the   
   android.   
      
   So far I have resisted buying a new laptop, accessing my hard disk, or   
   attempting to get   
   either windows or Linux working.   
      
   That's the background.   
      
   I have previously said that I am interested in a "monitor" so that I could   
   debug at an   
   assembler level. Which is still true.   
      
   But that would be in a production environment.   
      
   I haven't reached that yet.   
      
   I'm still in development where I can add printf.   
      
   I was debugging a problem using printf, and reached the limit of what I could   
   do with a single screen, and   
   solved the problem by adding a fgets from stdin to pause.   
      
   But it was time to bite the bullet and have com port debugging.   
      
   But I'm going to be screwed if I have a pc without a com port.   
      
   I was thinking of using the 1 MB to 2 mb region as a console output buffer   
   that could be scrolled.   
      
   But finally I thought of a solution.   
      
   My pc only supports the hard disk, 1 USB key and 1 USB HDD.   
      
   It took a long time to figure that out.   
      
   Luckily pdos86 was on an old 512 mb USB stick that presents as a key.   
      
   I can't easily buy new keys, but I found a dodgy place that might work.   
      
   Anyway, if I develop on the real hard disk, burn a debug pdos to the USB key,   
   the USB HDD   
   could then be used as raw storage for console   
   output. A NUL would indicate EOF.   
      
   Pdos could be enhanced to recognize dbg82 as a special device and I could read   
   it using microemacs.   
      
   I'll have another special device, maybe dsk8x,   
   for accessing a raw hard disk as a file for burning images.   
      
   I would skip lba 0 for the debug file.   
      
   It is odd that Bochs and qemu don't seem to have an option to capture bios   
   screen writes to a file.   
      
   Hercules can.   
      
   Bochs instead requires intrusive code to write to e9.   
      
   Not useful to me at the moment anyway.   
      
   Paul.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)