Squeezing BIOS into CP/M 2.x

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1 total messages Started by ihnsskarn Tue, 28 Jul 1981 19:06

#21

Author: ihnsskarn
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1981 19:06

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Subject: Squeezing BIOS's in CP/M 2.x

Can anybody tell me what the recommended technique is for squeezing
a large BIOS onto the 2 system tracks under CP/M 2.x?  In their
infinite wisdom, Digital Research made 2.x is 2 sectors larger than 1.4,
leaving only 7 sectors for the BIOS.

California Computer System's solution was to put a stripped BIOS
on the system tracks, and hack the command processor so that it attempts
to execute RLOCBIOS.COM when first booted.  RLOCBIOS then finds the
current BIOS and overwrites it with a bigger one.

I think this method is gross in the extreme and would like to find a
better way. For example, I could use an interactive bootstrap like
the one most Unix systems have.  It understands filesystem
structure, allowing me to boot in any executable file on the disk by
name (e.g., "unix", "testunix", etc).

Phil
ihnss!karn

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