From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jody Bruchon Subject: Re: Memory issues and USB support? Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2017 09:57:13 -0400 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-8086-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: ELKS On 2017-03-19 2:02 AM, Derek Johansen wrote: > 1) Why the restriction to ~640K of memory for running ELKS The Intel 8086 can address 1024K of memory. On all IBM PCs and compatibles, the upper 384K is reserved for I/O and ROM. ELKS primarily targets 8086-based IBM-compatible PCs. Yes, it is possible to use more than 640K of RAM, but that also requires the use of protected mode and BIOS support for hardware isn't available in protected mode. We would have to have device drivers that can access the hardware directly instead. This would also require that we have kernel support for both real and protected mode. I am aware of "unreal" mode but it also has its fair share of quirks and requires at least a 386. > 2) Does ELKS support USB devices? Will it ever? Is it even possible? ELKS does not target platforms with USB. Technically it is possible to add USB support, but a lot more would be needed than just support for USB itself. At some point "can we add support for this 386+ feature?" becomes "can we just morph ELKS into something like an older Linux distribution?"