pengyou - 2005-07-16 11:17 PM
Interesting dialog. Does a linux upgrade entail less trouble than some kind of DOS/windows upgrade? I am wondering if it would be worthwhile in the future for a ppc or hpc mfg to offer 2 cf card slots - or maybe 2 SD card slots - on each model, one for data and one for the OS? This would solve the issues re: use of serial ports, modems, etc. If you want to use Linux that day you just pop in your linux card and go about your business...XP? Pop in the XP card and move on... A bit like the old Atari, Commodore or Coco days...
At first I was excited at the prospect of using DOS but then discovered the foolhardy ness of this quest. You see I have a P1 tablet PC that only has a 3 GB hard drive. I thought 'I will just install older DOS software on it so that I will be able to put more programs and data on it! Sounds good but I quickly discovered that there were no DOS word processors, spreadsheets, etc that produced windows compatible files. Yes, you can store data in notepad and then copy it but then there are no formatting or special conditions along with it.
Personally I would cast my vote for more development along the Linux lines. First of all the OS is free. Secondly it seems to be cooperative to people who like to tinker "under the hood".
yeah, DOS is so "long" ago that sometimes I forget what ran on them. There was WordStar, Lotus 123
(Symphony
), Formtools and WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics etc. Alley cat, Rescue Raiders ... oops, the last two are games! But yes, no DOS apps that supports word format. Though I think there may be filters in modern word to read old MSWord format. Anyone can recall or remember?
As for the CF/OS concept, here's my take on it:
Its possible! After all, that's how some of the *nux distro for HPCs are doing, esp for those older HPCs without a flashrom, think jlime for J680. It basically boots up from the CF card. If existing HPCs
(PPCs and other similar devices
) can restore from an image on ROM, I don't see why it cannot restore from an image on a CF card. After restoring, it should run as per normal with the SDRAM.
So instead of running an OS off a CF card
(or SD for that matter
), you can have a device load up its OS from a CF card, then run as usual. That way, you can swap your OS after booting up. It still means that the device need some flashROM inside for a bootloader and for storing the OS that is loaded from the CF card. hmmm ... wait a minute, that is how the SL4 works right now!
In order to run an OS directly off a CF card, the CF card may need to be a SRAM card instead of a normal CF card. Then it can store the OS as it is. oh well ... ...