Re: Fw: 16-bit bootloader support?

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

Bogdan wrote:
> I'm sorry for the top-down mail but Yahoo! Mail is gay. No, I don't mean 
> virtual 8086 mode, I mean the 16-bit protected mode - which is 16-bit and not 
> 32-bit. Protected mode was introduced on the Intel 80286 which was still a 
> 16-bit CPU. Protected mode was later extended for 32-bit allowing of course 
> for backward compatibility. Windows 3.1 is a good example of an OS capable of 
> handling 16-bit pmode.
>
>   
What is the difference between 16-bit and 32-bit protected mode? Is
16-bit protected mode like 32-bit protected mode, not paged mode but
with upper 16-bits ignored?
What are the benefits of supporting it?
> It's not legacy code I'm talking about.
>
> Cheers,
> Bogdan
>
>
> Bogdan wrote:
>   
>> Most probably the developers of GRUB will say that this is useless but
>> did anyone think of adding 16-bit protected mode support to the
>> Multiboot specification and to GRUB?
>>     
> Which mode do you mean?
> protected mode=32-bit mode
> You may mean vm8086 mode but it's meant only for compatibility purposes.
> As such it's an OS responsibility to set it up when executing legacy code
>   
>> Cheers,
>> Bogdan
>>
>>     
>
>
>       
>
>
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>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko
Personal git repository: http://repo.or.cz/w/grub2/phcoder.git