Running DOS on a MacBook Pro without emulation

[yksoft1]

My early-2011 MacBook Pro supports booting from a HDD with MBR partition table out of the box, so I tried an SATA flash drive with Windows 98 DOS installed on it.

reading current CPU frequency and CPUID.


Running UCDOS 7.0 Chinese environment.


It must be that Intel Macs don't have hardware or emulated i8042 keyboard controller as there are too many applications that won't respond to keyboard inputs. This renders DOS virtually unusable on Intel Macs at all.
For example,
Kingsoft WPS 1.1 (under Kingsoft Super-CCDOS 4.03 Chinese environment)
I'm unable to skip the "Kingsoft Chinese Board is not installed, press any key to continue" warning.


Kingsoft WPS 2.2 for UCDOS
Can't get past the main menu screen.


Rusty (a Japanese DOS/V game)
Can get past intro screen, but get stuck on the main menu screen.


MS-DOS 6.2, Windows 3.1 and Windows 98 HIMEM.SYS complains that it can't control A20 gate and fails to load, FreeDOS HimemX works, however it runs only in A20 gate "Always on" mode. I didn't test XMGR.

[buricco]

I wonder if using KEYB US will help anything?

[whistler2250]

I have tried using DOS on a MacBook, and it booted, but opening an application resulted in lack of keyboard input. As for complaining about lack of A20 support, that's because in Apple's implementation of UEFI-CSM has A20 support disabled for security reasons, and there is no known way to turn it. I have heard somewhere that you can install Windows ME on a MacBook, that it isn't as simple as starting the installer from the CD.

[yksoft1]

I have tried using DOS on a MacBook, and it booted, but opening an application resulted in lack of keyboard input. As for complaining about lack of A20 support, that's because in Apple's implementation of UEFI-CSM has A20 support disabled for security reasons, and there is no known way to turn it. I have heard somewhere that you can install Windows ME on a MacBook, that it isn't as simple as starting the installer from the CD.

The lack of i8042 controller I/O emulation is indeed the reason why HIMEM cannot control the A20 gate.

[xelloss]

I have tried using DOS on a MacBook, and it booted, but opening an application resulted in lack of keyboard input. As for complaining about lack of A20 support, that's because in Apple's implementation of UEFI-CSM has A20 support disabled for security reasons, and there is no known way to turn it. I have heard somewhere that you can install Windows ME on a MacBook, that it isn't as simple as starting the installer from the CD.

I don't see how any modern operating system could work without a way to enable the A20 line.
In fact, it would make more sense for the A20 line to be permanently enabled, with no wrapping around of address 0xFFFFF + 1 to 0x00000 (compatibility with the 8086/88: who cares any more?)

Or do you mean that the A20 line is, in fact, enabled by default, and HIMEM just refuses to load because it cannot control the on/off mechanism?
In this latter case, I'm sure it should be easy to patch some open source XMS driver to work with the MacBook.

[Battler]

- xellos: The original post answers this question:

FreeDOS HimemX works, however it runs only in A20 gate "Always on" mode.

So the A20 line is always enabled on the MacBook.

[Overdoze]

Makes sense, since there's no need for legacy PC compatibility on Macs.

[xelloss]

- xellos: The original post answers this question

See what happens when I don't have the time to read everything but still want to state the obvious? -_-

[yuhong]

I think there is an /A20CONTROL:OFF switch in HIMEM.SYS.