collapseos/recipes/pcat

PC/AT

PC-compatible machines need no introduction. They are one of the most popular machines of all time. Collapse OS has a 8086 assembler and has boot code allowing it to run on a PC/AT-compatible machine, using BIOS interrupts in real mode. Collapse OS always runs in real mode.

In this recipe, we will compile Collapse OS and write it to a USB drive that is bootable on a modern PC-compatible machine.

Gathering parts

• A modern PC-compatible machine that can boot from a USB drive.
• A USB drive
• qemu for emulation

Build the binary

Running make in this folder with yield:

• mbr.bin: a 512 byte binary that goes at the beginning of the disk
• os.bin: 8086 Collapse OS binary
• disk.bin: a concatenation of the above, with blkfs appended to it starting at 0x2000.

disk.bin is what goes on the drive.

This binary has BLK and AT-XY support, which means you have disk I/Os and can run VE.

Emulation

You can run the built binary in qemu using make emul.

Running on a modern PC

First, copy disk.bin onto your USB drive. For example, on an OpenBSD machine, it could look like:

doas dd if=disk.bin of=/dev/sd1c

Your USB drive is now BIOS-bootable. Boot your computer and enter your BIOS setup to make sure that "legacy boot" (non-EFI boot, that is, BIOS boot) is enabled. Configure your boot device priority to ensure that the USB drive has a chance to boot.

Reboot, you have Collapse OS. Boot is of course instantaneous (we're not used to this with modern software...).