Changeset 51 for trunk/BOOTCODE/AIR-BOOT.HIS

Timestamp:

Apr 13, 2014, 3:50:38 PM (11 years ago)

Author:

Ben Rietbroek

Message:

AiR-BOOT v1.0.8-rc3 build-20120909 [2012-09-10]

With Git one can easily hop-skip-and-jump between branches.
So I use Git for my local repos and make use of this easy branching.
Because SVN can only handle lineair history, these branches had to be
rebased before committing them to Netlabs. So, this commit contains a
multitude of changes which makes it a bit hairy.

New

o Display LVM drive-letters in the main menu

A populair request was to show drive-letter information in the menu.
Drive-letters however, are OS specific and AiR-BOOT cannot
accurately predict what drive-letter other operating systems would
assign to what partition. eCS LVM drive-letters however are stored
in the LVM-record and can thus be displayed.

o Added 'Show LVM Drive Letters' option in SETUP/BASIC

This will toggle the display of LVM drive-letters in the main menu.
By default this option is enabled.

o Show popup message when BIOS INT13X extensions are not available

The system is halted.

o Show 'DEL to Power Off' in the bottom left corner

This tries to power-off the system, but it may not work for you.

o Simple interactive debugger

Outputs to the serial port with a few one-letter commands to dump
internal tables and state. (Only available in debug builds)

o Enhanced drive-letter feature

Enable multiple eCS installations using the same drive-letter.
This makes it possible to clone a system with the command
'XCOPY /h /o /t /s /e /r /v /e' to another drive and have that boot
from the same drive-letter.
(Or installing to the same drive by hiding the other system)

Changes

o Reduced MBR protection-image from 1024 to 768 bytes

Luckily the MBR Protection Image code does not exceed 768 bytes,
so that gives us another 256 bytes of precious code-space.
Now the non-EN versions are happy again.
Note that the alignment for the image changed from 512 to 256 bytes.
MBR-PROT.ASM, FIXCODE.C, PARTMAIN.ASM and AIR-BOOT.ASM have been
adjusted for this change.
The fight for code-space continues...

o Updating from v1.06 now also copies over drive-letters

When the user has forced drive-letters in v1.06 these will be copied
over to the v1.0.8 configuration when upgrading.
Because the drive-letter feature is broken in v1.07,
the drive-letter table does not get copied over when upgrading
from v1.07.

o Made FX-code optional to compile in

The FX-code supplies the shifting screen-effects when 'Cooper Bars'
is enabled in the setup. With the current enhancements made however,
there is a continuous lack of code-space, especially when debug-code
is included during development. The FX-code occupies some
1200 bytes, a space that can be put to better use. Therefore the
inclusion of the FX-code has been made conditional to make room for
either debugging or future new features.

o Also rewrite PBR on HPFS

Earlier, a fix was made to write a modified PBR back in case JFS was
used. This was done to enable the drive-letter feature on JFS, since
the PBR JFS-bootcode does not use the supplied PBR in memory.
With the enhancements in the drive-letter feature, the HPFS PBR
needs to be updated on disk also, to cope with zero drive-letters in
the HPFS PBR. This potentially fixes a missing drive-letter in the
PBR when the system is restored from an archive. You might need the
drive-letter feature to force the correct drive-letter on the first
boot, after which the feature can be disabled.

o Added extra MBR protection

When AiR-BOOT is active, it is only AiR-BOOT that writes to the MBR.
To protect the MBR from programming errors, like the one below,
any write to the MBR is now checked for validity.
In essence this is protecting your MBR from bad programming done
by me...

Fixes

o Fixed a minor bug with displaying LVM drive-letters

When more partitions that can be displayed were present, scrolling
the menu would not scroll the drive-letter. Fixed.

o Fixed a bug with regard to the drive-letter feature

When partitions were deleted, and some partitions above the deleted
partition(s) had a drive-letter forced, these partitions would lose
this assignment. This bug is also present in v1.06.

Note

The AIRBOOT.HIS file mentions a DOCU directory with the AiR-BOOT
documentation etc. However, this is not present in this commit and
will be provided at a later time.

File:

• trunk/BOOTCODE/AIR-BOOT.HIS (modified) (2 diffs)

trunk/BOOTCODE/AIR-BOOT.HIS

@@ -21 +21 @@
 
 
-; ---------------------------------
-; Rousseau: Fixes and Enhancements
-; ---------------------------------
-;
-; v1.0.8-rc3-bld201205nn
+; ------------------------------------------------
+; Rousseau: Fixes, Enhancements and fresh bugs :-)
+; ------------------------------------------------
+;
+; v1.0.8-rc3-bld20120909
 ; ----------------------
+; # Added Show LVM Drive Letters in SETUP/BASIC #
+;   This will toggle the display of LVM drive-letters in the main menu.
+;   By default this option is enabled.
+;
+; # Reduced MBR Protection Image from 1024 bytes to 768 bytes #
+;   The fight for code-space continues...
+;   Luckily the MBR Protection Image code does not exceed 768 bytes,
+;   so that gives us another 256 bytes of precious code-space.
+;   Now the non-EN versions are happy again.
+;   Note that the alignment for the image changed from 512 to 256 bytes.
+;   MBR-PROT.ASM, FIXCODE.C, PARTMAIN.ASM and AIR-BOOT.ASM have been
+;   adjusted for this change.
+;
+; # Updating from v1.06 now also copies over drive-letters #
+;   When the user has forced drive-letters in v1.06 these will be copied over
+;   to the v1.0.8 configuration when upgrading.
+;   Because the drive-letter feature is broken in v1.07, the drive-letter
+;   table does not get copied over when upgrading from v1.07.
+;
+; # Fixed a minor bug with displaying LVM drive-letters #
+;   When more partitions that can be displayed were present, scrolling the
+;   menu would not scroll the drive-letter. Fixed.
+;
+; # Added DOCU directory for documentation #
+;   This contains the AiR-BOOT User Manual in Open Office .odt-format.
+;   To also have OS/2 INF format, a transformation script and sheet have been
+;   created to convert the .odt document to an ipf-source that can be compiled
+;   with Watcoms wipfc ipf compiler. (IBM ipfc does not work correctly)
+;   This makes it possible to write documentation in OOo Writer and export that
+;   to PDF and INF format.
+;
+; # Fixed a bug with regard to the drive-letter feature #
+;   When partitions were deleted, and some partitions above the deleted
+;   partition(s) had a drive-letter forced, these partitions would lose this
+;   assignment. This bug is also present in v1.06.
+;
+; # Implemented a very simple interactive debugger #
+;   Making use of the main menu-loop, pressing a digit or a letter activates
+;   some debugging routine. Mostly such a routine dumps a part of the internal
+;   state to the com-port. Other purposes are the interrogation of certain
+;   BIOS functions, as these can differ substantially between machines.
+;
+; # Made FX-code optional to compile in #
+;   The FX-code supplies the shifting screen-effects when 'Cooper Bars' is
+;   enabled in the setup. With the current enhancements made however,
+;   there is a continuous lack of code-space, especially when debug-code is
+;   included during development. The FX-code occupies some 1200 bytes, a space
+;   that can be put to better use. Therefore inclusion the FX-code has been
+;   made conditional to make room for either debugging or future new features.
+;
+; # Also write PBR to HPFS #
+;   Earlier, a fix was made to write a modified PBR back in case JFS was used.
+;   This was done to enable the drive-letter feature on JFS, since the PBR
+;   JFS-bootcode does not use the supplied PBR in memory.
+;   With the enhancements in the drive-letter feature, the HPFS PBR needs to
+;   be updated on disk also, to cope with zero drive-letters in the HPFS PBR.
+;
+; # Added drive-letters in display for LVM volumes #
+;   A populair request was to show drive-letter information in the menu.
+;   Drive-letters however, are OS specific and AiR-BOOT cannot accurately
+;   predict what drive-letter DOS would assign to what partition.
+;   eCS LVM drive-letters however are stored in the LVM-record and can thus
+;   be displayed. This has been implemented.
+;
+; # Enhanced drive-letter feature #
+;   Enable multiple eComStation installations using the same drive-letter
+;   This makes it possible to clone a system with XCOPY /h /e /s /t /r /v
+;   to another drive and have that boot from the same drive-letter.
+;   (Or installing to the same drive by hiding the other system)
+;
 ; # Removed Force LBA Usage from Setup #
 ;   When AiR-BOOT is installed on an USB-stick, there is a possibility that
 ;   the CHS-geometry varies between different machines where the stick is
-;   booted. This would invalidate any CHS-values that were stored in the IPT.
+;   booted. This would invalidate the CHS-values in the partition table
+;   and also the values that were stored in the AiR-BOOT's internal partition
+;   table, the IPT.
 ;   To prevent more nasty things like below from happening, LBA-addressing
-;   is now always used.
+;   is now always used and the setting has been removed from the setup-menu.
+;   While this may prevent AiR-BOOT from running on very old systems,
+;   the focus of AiR-BOOT development is geared towards the future.
+;   Such old systems can use v1.06.
+;
+; # Added extra MBR protection #
+;   When AiR-BOOT is active, it is only AiR-BOOT that writes to the MBR.
+;   To protect the MBR from programming errors, like the one below,
+;   any write to the MBR is now checked for validity.
+;   In essence this is protecting your MBR from bad programming done by me...
 ;
 ;!## Fixed a very very nasty bug that can destroy the MBR on multiple disks ##!
@@ -48 +129 @@
 ;   would be auto-booted instead of the newly installed system.
 ;   This has been fixed.
-;   This bug is also present in v1.07.
+;   This bug is also present in v1.07 and does not apply to previous versions.
 ;
 ; v1.0.8-rc2-bld20120423