Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!becker!hybrid!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!xrtll!silver From: silver@xrtll.uucp (Hi Ho Silver) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer Subject: Re: .SYS (device drivers) that are actually .EXEs? Message-ID: <1990Jul5.003006.5236@xrtll.uucp> Date: 5 Jul 90 00:30:06 GMT References: <141@qmsseq.imagen.com> <4237@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> Reply-To: silver@xrtll.UUCP (Hi Ho Silver) Organization: Not around here, pal! Lines: 28 In article <4237@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> kaleb@mars.UUCP (Kaleb Keithley) writes: $In article <141@qmsseq.imagen.com> pipkins@imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins) writes: $>In MS-DOS versions < 3.0, the EXEC function call (EXE loader) was actually $>a part of COMMAND.COM. Because COMMAND.COM is not loaded until after $>CONFIG.SYS is processed, device drivers could not be in .EXE format. $>(incidently, that is also why it's COMMAND.COM instead of COMMAND.EXE) $Wrong! I just whipped out the M'soft Encyclopedia, and the EXEC function $call has been there all along. Maybe you're thinking of that short lived $abortion known as DOS 1.0. He didn't say it didn't exist, just that it was part of COMMAND.COM. Depending on whose DOS (IBM/Microsoft/other), the version in which it was moved from COMMAND.COM to MSDOS.SYS/IBMDOS.COM may vary, but it _did_ originally exist in COMMAND.COM. From _Advanced MS-DOS_ (Ray Duncan, Microsoft Press, first edition): In addition, EXE-format drivers cannot be used with the IBM PC, since the EXE loader is located in COMMAND.COM ... That's from the section on installable device drivers, which are a feature that came in with version 2.0, implying that at least some 2.0-and-higher DOS versions/flavours work that way. -- /Nikebo \ Nikebo says "Nikebo knows how to post. Just do it."\silver@xrtll/ /---------\_____________________________________________________\----------/ /yunexus!xrtll!silver (L, not 1)\ Hi Ho Silver \ just silver for short / /Silver: Ever Searching for SNTF \ Life sucks. \ someone buy me a BEER! /