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Re: Real-Mode of Intel processors!!

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Mark Zealey wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 01, 2002 at 12:23:06PM +0530, Ketan Mukadam wrote:
> None. It's useless to all but DOS, so it's needed for doze 95 and 98, not 2k or
> nt as they are pure 32 bit, aparently
> 
> Real mode is used for low level bios interrupts to find out stuff about the
> system and also load the OS from the media, which can't be done from pmode
> because intel suck.

Indeed, but you also sometimes need to do stuff which would normally be 
easier in real mode (paging *complicates* things), but in protected mode 
so you see the memory addressing tango take place ;) A case in point is 
PCI BIOS calls and perhaps a few others. The quasi-real virtual 8086 mode 
is also interesting in this respect.

	Zwane


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