Does Xenix use the BIOS for anything?

[Wm E. Davidsen Jr]

In article <115 at melpar.UUCP> toppin at melpar.UUCP (Doug Toppin   X2075) writes:
| This is a question that I believe I know the answer to but would
| like to get a confirmation: "Does Xenix use the BIOS in the
| [23]86 at all?" My boss has always been convinced that it does
| and I believe that it does not.  

  Your boss is right. Xenix used the BIOS to read the boot sectors off
the hard disk at system startup. After that, no. I have run Xenix on a
system with such a messed up BIOS that stock MS-DOS didn't run reliably,
hanging on keyboard in, etc. Xenix booted and ran beautifully, and stuff
runs under VP/ix which can't run on DOS on this machine.

  Bear in mind I'm cheap, and wouldn't replace the BIOS for $30 when I
have a way around it...
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen at sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc
"Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon