Some driver ideas

[Petr]

Here is the list of possible new or modified hardware drivers for Windows 98/SE/Me - if there will be any skilled system programmer to create new ones or more probably modify the current ones. What could be done:

IDE disk driver (ESDI_506.PDR)

- support of 48-bit LBA (there is a paid version made by Mr. Loew)

- support of SATA disks

- display of the real name of the disk, not only TYPE47 or so

Resources:

http://www.t13.org/

http://www.t13.org/docs2002/d1410r3b.pdf

http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v1r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf

http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v2r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf

http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v3r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf

http://www.sata-io..org/

http://www.sata-io.org/docs/serialata10a.pdf

http://www.sata-io..org/docs/S2Ext_1_2_Gold.pdf

http://www.sata-io.org/docs/SATA%20Transfer%20Test.ZIP

USB 2.0 (EHCI) driver

The nature of all USB 2.0 controllers is the same, all are EHCI compliant and therefore there is just one standard EHCI driver in Windows 2000 and XP. Unfortunately all EHCI drivers for Windows 98/Me have built-in restrictions to work on specific hardware only. There are many cases when there is no Windows 98/Me support at all - some SiS chipsets, newer Intel, Nvida and ATI chipsets etc.

It should be possible to create the universal driver for Windows 98/Me too, in fact, it exists but expires and is not publicly available: http://www.orangeware.com/updateusb2oemtrial.html

Resources:

http://www.intel.com/technology/usb/

http://www.intel.com/technology/usb/download/ehci-r10.pdf

http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/usb_20_02212005.zip

http://www.beyondlogic.org/usb/usbdevdrvs.htm

HDA (High Definition Audio) driver

Scitech has developed the driver for Windows NT 4.0: http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/snap_audio.htm and states that "can be ported to support virtually any operating system". Unfortunately it would not be free of charge.

Resources:

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/hdaudio.htm

http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/product...?lineid=2004052

Intel Pentium microcode driver (UPDATE.SYS)

This driver is used in all Windows versions from Windows 98 to Windows Vista, the versions for Windows 98/SE/Me have several limitations:

- small space for the microcode

- not able to work with new microcodes with size different than 4 KB

- not able to work with new microcodes that support more than one platform

Resources:

ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/...ls/25366819.pdf - section 9.11

http://www.kernel.org/ - arch/i386/kernel/microcode.c

http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/

Video driver with bad support of "Restart in MS-DOS mode"

It is known that some drivers of some video adapters does not allow Windows to restart in MS-DOS mode, the computer just hangs. It would be nice to find the root cause and if possible to find any wrokaround.

Windows 98SE + nUSB support for Mitsumi USB floppy drive

For unknown reason, Mitsumi USB floppy drive causes blues screen with Windows 98 SE + nUSB. It works well with manufacturer supplied driver and with general driver in Windows Me.

and of course Windows 98 Driver Development kit (DDK), symbols for Windows 98, Windows 98 debug version etc. Sometimes also Linux source code can help.

Maybe some of the above mentioned drivers are available somewhere?

Petr

[RainyShadow]

Video driver with bad support of "Restart in MS-DOS mode"

It is known that some drivers of some video adapters does not allow Windows to restart in MS-DOS mode, the computer just hangs. It would be nice to find the root cause and if possible to find any wrokaround.

Based on my experience with this problem, some drivers don't hang the computer and the system enters DOS mode in a working condition, just the driver fails to set the proper video mode. I was usually able to continue my work after changing the video mode by using built-in functions in programs like Norton/Volkov Commander or a simple MODE CO80 (tested on several GeForce cards and an old 512KB Trident card)

[EAT MY DUST]

What's that all about ?

[LLXX]

I'm rather busy but I still haven't forgotten about the disk driver... thanks for the resources

I'm not really "experienced" in Windows driver coding but I could manage