I didn't get around to writing a blog post last week, so this one covers two weeks' worth of work.

2024-10-27

Fixed insSTOSB stating that it "sets the flags accordingly". Also add to other string instructions that flags are not modified (ins, lods, movs, outs).

• Add section on FSIBOOT to the documentation
• Add sections on ROM-BIOS and MBR to sector to the docs
• Fix newly added hyperlinks in docs
• Mention patchqry
• In iniload lDOS entry check for lsvLoadSeg underflow
• Update attribution year of iniload.asm
• Update iniload.asm comments listing known lDOS signatures
• List lDXX (unset) signature in iniload.asm and documentation

Update dbitmap Extension for lDebug to add STR mode. This allows to display a string using the embedded font.

The STR mode patch includes the \M escape code which causes the next byte to be mirrored.

In a separate revision the \H escape code is added which takes an alphanumeric byte and displays a blank of the corresponding width, mainly for \H4 to display a half-width space.

(Backslashes to be displayed must be escaped as double backslashes.)

Here's a fun script to try with the updated ELD, logo.sld:

@?version
@ext printf.eld "\r\n"
@ext dbitmap.eld run set1 '#' end set0 ' ' end str "\MLDebug"
@ext printf.eld "\t   Presented by BTTR Software\r\n"

(The reverse capital L is an acceptable way of rendering the first letter of "lDebug" or "lDOS".)

Pick two changes from SvarDOS:

• Re-test buffer dirty status after recursive buffer flush, to address an error during cross-drive copying
• Prefer discarded buffer when searching a buffer for new data (performance optimisation)

Further, the lDOS version string got updated to 2024 October.

• nasm.mac: cap-insensitively define labelsize labels and ret in proc
• replace %out directives by %warning
• ignore .xcref, .cref, name directives, and handle .xlist
• add support for I_AM and I_NEED macros used by MS-DOS v4 kernel sources
• detect comment that indicates NASM original macros to skip remainder of a file
• nasm.mac: insert NASM original macros comment
• allow SIZE operator to specify differently-capitalised name of a structure
• switch ENDS to define a _struc_size suffixed label rather than _size, as _size sometimes clashed