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A quick look at OS/2's builtin virtualization


g · git · desktop · images · contact 2024-12-13 A while ago, someone on the fediverse mentioned "OS/2's virtualization features" to me. I don't remember who it was, sorry.

It runs in real-mode and only uses BIOS functions, specifically INT 10 to change the video mode and then it just assumes that the VGA memory is available at 0xA000. When you double click this newly created icon, it will switch to fullscreen mode and show our pattern (use Ctrl+Esc to exit). To me, this looks like OS/2 works quite similar to the hypervisors that we have today: It loads the disk image, maybe checks the BIOS Parameter Block(at least VMDISK does), and then just starts executing whatever code it finds.

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