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Booting FreeDOS on Intel Mac = no keyboard?

generik

generik

macrumors 601
Original poster
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
Hi,

Has anyone ever tried booting anything apart from Windows on the new Intel Macs? It really seems like Apple's implementation of the PC BIOS is incomplete or something. USB keyboards don't seem to work when in DOS, and likewise, Linux CDs fail to boot on them too (some error from isolinux saying can't read from the CD).

Does anyone know of workarounds for these issues? Geez, and all I want to do is run memtest86 on a mac :eek:
 
7on

7on

macrumors 601
Nov 9, 2003
4,939
0
Dress Rosa
It could be that standard BIOSes emulate the USB to be a PS/2 port. Since Macs never had PS/2 ports I think it might have been difficult for Apple to put it in there. Or maybe it was just an oversight? I'm sure the new Macs lack the BIOS support to boot from floppies as well.
 
generik

generik

macrumors 601
Original poster
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
What I did was to create a CD image that boots a floppy image under emulation (yes it is trixy I know :))

I wouldn't have to resort to this if the ISOLINUX based CDs I have work, but strangely none of them do work on the Intel Mac. Works great in Virtual PC and on standard PCs though.

Which does lead to the point that Apple's implementation of the PC BIOS doesn't seem to be quite complete :eek:
 
K

kainjow

Moderator emeritus
Jun 15, 2000
7,958
7
generik said:
What I did was to create a CD image that boots a floppy image under emulation (yes it is trixy I know :))

I wouldn't have to resort to this if the ISOLINUX based CDs I have work, but strangely none of them do work on the Intel Mac. Works great in Virtual PC and on standard PCs though.

Which does lead to the point that Apple's implementation of the PC BIOS doesn't seem to be quite complete :eek:
Click to expand...
That's what Parallels is for :)
 
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