ELKS questions

[Dan Olson <dano@agora.rdrop.com>]

Hi,
	I've got a number of questions that I'm just going to stick into
one message, hope it doesn't get too long!

First off, I was wondering what would be involved in getting SCSI support
in ELKS.  I assume that it would require code compiled into the Kernal
(for CD-ROM and tape support, beyond hard drives which have BIOS code)
which would probably be an involved project and not a practical one.  Is
it easier than I think?

I've noticed recently under Linux when I tried to use an 84 key keyboard,
it behaved as if the numlock was always on, so I had no arrows.  I suspect
I told the OS that I had a 101 key keyboard as I did have when I
installed.  Does ELKS have any configuration for keyboard types (besides
country differences)?  I would expect it to behave like MS-DOS where both
types can be interchanged without the OS being told.

Is there any advantage to using a 286 aside from things like bus width
and clock speed, etc?  In otherwords, is protected mode supported in any
way, or is there any code that uses the extended memory?  Anything
planned?  I don't neccessarly care either way, but I do have a number of
286s around and it occured to me that of course they won't run Linux, and
I wasn't aware of any advantage of them over an 8086 for ELKS.

I tried to get Lilo installed on an ELKS disk yesterday with no luck.  I
am able to take a slakware boot disk, stick it in my IBM XT, and get a
boot screen and a prompt allowing me to pass parameters to the Kernal if
needed.  This makes me think that Lilo is running on my V20 but I couldn't
figure out how to install it on disk...I've always used the default
from the installer for my Linux installs.  Has anyone looked into Lilo for
ELKS?  Is it even useful if it does work?

Under Linux supposedly it's not possible to have RS-232 ports sharing
IRQs, as they do under DOS.  Will ELKS support more than two serial ports,
and if so, can 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 share IRQs?

I'd love to have something similar to GPM under ELKS, has anyone thought
about such a program?  Is it possible?  Would it just be a command line
program or more involved, making it difficult to implement?

I booted up ELKS on the XT a couple days ago, made a directory, did and
"ls -l", and of course it was dated 1970 or whatever the default date is.
Okay, so yesterday I'm in the surplus section of the electronics store,
and there's a little 8 bit card with a few chips and a battery...I assume
a clock card.  First off, are RTC cards supported?  If so, is it just set
with "date"?  Are there different types of clocks to choose from, or will
any work?  I'll try my new card the next time I boot ELKS.

Again, sorry for how long this mail is, hopefully someone else will find
all of this interesting :)

	Dan