Re: Terminate and Stay Resident Software (TSR) in Linux


MS-DOS did not support concurrency of any kind, technically DOS was a
single tasking, non-reentrant, interrupt handler (INT 21h) this (and
the price) made it ideal for some soft embedded systems.

The DOS TSR service was an officially unsupported way to load a
standard DOS program into memory and exit in a way that did not corrupt
program code/data. Typically you would specify the number of paragraphs
(16byte multiples) to retain - part of that address was
also used to provide a kind of DOS PID or process identifier.

TSRs utilised concurrency by chaining one of the PCs hardware interrupt
services eg. keyboard, timer etc.

One of the most popular programs to do this was Borlands Sidekick PIM
(personal information manager) but it was also used for implementing
things like network services etc.

The key points to remember are that they were officially unsupported,
could and would crash systems and were, really, a terrible hack very
specific to DOS. On any proper OS you would consider using a task or
thread, possibly a unix like daemon.


Regards


dmctek.googlepages.com
Software Development Consultancy.


----

karthikbg wrote:

Hi,
What is the equivalent of TSR in linux ?
With the help of google, I found in one link that daemons are the TSRs
of linux.
But the TSR concept is quite different from the daemon concept in
Linux.

I find that, A daemon (or service) is a background process that is
designed to run autonomously,with little or not user intervention.

Further, TSR is rather than simply saying "terminate me" to DOS, it
says: "I'm xxx bytes
long. Now terminate me but DON'T OVERWRITE ME." Which is to
say: Terminate me, but let me Stay Resident.
TSR programs will be eliminated by the presence of full
multitasking operating systems.
TSR programs will be here for the duration as
necessary and viable add-ons to otherwise incomplete solutions.

So, how does TSR fit into linux as Linux is a multitasking operating
system with good solutions ?

Kindly share your views / info regarding the TSR in linux .

Thx in advans,
Karthik Balaguru

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Terminate and Stay Resident Software (TSR) in Linux
    ... of linux. ... A daemon is a background process that is ... Further, TSR is rather than simply saying "terminate me" to DOS, it ... Now terminate me but DON'T OVERWRITE ME." ...
    (comp.os.linux.embedded)
  • Re: Terminate and Stay Resident Software (TSR) in Linux
    ... karthikbg wrote: ... What is the equivalent of TSR in linux? ... A daemon is a background process that is ...
    (comp.os.linux.embedded)
  • Terminate and Stay Resident Software (TSR) in Linux
    ... What is the equivalent of TSR in linux? ... A daemon is a background process that is ... Now terminate me but DON'T OVERWRITE ME." ...
    (comp.os.linux.embedded)
  • Re: Derivative effects.
    ... > windows comes from dos, which was designed for personal desktops. ... Thats distro specific, not linux specific. ... > scrollbar setup screens, and anyone who has ever installed an os knows ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: Anyone tried basiclinux?
    ... As a practical matter, since so few are still using dos, I dont worry ... my Linux internet logon. ... As for big drives, I work in text, not graphics. ...
    (alt.linux)