Finally a very workable and bootable DOS
on USB.

"DOS isn’t widely used anymore, but you wouldn’t know if from reading instructions written by manufacturers for BIOS updates <http://www.howtogeek.com/136881/htg-explains-do-you-need-to-update-your-computers-bios/>, firmware-updating utilities, and other low-level system tools. They will often require you to boot into DOS and run the utility."


"Windows won’t allow you to select the “Create an MS-DOS startup disk” option when formatting a USB drive – it’s grayed out. We will be using Rufus instead. It’s a fast, lightweight application that includes FreeDOS."

"Utilities still use DOS to ensure they have low-level access to the hardware without any other programs interfering or Windows getting in the way. This helps ensure BIOS updates and other low-level operations work properly."

http://www.howtogeek.com/136987/how-to-create-a-bootable-dos-usb-drive/


This eliminates the floppy and the hard disk drives on our EFI/EFIS hardware.

 A cheap 4 gig USB chip has 1000 times more storage than DOS enjoyed in its
hey day. DOS programs are small and lightening fast on modern hardware. DOS
was written in assembler.

The entire OS and  complied QB EFI/EFIS programs are less than 200K.

Not only that you can read and write on a DOS bootable USB sticks with
Linux or windows. This helps getting EFI/EFIS engine data out of the on board system to the
email program. Also allows another DOS computer at home to do the develoment
work on without taking out the one in the airplane. Just pull the USB stick and take it home .
The stick can have dozens of versions of EFI/EFIS programs and mixture maps
to try in the air since the engine keeps running while you change programs.
Heck the engine will keep running while you change the USB stick itself.

The processor chips on micro ATX mother boards are a much higher scale
of density and much more powerful than any single chip microcomputer traditionally
used for EFI systems. Number one they have built in hard ware floating point mathematics
capability. The mother board, needless to say (but I will say it anyway) has the built in high
resolutions graphics for super VGA monitors. You just cannot buy that capability
at any price in a single chip computer. Believe me I have tried. The reason is the billion dollar Personal Computer market place is driving Micro ATX mother board development.


Couple all that with the extreme ease of programming in QB. QB does floating
point math I might add.

Power BASIC is QB on steroids.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/downloads/documentation.htm

All this makes the micro ATX mother board ideal for rotary engine EFI/EFIS.

Paul Lamar