yes, I updated the Release PicoCalc x86 Version 0.0.2 Release · shtirlic/picocalc_x86 · GitHub with fresh Freedos 1.4 image for hard disk
Cool, it works great. I tried to build my own image last night, and when it booted, it went into a memory counting loop, I have no idea what I did wrong.
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what image are were trying to build, freedos installer uses cpu detection, so cpu on dosbox should be set to 80186 so it installs proper files instead of like 386+ ones
That makes sense. I had to download the legacy floppy set. That took a while to install with a 186 CPU setting. I have not tested it yet, but we will see. If this does not work, I am just going to use your images, all I really wanted was a 512MB drive, but honestly, its not that important.
Yes, I did the same I created the empty hd image with dd, then mounted in dosbox, booted to msdos for real fdisk, created primary partition with FAT16 (be aware it must NOT be LBA) plain FAT16, then installed floppy version of latest freedos.
I made a new release version 0.0.3
- Added freedos image to releases files
- Floppy images support as fd.img on SD card, auto create empty floppy image if not present
- RAM bump to 432 KB
- CGA fixes for graphics and text modes, passing all text tests from CGA_COMP utility
- Updated to pico-sdk 2.3.0
- Display reset on warm reboot
Release PicoCalc x86 Version 0.0.3 Release · shtirlic/picocalc_x86 · GitHub
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I was able to build my own image, but honestly, its not worth it. 256MB is plenty unless someone is planning on loading every DOS program ever written.
The new build is working well, the extra RAM sure does help, but 300K in FreeDOS is still a really tight environment for running anything.
Good, I am pretty sure FreeDOS goes full throttle on enabling drivers and other stuff, there must be toggels to turn off kernel stuff, because I read somewhere that they have tiny footprint, lower than msdos 6.22, my current image based on 6.22 eats about 65kb
PS
Memory is now very pricey, so we are learning now how to deal with low memory req 
PPS
Also I am planning to do some hacks to add XMS and UMB memory backed by PicoCalc PSRAM, with internal PSRAM it’s easy but not everyone have this boards like Pimoroni Pico 2 Plus.
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I stripped fdconfig.sys and fdauto.bat down to the minimum and that made no difference, although it does boot faster taking out all the batch files it runs, along with mem. One of my earliest x86 computers only had 512K of total RAM, somehow I made it work, so I am pretty sure I can work with this as well.
MS DOS 6.22 works for you on this project? If it does, then I may build my own image for it.
Yeah, 6.22 boots into Norton Commander 3.0 less than second after BIOS with 383 KB Free RAM.
I personally recommend that everyone getting a PicoCalc get a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W because it is simply worth it (and its QMI PSRAM is so much faster and easier to work with than hand-operated PicoCalc PSRAM). Yes, it costs a bit more money ($20 USD plus or minus a few dollars depending on where you buy it from), but you only have to buy it once, and it still is only a fraction of the money you are spending on your PicoCalc anyways.
Sure Pimoroni is great, here in Thailand if I order from ebay or Pimoroni Shop, it costs around ~$35 with shipping, I have plenty of boards with PSRAM but not in Pico 2 demensions. While waiting for Pico 2-like board with PSRAM, I soldered PSRAM on top of the flash chip and it works just fine.
Not everyone is skilled at SMT soldering, though. I certainly am not – I have no problem soldering headers onto a board, but I wouldn’t even know where to start to solder an SMT chip onto something, much the less on top of something.
Or we can have real CPU plus rp2350 and PSRAM ;), I have some success with this.
My another toy project.
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The Pimoroni is cool, but including shipping to the US (west coast) is currently over $54 and would still require soldering headers. For half the price of an entire PicoCalc it doesn’t seem worth it, to me at least. If they had sold them with the headers included I might have bought one back a year or so ago when the price was about half what it is now. But at the time it made more sense to buy a Pico2w from Aliexpress along with a Luckfox Lyra for roughly the same price.
I’m glad you’re considering supporting the built in PSRAM, @shtirlic. It’s been practically useless since almost no projects support it, so it would be nice to actually be able to use it for something. 
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You can get a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2(W) from US-based distributors, such as Adafruit or PiHut. Yeah, I initially made the mistake of buying directly from Pimoroni itself.
(E.g. Adafruit carries the Pico Plus 2 for $14.95 USD and the Pico Plus 2W for $22.50 USD at https://www.adafruit.com/product/6243.)
Yeah, I’d buy one in an instant if it came with headers so I could just plug it in, but I’m a software guy not a hardware guy (I don’t even own a soldering iron) so a Pico 2W board without headers is a no-go for me even if Pimoroni have added a bunch of extra cool stuff
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I’m really a software guy rather than a hardware guy myself, yet I taught myself how to solder simple things such as headers nonetheless. It really is a useful skill to have, even if one (like me) does not have sufficiently steady hands to solder things like SMT parts.
Yep, MS-DOS 6.22 makes a big difference, I have 372K free. It feels faster as well. Now to start testing software to see what actually runs. I doubt QBasic will run, but I am going to try. I am not even going to try any games, but if anyone wants me to try anything particular besides games, let me know, and I will see what I can do.
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Also make sure you are on versions 0.0.3 and tune some params in config.sys
like FILES=30, BUFFERS=4 they also eat RAM. qbasic works fine for me