Pat Villani
Pat Villani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Pasquale J. Villani 18 April 1954 Project Management from George Washington University |
| Known for | author of DOS-C, the FreeDOS kernel |
| Call sign | WB2GBF |
Pasquale "Pat" J. Villani
FreeDOS involvement
Villani had already been working on a DOS-like operating system for use in embedded systems for some while before the advent of FreeDOS.[2]
His efforts started when he developed an MS-DOS 3.1-compatible interface emulator to write device drivers in the C high-level language instead of in assembly language,[3] as was the usual approach at that time. This interface emulator grew into a minimal operating system named XDOS around 1988.[3]
He added an
When one potential contractor sought to use the OS in a system equipped with Motorola
Villani joined the FreeDOS project in 1994 after reading Jim Hall's announcement of a "PD-DOS" on comp.os.msdos.misc.apps.[4] In response to Hall's announcement, Villani devised a derivative of DOS/NT named DOS-C with a monolithic kernel and an architecture more similar to the non-multitasking MS-DOS,[3] and in 1995 he made it available for dual-use under a GPL[1] open-source license to become the kernel component of the new "Free-DOS" operating system, as "PD-DOS" was called at this time.[5][6]
In 1996, Villani wrote the book FreeDOS Kernel,
Internally, the FreeDOS kernel was still significantly different from MS-DOS, which, while no problem for embedded applications specifically written for FreeDOS, caused various compatibility issues in conjunction with misbehaving DOS applications. Villani and other contributors analyzed and addressed many of these issues over the years for FreeDOS to become much more MS-DOS compatible.
With some breaks Villani remained active with the FreeDOS project, including preparations for the release of FreeDOS 1.1. Since 2009[5] he had also held the role of the project coordinator, but he had to step down in April 2011 for health reasons.[7] The FreeDOS 1.1 release, published on 2 January 2012, is dedicated to him.
Biography
Villani was born in Nocera Inferiore[8] near Naples, Italy,[1] grew up in Brooklyn,[9] New York, USA, and moved to Freehold Township,[8] New Jersey in 1990.
In 1976, he received his
He previously worked for
He was a member of
Bibliography
- Villani, Pat (1996). FreeDOS Kernel - An MS-DOS Emulator for Platform Independence & Embedded System Development - Master OS Development. Lawrence, USA: ISBN 0-87930-436-7.
- Villani, Pat (2001). Programming Win32 Under The API. ISBN 978-1-57820-067-2.
- US patent application number: 12/779,489, publication number: US 2010/0290455 A1, filing date: 2010-05-13, Method and apparatus for communication termination routing, ([1]).
- US patent application number: 12/897,405, publication number: US 2011/0081009 A1, filing date: 2010-10-04, Method and apparatus for providing an identifier for a Caller ID function in a telecommunication system, ([2]).
References
- ^ a b c Villani, Pat (2009-07-28). "On the GPL for FreeDOS and Pat Villani's name". [email protected]. Archived from the original on 2013-04-14. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
I am of Italian origin and my first name is Pasquale, not Patrick. I use Pat as a nickname.
- ^ Hall, Jim interviewed on the TV show FLOSS weekly on the TWiT.tv network
- ^ ISBN 0-87930-436-7.
- ^ Hall, James F. (1994-06-29). "PD-DOS project announcement". Newsgroup: comp.os.msdos.apps. Archived from the original on 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2008-06-14.
- ^ a b Hall, James F. "History of FreeDOS". freedos.org. Archived from the original on 2007-05-27. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
- ^ a b Hall, James F. (2002). "An Overview of FreeDOS". freedos.org. Archived from the original on 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2011-11-23.
- ^ Villani, Pat; Hall, James F. (2011-04-22) [2011-04-17]. "Need help with project coordinator role". [email protected]. Retrieved 2022-08-21.
- ^ a b c "Obituary for Pasquale Villani". Archived from the original on 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2011-11-21.
- ^ Villani, Pat. "Bio". Archived from the original on 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
- ^ a b c d e "Unigroup of New York November 2000 Announcements". Archived from the original on 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2011-11-23.
- ^ a b "Obituaries and memorials for former Digital employees". DECconnection. Retrieved 2022-08-21.
- ^ "Obituary for Pasquale Villani - In Memory of Pasquale Villani 1954-2011". Retrieved 2022-08-21.
External links
- Pat Villani's homepage at the Wayback Machine (archived 2012-03-26)
- Original DOS-C GPLed release on SourceForge
- DOS-C page at the Wayback Machine (archived 2012-01-16)
- The FreeDOS project
