Pat Villani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Pasquale J. Villani (1954-04-18)18 April 1954 Nocera Inferiore, Italy |
| Died | 27 August 2011(2011-08-27) (aged 57) Freehold Township, New Jersey, USA |
| Siglum | patv |
| Education | Master's inElectrical Engineering fromPolytechnic Institute of New York; Master's inProject Management fromGeorge Washington University |
| Known for | author of DOS-C, theFreeDOS kernel |
| Call sign | WB2GBF |
Pasquale "Pat" J. Villani[1] (18 April 1954 – 27 August 2011) was an Americancomputer programmer, author, and advocate offree software, best known for his creation of DOS-C, aDOSemulator written in theC language and subsequently adapted as thekernel of theFreeDOSoperating system and a number of other projects includingDOSEMU forLinux. He used to sign his edits withsiglum "patv".
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 anMS-DOS 3.1-compatible interface emulator to write device drivers in the C high-level language instead of inassembly language,[3] as was the usual approach at that time. This interface emulator grew into a minimal operating system namedXDOS around 1988.[3]
He added anIPL to set up a boot environment before loading the actual operating system and developed an MS-DOS-compatible frontend API to applications.[3] In contrast to MS-DOS, which is not designed to bereentrant, the system calls of his operating system were,[3] which is often a requirement formultitasking andreal-time applications in embedded systems. This system was namedNSS-DOS and also offered commercially.[3]
When one potential contractor sought to use the OS in a system equipped with Motorola680x0 processors instead of Intelx86 processors, for which the system was designed originally and which utilize differentinstruction sets andmemory models, Villani was able to redesign his system to become portable across a range of different compilers and target environments.[3] This move to a completely different target platform, while losing binary compatibility with existing applications, would have required a completerewrite from scratch had his system not been written in a high-level language such as C, which allowed him to reuse large parts. His newDOS/NT used amicrokernel architecture with logical separation offile system,memory andtask manager.[3]
Villani joined the FreeDOS project in 1994 after readingJim Hall's announcement of a "PD-DOS" oncomp.os.msdos.misc.apps.[4] In response to Hall's announcement, Villani devised a derivative of DOS/NT namedDOS-C with amonolithic kernel and an architecture more similar to the non-multitasking MS-DOS,[3] and in 1995 he made it available for dual-use under aGPL[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 bookFreeDOS Kernel,[3] which describes the design of the DOS-C / FreeDOS kernel and the original FreeDOSCOMMAND.COMcommand line interpreter. The name of the operating system was subsequently officially changed to FreeDOS to reflect the spelling used in the book.[6]
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.
Villani was born inNocera Inferiore[8] near Naples, Italy,[1] grew up in Brooklyn,[9] New York, USA, and moved toFreehold Township,[8] New Jersey in 1990.
In 1976, he received hisBSEE degree fromPolytechnic Institute of Brooklyn[10] and in 1981 anMSEE degree inelectrical engineering fromPolytechnic Institute of New York.[10] In 2008, he also received a master's certificate inProject Management fromGeorge Washington University and he was an adjunct professor atBrookdale Community College beginning in 2010.
He previously worked forStratus Computers, Inc.[10] on their Continuum fault-tolerant product line and also as a consultant forAT&T Bell Laboratories. AtDigital Equipment Corporation[11] /Compaq[10] he worked as a principal software engineer on theOSF/1 /Digital UNIX /Tru64 UNIX operating system[10][11] beginning in 1995, and since 2006 had been Acting Director of Communications Infrastructure and Software Architect forVonage.
He was a member ofMARS,ARRL, andIEEE.[8][12]
I am of Italian origin and my first name is Pasquale, not Patrick. I use Pat as a nickname.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
