Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. No. The VBE 3.0 standard doesn't define any new modes at all. The 640x480x256 mode (0x101h) was defined from the very beginning, in VBE 1.0. Of course actual support depends on hardware. If you need 640x480x256 with linear framebuffer access, it was added later, in VBE 2.0. VBE 3.0 added things like refresh rates control and stereo glasses support, so I don't see why 3.0 could be _required_ for your app. Please advice if I missed some point. -- -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: VERIFY Test and improve your parallel project with help from experts and peers. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Just a few replies... I think it was written in Turbo C++ 3.0. It's been awhile. I've uninstalled it because I thought I had a backup around here. If not, I'm sure I can find images of the install disks on the web somewhere. I probably have it on floppies (ha ha). Back in the early 90s I had a shareware door business that was active in FidoNet and DoorNet before the web took over and the dialup BBS became passe'. It was called Dirt Cheap Software, and fully lived up to its name -- I didn't make any money, but it kept me out of trouble. Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. I reserved certain entries in the palette because those colors were used to draw other things on the screen. Otherwise the status bar, text, etc would be constantly changing colors as new images are put up. Total storage is about 23 MB and growing, mainly because of the number of images, and the fact that they use only RLE compression to help them display quickly. The program itself is pretty small. I have an account on the Vogons site, in hopes they would help me get my application running in DosBox. But the responses to the inquiries that I've posted there have been universally abrupt. If people persist in helping by talking over my head and acting intellectually superior then I prefer not to play in their sandbox. Back to the coal mine... Bruce On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Just a few answers: On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 4:51 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: (part one) My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. (BTW, which Turbo C version? Some here still use it.) So it's not NTFS that is bothering you, nor 32-bit NTVDM, just the lack of VESA support? It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. I don't know jack about graphics, honestly. But IIRC the normal BIOS only supports 640x480x16 (16 colors?) or some such. It couldn't be too too hard to adjust to running in fewer colors (although not ideal) e.g. under WinXP. And/or you could just resize your .PCX image files, etc. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. But how much total storage do you need? More than 1.4 MB? You could uncompress it from physical floppy to RAM disk if speed is an issue. It's not that floppies are so great, but they've been around forever and have fairly good support and are fairly simple to use, modify, emulate, etc. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; notepad dosbox-0.74.conf (change memsize=16 to memsize=32 if desired) (change core=auto to core=dynamic) (try again) (revert changes or use a separate .conf for certain projects) I'll admit it can be fairly slow, but it's mostly for popular games. In fact, it's only for games, as the devs often admit. But Doom and Quake (mostly) run perfectly fine under it, etc. etc. Since your game is an actual game, you could always post on the DOSBox forum (Vogons / ZetaFleet or whatever) and bug the devs to fix it for you. Assuming you're willing to share with them also. I know you don't like emulators (who does?), but when they work, they work well. And DOSBox is small and easy to use (and GPL). and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. Well, the point is that DOSBox is a natural solution for DOS gaming. Of course, it's not a real DOS, per se, but it works pretty well. However, if you're unwilling to hack at it some more in cooperation with DOSBox devs, then you'll have to find another way. It's not that booting a CD is bad, but sometimes people like not having to reboot (and lose network access, background processes, etc.) just to play a game. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. The problem with NTFS is moreso in the overhead, both memory and storage, not to mention its inherent security that is underdocumented on purpose (and of course several internal revisions). XP is the last Windows to boot natively off of a FAT file system. Newer ones only boot off of NTFS, but at least those newer ones have built-in capabilities to resize the main NTFS partition, if desired (which XP lacks, sadly, hence the need for GParted). Floppy disks? I realizing I'm backtracking by using DOS instead of
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
The possible reason you didn't make any money off our shareware biz is that people back then were Not sure if they would receive the full version for the money sent, scams On Tuesday, November 27, 2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: Just a few replies... I think it was written in Turbo C++ 3.0. It's been awhile. I've uninstalled it because I thought I had a backup around here. If not, I'm sure I can find images of the install disks on the web somewhere. I probably have it on floppies (ha ha). Back in the early 90s I had a shareware door business that was active in FidoNet and DoorNet before the web took over and the dialup BBS became passe'. It was called Dirt Cheap Software, and fully lived up to its name -- I didn't make any money, but it kept me out of trouble. Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. I reserved certain entries in the palette because those colors were used to draw other things on the screen. Otherwise the status bar, text, etc would be constantly changing colors as new images are put up. Total storage is about 23 MB and growing, mainly because of the number of images, and the fact that they use only RLE compression to help them display quickly. The program itself is pretty small. I have an account on the Vogons site, in hopes they would help me get my application running in DosBox. But the responses to the inquiries that I've posted there have been universally abrupt. If people persist in helping by talking over my head and acting intellectually superior then I prefer not to play in their sandbox. Back to the coal mine... Bruce On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Just a few answers: On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 4:51 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: (part one) My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. (BTW, which Turbo C version? Some here still use it.) So it's not NTFS that is bothering you, nor 32-bit NTVDM, just the lack of VESA support? It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. I don't know jack about graphics, honestly. But IIRC the normal BIOS only supports 640x480x16 (16 colors?) or some such. It couldn't be too too hard to adjust to running in fewer colors (although not ideal) e.g. under WinXP. And/or you could just resize your .PCX image files, etc. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. But how much total storage do you need? More than 1.4 MB? You could uncompress it from physical floppy to RAM disk if speed is an issue. It's not that floppies are so great, but they've been around forever and have fairly good support and are fairly simple to use, modify, emulate, etc. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; notepad dosbox-0.74.conf (change memsize=16 to memsize=32 if desired) (change core=auto to core=dynamic) (try again) (revert changes or use a separate .conf for certain projects) I'll admit it can be fairly slow, but it's mostly for popular games. In fact, it's only for games, as the devs often admit. But Doom and Quake (mostly) run perfectly fine under it, etc. etc. Since your game is an actual game, you could always post on the DOSBox forum (Vogons / ZetaFleet or whatever) and bug the devs to fix it for you. Assuming you're willing to share with them also. I know you don't like emulators (who does?), but when they work, they work well. And DOSBox is small and easy to use (and GPL). and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. Well, the point is that DOSBox is a natural solution for DOS gaming. Of course, it's not a real DOS, per se, but it works pretty well. However, if you're unwilling to hack at it some more in cooperation with DOSBox devs, then you'll have to find another way. It's not that booting a CD is bad, but sometimes people like not having to reboot (and lose network access, background processes, etc.) just to play a game. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. The problem with NTFS is moreso in the overhead, both memory and storage, not to mention its inherent security that is underdocumented on purpose (and of course several internal revisions). XP is the last Windows to boot natively off of a FAT file system.
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
It's true that a lot of developers just quit supporting their products. I once figured out how much I was making for all the time I was spending on Dirt Cheap Software. It came to about 15 cents per hour. But I wasn't doing it for the money -- it was more of a hobby than a business. I still have a file in my desk of the registration forms that some BBS sysops sent in, and it remains gratifying to know that somebody found my efforts to be worthwhile. Bruce On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 3:09 PM, Chris Evans aaxiomfin...@gmail.com wrote: The possible reason you didn't make any money off our shareware biz is that people back then were Not sure if they would receive the full version for the money sent, scams -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: DESIGN Expert tips on starting your parallel project right. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Hi, On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 2:01 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I think it was written in Turbo C++ 3.0. It's been awhile. I've uninstalled it because I thought I had a backup around here. If not, I'm sure I can find images of the install disks on the web somewhere. I probably have it on floppies (ha ha). Embarcadero has Turbo C++ 1.01, but it's only freeware to registered users of their other (newer) products, oddly enough. And you can't redistribute it. And you've gotta give them lots of personal info for free registration. Long story short: OpenWatcom is open source and supports 16-bit DOS targets and C++, so that's a better bet. http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/c/openwatcom/1.9/ Back in the early 90s I had a shareware door business that was active in FidoNet and DoorNet before the web took over and the dialup BBS became passe'. It was called Dirt Cheap Software, and fully lived up to its name -- I didn't make any money, but it kept me out of trouble. I was pretty young in those days, so I only used BBSes for about two years or so before the Internet became ubiquitous. They were cool, though, definitely. Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. I reserved certain entries in the palette because those colors were used to draw other things on the screen. Otherwise the status bar, text, etc would be constantly changing colors as new images are put up. I don't know, I'm no graphics guru. Do you still have sources? If so, at least in theory you could fix it. (Or binary patch, heheh.) Total storage is about 23 MB and growing, mainly because of the number of images, and the fact that they use only RLE compression to help them display quickly. The program itself is pretty small. Yikes. I have an account on the Vogons site, in hopes they would help me get my application running in DosBox. But the responses to the inquiries that I've posted there have been universally abrupt. If people persist in helping by talking over my head and acting intellectually superior then I prefer not to play in their sandbox. I found the thread. It's not that abrupt. I think they might help more if you give them more details. http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=33987 1). Try changing the video card setting in the dosbox-0.74.conf file (or similar copy). Mix and match, play with it a bit. Describe to them exactly what it's doing and what it should be doing. Take a screenshot (esp. since DOSBox supports this natively, Ctrl-F5, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, then check your Program Files\dosbox\captures subdir or whatever). Extra credit for screenshots of physical hardware running the game correctly. 2). Upload your game somewhere so they can test or debug it. (I know it's big, but ... if at all possible ) 3). Ask them what specific files are needed (and where to get) S3 + BIOS add-ons and how to test it. -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: INSIGHTS What's next for parallel hardware, programming and related areas? Interviews and blogs by thought leaders keep you ahead of the curve. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
I got turboc on my server at FTP://digitalatoll.com/PUB/ELITE/WAREZ/ On Tuesday, November 27, 2012, Rugxulo wrote: Hi, On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 2:01 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net javascript:; wrote: I think it was written in Turbo C++ 3.0. It's been awhile. I've uninstalled it because I thought I had a backup around here. If not, I'm sure I can find images of the install disks on the web somewhere. I probably have it on floppies (ha ha). Embarcadero has Turbo C++ 1.01, but it's only freeware to registered users of their other (newer) products, oddly enough. And you can't redistribute it. And you've gotta give them lots of personal info for free registration. Long story short: OpenWatcom is open source and supports 16-bit DOS targets and C++, so that's a better bet. http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/c/openwatcom/1.9/ Back in the early 90s I had a shareware door business that was active in FidoNet and DoorNet before the web took over and the dialup BBS became passe'. It was called Dirt Cheap Software, and fully lived up to its name -- I didn't make any money, but it kept me out of trouble. I was pretty young in those days, so I only used BBSes for about two years or so before the Internet became ubiquitous. They were cool, though, definitely. Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. I reserved certain entries in the palette because those colors were used to draw other things on the screen. Otherwise the status bar, text, etc would be constantly changing colors as new images are put up. I don't know, I'm no graphics guru. Do you still have sources? If so, at least in theory you could fix it. (Or binary patch, heheh.) Total storage is about 23 MB and growing, mainly because of the number of images, and the fact that they use only RLE compression to help them display quickly. The program itself is pretty small. Yikes. I have an account on the Vogons site, in hopes they would help me get my application running in DosBox. But the responses to the inquiries that I've posted there have been universally abrupt. If people persist in helping by talking over my head and acting intellectually superior then I prefer not to play in their sandbox. I found the thread. It's not that abrupt. I think they might help more if you give them more details. http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=33987 1). Try changing the video card setting in the dosbox-0.74.conf file (or similar copy). Mix and match, play with it a bit. Describe to them exactly what it's doing and what it should be doing. Take a screenshot (esp. since DOSBox supports this natively, Ctrl-F5, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, then check your Program Files\dosbox\captures subdir or whatever). Extra credit for screenshots of physical hardware running the game correctly. 2). Upload your game somewhere so they can test or debug it. (I know it's big, but ... if at all possible ) 3). Ask them what specific files are needed (and where to get) S3 + BIOS add-ons and how to test it. -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: INSIGHTS What's next for parallel hardware, programming and related areas? Interviews and blogs by thought leaders keep you ahead of the curve. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net javascript:; https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: INSIGHTS What's next for parallel hardware, programming and related areas? Interviews and blogs by thought leaders keep you ahead of the curve. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Yeah, I still have the source. I get an itch to work on it every few years. DosBox ain't gonna happen. If I decide to go the emulator route it will be VM. Bruce On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 2:01 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I think it was written in Turbo C++ 3.0. It's been awhile. I've uninstalled it because I thought I had a backup around here. If not, I'm sure I can find images of the install disks on the web somewhere. I probably have it on floppies (ha ha). Embarcadero has Turbo C++ 1.01, but it's only freeware to registered users of their other (newer) products, oddly enough. And you can't redistribute it. And you've gotta give them lots of personal info for free registration. Long story short: OpenWatcom is open source and supports 16-bit DOS targets and C++, so that's a better bet. http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/c/openwatcom/1.9/ Back in the early 90s I had a shareware door business that was active in FidoNet and DoorNet before the web took over and the dialup BBS became passe'. It was called Dirt Cheap Software, and fully lived up to its name -- I didn't make any money, but it kept me out of trouble. I was pretty young in those days, so I only used BBSes for about two years or so before the Internet became ubiquitous. They were cool, though, definitely. Palletized 640x480x256 colors requires VBE 3.0. I reserved certain entries in the palette because those colors were used to draw other things on the screen. Otherwise the status bar, text, etc would be constantly changing colors as new images are put up. I don't know, I'm no graphics guru. Do you still have sources? If so, at least in theory you could fix it. (Or binary patch, heheh.) Total storage is about 23 MB and growing, mainly because of the number of images, and the fact that they use only RLE compression to help them display quickly. The program itself is pretty small. Yikes. I have an account on the Vogons site, in hopes they would help me get my application running in DosBox. But the responses to the inquiries that I've posted there have been universally abrupt. If people persist in helping by talking over my head and acting intellectually superior then I prefer not to play in their sandbox. I found the thread. It's not that abrupt. I think they might help more if you give them more details. http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=33987 1). Try changing the video card setting in the dosbox-0.74.conf file (or similar copy). Mix and match, play with it a bit. Describe to them exactly what it's doing and what it should be doing. Take a screenshot (esp. since DOSBox supports this natively, Ctrl-F5, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, then check your Program Files\dosbox\captures subdir or whatever). Extra credit for screenshots of physical hardware running the game correctly. 2). Upload your game somewhere so they can test or debug it. (I know it's big, but ... if at all possible ) 3). Ask them what specific files are needed (and where to get) S3 + BIOS add-ons and how to test it. -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: INSIGHTS What's next for parallel hardware, programming and related areas? Interviews and blogs by thought leaders keep you ahead of the curve. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: INSIGHTS What's next for parallel hardware, programming and related areas? Interviews and blogs by thought leaders keep you ahead of the curve. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Hi Bruce. Your project sounds interesting. If for any reason the image you found does not serve, take a look at the ultimate boot cd. www.ultimatebootcd.com I cannot say if any of the tools will do more than what you have found, but they might. Karen On Mon, 26 Nov 2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: I'll try to answer some of the questions here. My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. Asking them to load emulators, other shells or OSs, or otherwise follow intimidating instructions won't meet my objectives. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. Floppy disks? I realizing I'm backtracking by using DOS instead of a GUI, but am loath to go all the way to 80s technology. A bootable thumb drive, though, intrigues me -- because I can write to it. But how do you make it show up? If I stick one in a USB port and restart, my BIOS menu doesn't show it as a drive. A boot image that requires a loader before it's seen by the BIOS sounds like a real chicken-or-egg problem. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. If I go silent and unresponsive for a day or two it's because I'm either modifying that CD image...or maybe even doing something in real life. Regards, Bruce On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Just for clarity, since I am not exactly sure what you meant, On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 9:28 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. Who is the target of this program? You? Other? WinXP only? Native DOS? Or just anybody with a PC? IIRC, VESA 3 didn't add much to the standard (refresh rates?). Is that what you meant? Or did you really mean LFB (VESA 2)? Does your program *have* to run atop FAT? Does it write to the hard disk directly? Or just it just use normal DOS (file) calls? Regarding porting to DirectX (or SDL) or whatever, what was the app written in? You could probably switch pretty easily if you used Turbo Pascal or Turbo C. Heck, even Allegro would probably simplify things (if you still wanted partial DOS support). I'm not exactly sure why you seem to want to run natively instead of emulated. DOSBox supports VESA, and VirtualBox can (sometimes) work (VT-X!). DOSEMU ain't too shabby either for gfx. But if you're trying to run under WinXP explicitly (or worse, anything newer, sigh), you're probably barking up the wrong tree. :-( -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Well, I've been working on this awhile and have learned a lot. And most of what I've learned is what others have been trying to tell me. All the bootable CDs that I've seen have contained a floppy disk image. This is what actually boots. During the boot process the embedded AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS reload the drive and assigns it a DOS drive letter. Only after that's done does the full content of the CD become accessible to the OS. MagicISO seems to do well with editing the CD image but not the FD image. To get this to autorun, I have to be able to edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. So MagicISO is not the answer. I've done a full scan and detected no sign of the trojan that someone warned me about. Nonetheless, I have removed this software from my computer. I did a full backup and saved my system state last weekend, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm now starting all over using the instructions found here: http://www.k1ea.com/hints/Creating_a_Bootable_DOS_CD_V%201.5.pdf I would like to do this using FreeDOS instead of DOS 7.1, though. The more I play with FreeDOS the more I like its features. What actually happens if I install FreeDOS on my Windows computer? I don't want to do that and end up with a machine that won't boot XP. Thanks, Bruce On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:35 AM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.netwrote: I'll try to answer some of the questions here. My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. Asking them to load emulators, other shells or OSs, or otherwise follow intimidating instructions won't meet my objectives. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. Floppy disks? I realizing I'm backtracking by using DOS instead of a GUI, but am loath to go all the way to 80s technology. A bootable thumb drive, though, intrigues me -- because I can write to it. But how do you make it show up? If I stick one in a USB port and restart, my BIOS menu doesn't show it as a drive. A boot image that requires a loader before it's seen by the BIOS sounds like a real chicken-or-egg problem. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. If I go silent and unresponsive for a day or two it's because I'm either modifying that CD image...or maybe even doing something in real life. Regards, Bruce On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Just for clarity, since I am not exactly sure what you meant, On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 9:28 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. Who is the target of this program? You? Other? WinXP only? Native DOS? Or just anybody with a PC? IIRC, VESA 3 didn't add much to the standard (refresh rates?). Is that what you meant? Or did you really mean LFB (VESA 2)? Does your program *have* to run atop FAT? Does it write to the hard disk directly? Or just it just use normal DOS (file) calls? Regarding porting to DirectX (or SDL) or whatever, what was the app written in? You could probably switch pretty easily if you used Turbo Pascal or Turbo C. Heck, even Allegro would probably simplify things (if you still wanted partial DOS support). I'm not exactly sure why you seem to want to run natively instead of emulated. DOSBox supports VESA, and VirtualBox can (sometimes) work (VT-X!). DOSEMU ain't too shabby either for gfx. But if you're trying to run under WinXP explicitly (or worse, anything newer, sigh), you're probably barking up the wrong tree. :-( -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Op 26-11-2012 20:47, bruce.bowman tds.net schreef: All the bootable CDs that I've seen have contained a floppy disk image. This is what actually boots. During the boot process the embedded AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS reload the drive and assigns it a DOS drive letter. Only after that's done does the full content of the CD become accessible to the OS. Yes, DOS is only able to boot from FAT filesystem, and thus not natively from CD-ROM as that uses ISO9660 filesystem. In theory it might be possible to build this into the FreeDOS kernel, but then again it's not really DOS anymore in such a case. To work around this, the EL-Torito specification was created, allowing you to specify a bootloader or bootdisk image as startup part on a CD. MagicISO seems to do well with editing the CD image but not the FD image. To get this to autorun, I have to be able to edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. So MagicISO is not the answer. I've done a full scan and detected no sign of the trojan that someone warned me about. Nonetheless, I have removed this software from my computer. I did a full backup and saved my system state last weekend, so I'm not too worried about it. I use WinImage to extract files to local disk, then modify these files and finally insert/replace them again in the disk image. Your ISO modification tool (UltraISO, PowerISO etc) might allow to insert the modified bootdisk imagefile again. The other option ofcourse is to recreate the CD-ROM using ImgBurn for example (or arcane options like MKISOFS). Explaining how to use CD mastering programs can be quite difficult. I'm now starting all over using the instructions found here: http://www.k1ea.com/hints/Creating_a_Bootable_DOS_CD_V%201.5.pdf At first sight that looks like Georg Potthast's guide for creating a bootcd using a harddisk image. I would like to do this using FreeDOS instead of DOS 7.1, though. The more I play with FreeDOS the more I like its features. What actually happens if I install FreeDOS on my Windows computer? I don't want to do that and end up with a machine that won't boot XP. I'd recommend not to install FreeDOS on the same partition (driveletter) as Windows XP. A separate partition or disk might be safest. On modern systems use a USB Flash Drive and some USB installation tool like RUFUS. Bernd -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Okay, I have the CD working now, just need to fine-tune it. Is anyone aware of an FDOS utility that can probe for available drives, preferably writable ones? On my machine it finds my FAT32 partition (D: in XP) and assigns it to the C: drive. Can I count on that behavior to continue on other machines? What's the best way to install FreeDOS on my D: drive (XP is on C:)? For further game development that might come in handy. Bruce On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 2:47 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.netwrote: Well, I've been working on this awhile and have learned a lot. And most of what I've learned is what others have been trying to tell me. All the bootable CDs that I've seen have contained a floppy disk image. This is what actually boots. During the boot process the embedded AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS reload the drive and assigns it a DOS drive letter. Only after that's done does the full content of the CD become accessible to the OS. MagicISO seems to do well with editing the CD image but not the FD image. To get this to autorun, I have to be able to edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. So MagicISO is not the answer. I've done a full scan and detected no sign of the trojan that someone warned me about. Nonetheless, I have removed this software from my computer. I did a full backup and saved my system state last weekend, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm now starting all over using the instructions found here: http://www.k1ea.com/hints/Creating_a_Bootable_DOS_CD_V%201.5.pdf I would like to do this using FreeDOS instead of DOS 7.1, though. The more I play with FreeDOS the more I like its features. What actually happens if I install FreeDOS on my Windows computer? I don't want to do that and end up with a machine that won't boot XP. Thanks, Bruce On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:35 AM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I'll try to answer some of the questions here. My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. Asking them to load emulators, other shells or OSs, or otherwise follow intimidating instructions won't meet my objectives. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. Floppy disks? I realizing I'm backtracking by using DOS instead of a GUI, but am loath to go all the way to 80s technology. A bootable thumb drive, though, intrigues me -- because I can write to it. But how do you make it show up? If I stick one in a USB port and restart, my BIOS menu doesn't show it as a drive. A boot image that requires a loader before it's seen by the BIOS sounds like a real chicken-or-egg problem. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. If I go silent and unresponsive for a day or two it's because I'm either modifying that CD image...or maybe even doing something in real life. Regards, Bruce On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Just for clarity, since I am not exactly sure what you meant, On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 9:28 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. Who is the target of this program? You? Other? WinXP only? Native DOS? Or just anybody with a PC? IIRC, VESA 3 didn't add much to the standard (refresh rates?). Is that what you meant? Or did you really mean LFB (VESA 2)? Does your program *have* to run atop FAT? Does it write to the hard disk directly? Or just it just use normal DOS (file) calls? Regarding porting to DirectX (or SDL) or whatever, what was the app written in? You could probably switch pretty easily if you used Turbo Pascal or Turbo C. Heck, even Allegro would probably simplify things (if you still wanted partial DOS support). I'm not exactly sure why you seem to want to run natively instead of emulated. DOSBox supports VESA, and VirtualBox can
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Hi, Just a few answers: On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 4:51 PM, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: (part one) My program is a fairly simple role-playing game. It was originally written in Turbo C for DOS, and reads/writes to disk using DOS (not BIOS) calls. (BTW, which Turbo C version? Some here still use it.) So it's not NTFS that is bothering you, nor 32-bit NTVDM, just the lack of VESA support? It runs in 256 palletized colors on a 640x480 console. I don't know jack about graphics, honestly. But IIRC the normal BIOS only supports 640x480x16 (16 colors?) or some such. It couldn't be too too hard to adjust to running in fewer colors (although not ideal) e.g. under WinXP. And/or you could just resize your .PCX image files, etc. While running, it frequently reads image files off disk, and for that reason won't fit on (or reliably run from) a floppy. I want to share it with friends such that all they have to do is insert a CD and boot up. But how much total storage do you need? More than 1.4 MB? You could uncompress it from physical floppy to RAM disk if speed is an issue. It's not that floppies are so great, but they've been around forever and have fairly good support and are fairly simple to use, modify, emulate, etc. Having said that, I've tried DosBox, just for my own purposes. My program runs very slowly in it, no matter what settings I use; notepad dosbox-0.74.conf (change memsize=16 to memsize=32 if desired) (change core=auto to core=dynamic) (try again) (revert changes or use a separate .conf for certain projects) I'll admit it can be fairly slow, but it's mostly for popular games. In fact, it's only for games, as the devs often admit. But Doom and Quake (mostly) run perfectly fine under it, etc. etc. Since your game is an actual game, you could always post on the DOSBox forum (Vogons / ZetaFleet or whatever) and bug the devs to fix it for you. Assuming you're willing to share with them also. I know you don't like emulators (who does?), but when they work, they work well. And DOSBox is small and easy to use (and GPL). and for some reason the graphics palette does not get reset properly. I've downloaded VM too, but haven't tried that yet, and for reasons already mentioned I probably won't. Well, the point is that DOSBox is a natural solution for DOS gaming. Of course, it's not a real DOS, per se, but it works pretty well. However, if you're unwilling to hack at it some more in cooperation with DOSBox devs, then you'll have to find another way. It's not that booting a CD is bad, but sometimes people like not having to reboot (and lose network access, background processes, etc.) just to play a game. The DFSee CD image that someone else recommended looks like something I can modify for my purposes. I've already booted off of that and confirmed that the game runs well...here at home, anyway. And it seems to detect and do i/o on my FAT32 partition just fine. NTFS? I'll worry about that later. The problem with NTFS is moreso in the overhead, both memory and storage, not to mention its inherent security that is underdocumented on purpose (and of course several internal revisions). XP is the last Windows to boot natively off of a FAT file system. Newer ones only boot off of NTFS, but at least those newer ones have built-in capabilities to resize the main NTFS partition, if desired (which XP lacks, sadly, hence the need for GParted). Floppy disks? I realizing I'm backtracking by using DOS instead of a GUI, but am loath to go all the way to 80s technology. A bootable thumb drive, though, intrigues me -- because I can write to it. It's not ideal but it's easy to use and widely supported (or at least used to be). But how do you make it show up? If I stick one in a USB port and restart, my BIOS menu doesn't show it as a drive. A boot image that requires a loader before it's seen by the BIOS sounds like a real chicken-or-egg problem. It's only older machines (sorry, not trying to disparage anyone) that don't boot from USB. E.g. my older P4 machine. For machines like that, you can use freeware PLoP boot manager (from floppy, hard disk, or CD-ROM) to boot from USB:http://www.plop.at/ (part two) All the bootable CDs that I've seen have contained a floppy disk image. Bernd is (one of) the resident experts. There are two modes for CD booting, one using fake floppy, one using another method. It's a bit confusing to me. But no, I don't think you're forced to use a floppy image. Though, again, it seems the easiest way (IMO), esp. if your whole app + minimal FreeDOS can fit (compressed) on a 1.4 MB disk. MagicISO seems to do well with editing the CD image but not the FD image. As mentioned, you can edit the floppy disk image in various ways: QEMU, VirtualBox, mtools, etc. I'm now starting all over using the instructions found here: http://www.k1ea.com/hints/Creating_a_Bootable_DOS_CD_V%201.5.pdf I would like to do this using FreeDOS instead of DOS
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Op 25-11-2012 4:28, bruce.bowman tds.net schreef: The bootable CD images that I've been seeing for FreeDOS and DOS 7.1 are all /installation/ disks that first fake a floppy drive and then load a bootable floppy disk image that cannot be edited. I don't want to actually install DOS and overwrite Windoze. I do want something that will boot directly to the command line, allow me to add my own files and directories and...preferably...allow me to put DOS commands in an AUTOEXEC file. FreeDOS 1.0 has a LiveCD mode still. The used floppy image file is writeable once loaded (to system memory). I don't know if the program that you want to distribute fits inside the floppy part (anywhere between 360KB and 2.88MB) and if you want to write to ramdisk or to FAT-filesystem on harddisk. All I can recommend is to start using an emulator like VirtualBox. 1) Use a CD burning program to create ISO that holds your program 2) Assign it as CD to your emulator 3) Use a bootable floppy image file and assign it as floppy to emulator 4) Boot the emulator and boot from floppy inside it 5) Modify the floppy to suit your goals by A) deleting unnecessary files B) loading CD drivers and accessing the CD-ROM (assigned ISO) C) loading a ramdisk driver and copying CD content to ramdisk 6) Use CD burning program to add the floppy as bootup disk to ISO If you decide to start with an existing bootCD, just delete autoexec.bat from the floppy image part and write your own from scratch to avoid all the SETUP/install procedures. Maybe this is usefull as well: http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/ *In XP, I can hit F8, boot to safe mode, and get SVGA graphics with VBE that way. But it messes up my desktop and takes a long time to boot. Scitech used to have some UNIVBE drivers. No idea if they still exist. Bernd -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Hi, On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 12:41 AM, Felix Miata mrma...@earthlink.net wrote: On 2012-11-25 01:24 (GMT-0500) bruce.bowman tds.net composed: Between my wife and I, we own six computers. None of them have a floppy drive. No drive doesn't necessarily mean neither floppy controller nor place to put a floppy drive. A new floppy drive is easily found on the internet for under $10 if you can't find a free one locally, and floppy cables from old puters abound. Floppies are kind of dead nowadays. Sure, you can (barely) still find ways to use them, but most people try to avoid them (which indirectly hampers those who want to use them). But yes, I have a Sony USB floppy drive that works well. Though for various reasons I haven't been using it much lately. Have you considered putting DOS on a bootable USB stick? An example to try: http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/cdrom.php For completeness, here's a better? :-) alternative: http://rufus.akeo.ie/ -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
-Original Message- From: bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net winxpfix.zip and videoprt.zip have both been tried and neither of them work. They might provide VESA 1.2 or 2.0 capability but not 3.0. Between my wife and I, we own six computers. None of them have a floppy drive. www.tigerdirect.com look for usb floppy drives if your system can boot from removable drives aka usb it will accept this and if you have old disks this can enable saving the data. Myself I have geezer ware and old computers with floppy drives still in them. But its likely there will still be uses for some things with floppies for a while. CWSOV -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
also at www.floppydisk.com they have usb floppy drives that are plug-and-play compatible with windows. i have 2 and they're great under windows 7 64-bit. eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. The bootable CD images that I've been seeing for FreeDOS and DOS 7.1 are all *installation* disks that first fake a floppy drive and then load a bootable floppy disk image that cannot be edited. I don't want to actually install DOS and overwrite Windoze. I do want something that will boot directly to the command line, allow me to add my own files and directories and...preferably...allow me to put DOS commands in an AUTOEXEC file. Any thoughts and/or advice are appreciated. Bruce *In XP, I can hit F8, boot to safe mode, and get SVGA graphics with VBE that way. But it messes up my desktop and takes a long time to boot. -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write access a bit of a gamble IMPE... Ralf -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Thanks for your reply, Ralf. I have a FAT32 partition (D drive). At home, it might be simpler to just install FreeDOS as the OS on that partition and set up a dual-boot system (XP on C:, FreeDOS on D:). In fact I'm considering doing just that, and frankly wouldn't mind recommendations on how to bring that about, either. But it doesn't fix my problem of trying to find some way to distribute the program on CD media to my friends. Ultimately I may rewrite it to use DirectX with a native 32-bit compiler but I've also been saying that for the last 5 years. Bruce On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 11:47 PM, Ralf A. Quint free...@gmx.net wrote: At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write access a bit of a gamble IMPE... Ralf -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 20:47 -0800, Ralf A. Quint wrote: At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write access a bit of a gamble IMPE... Ralf Can you perhaps create a freedos boot disk? Should be an option if you have an install CD. What is the size of this program that needs a fat16 file system specifically? I think you can have up to a 504 meg partition and still use FAT16. Any chance you can shrink that NTFS partition by 500 megs and install Freedos to a second primary partition using ntfsresize or partition magic? Another approach is to use Linux via a live CD to back up Windows XP to an external hard drive. Set that back up aside, make the NTFS partition the first primary partition making freedos install on a second primary partition. Any decent live Linux CD can resize NTFS partitions to open up 500 megs of space. An easier approach is to add another hard drive and install freedos onto that. How old is your computer? Good luck. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Michael -- Thanks much for your reply. Perhaps my reply to Ralf answers many of your questions. The program itself is not particularly large and would probably run in 300-400k of RAM. But when running it sequentially loads a lot of PCX images off disk. The program could be run from a ramdrive to overcome some of the i/o issues. I have an old Knoppix CD and have occasionally booted to that for troubleshooting purposes (lost passwords, etc). Back in the 90s I had a dual-boot Linux/W95 system. All the FreeDOS boot ISOs that I've seen are just for OS installation and do not appear to have LiveCD capability. If someone can point me to one that does I'd definitely appreciate that...I have MagicISO on my computer and that has proven somewhat helpful in this context. I don't own a floppy drive anymore and generally speaking do not plan to buy any new hardware. Regards, Bruce On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 12:11 AM, Michael Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com wrote: On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 20:47 -0800, Ralf A. Quint wrote: At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write access a bit of a gamble IMPE... Ralf Can you perhaps create a freedos boot disk? Should be an option if you have an install CD. What is the size of this program that needs a fat16 file system specifically? I think you can have up to a 504 meg partition and still use FAT16. Any chance you can shrink that NTFS partition by 500 megs and install Freedos to a second primary partition using ntfsresize or partition magic? Another approach is to use Linux via a live CD to back up Windows XP to an external hard drive. Set that back up aside, make the NTFS partition the first primary partition making freedos install on a second primary partition. Any decent live Linux CD can resize NTFS partitions to open up 500 megs of space. An easier approach is to add another hard drive and install freedos onto that. How old is your computer? Good luck. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Hi, have a couple ideas for you below... On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 22:28:39 -0500, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* There are a couple fixes out there to make VESA modes work for DOS programs running within Windows (though I haven`t tried them myself). Search for winxpfix.zip or videoprt.zip The bootable CD images that I've been seeing for FreeDOS and DOS 7.1 are all *installation* disks that first fake a floppy drive and then load a bootable floppy disk image that cannot be edited. If your program can run from a floppy, perhaps you could add it to the bootable image. Use a program like winimage, or write the image to a diskette, copy your program to it, then create a new image from there. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
winxpfix.zip and videoprt.zip have both been tried and neither of them work. They might provide VESA 1.2 or 2.0 capability but not 3.0. Between my wife and I, we own six computers. None of them have a floppy drive. Thanks, Bruce On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 12:47 AM, TJ Edmister damag...@hyakushiki.netwrote: Hi, have a couple ideas for you below... On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 22:28:39 -0500, bruce.bowman tds.net bruce.bow...@tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* There are a couple fixes out there to make VESA modes work for DOS programs running within Windows (though I haven`t tried them myself). Search for winxpfix.zip or videoprt.zip The bootable CD images that I've been seeing for FreeDOS and DOS 7.1 are all *installation* disks that first fake a floppy drive and then load a bootable floppy disk image that cannot be edited. If your program can run from a floppy, perhaps you could add it to the bootable image. Use a program like winimage, or write the image to a diskette, copy your program to it, then create a new image from there. -- Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
Amazon.com has USB powered floppy drives for 13$
Maybe put together a freedos boot floppy with said program on it
And run it from there
On Saturday, November 24, 2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote:
winxpfix.zip and videoprt.zip have both been tried and neither of them
work. They might provide VESA 1.2 or 2.0 capability but not 3.0.
Between my wife and I, we own six computers. None of them have a floppy
drive.
Thanks,
Bruce
On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 12:47 AM, TJ Edmister
damag...@hyakushiki.netjavascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'damag...@hyakushiki.net');
wrote:
Hi, have a couple ideas for you below...
On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 22:28:39 -0500, bruce.bowman tds.net
bruce.bow...@tds.net javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'bruce.bow...@tds.net'); wrote:
This may be a FAQ.
I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it
uses
VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later
versions
of Windoze.*
There are a couple fixes out there to make VESA modes work for DOS
programs running within Windows (though I haven`t tried them myself).
Search for winxpfix.zip or videoprt.zip
The bootable CD images that I've been seeing for FreeDOS and DOS 7.1 are
all *installation* disks that first fake a floppy drive and then load a
bootable floppy disk image that cannot be edited.
If your program can run from a floppy, perhaps you could add it to the
bootable image. Use a program like winimage, or write the image to a
diskette, copy your program to it, then create a new image from there.
--
Sent from my meager, humble desktop computer.
--
Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single
web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware,
SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial.
Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications!
http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov___
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
On 2012-11-25 01:24 (GMT-0500) bruce.bowman tds.net composed: Between my wife and I, we own six computers. None of them have a floppy drive. No drive doesn't necessarily mean neither floppy controller nor place to put a floppy drive. A new floppy drive is easily found on the internet for under $10 if you can't find a free one locally, and floppy cables from old puters abound. Have you tried or considered DOSEMU under Linux? Have you considered putting DOS on a bootable USB stick? An example to try: http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/cdrom.php Where there's enough will there's usually a way. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
