“Anyway, my shell project (as of my last firing it up a couple years ago)
basically launches, (..) I still have the Watcom source around if you want to
check it out or use it as a starting base.”
Give me!!! :p
Seriously though… you know what to do ;)
Working on:
Bird OS 2017 1.0.0a (western screech-owl)
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
"why? Because Freedos, that's why!"
Some Nice projects:
- Freedos
- Night DOS Kernel
Van: Mercury Thirteen
Verzonden: vrijdag 19 februari 2016 05:51
Aan: Technical discussion and questions for FreeDOS developers.
Onderwerp: Re: [Freedos-devel] An idea???
This was my intent for many years. Eventually I shelved the project because it
a shell simply can't do all I wanted it to; I needed to go more low-level for
that. At its heart, DOS (MS-, IBM-, Free- or otherwise) is a single tasking OS.
What this means is that you can make a shell program to replace the command
interpreter but when you launch a program, everything else stops until that
program exits. This kinda breaks the functionality which one may think putting
a shell atop DOS would achieve. If you're basically making a file manager, then
that's quite doable and you'd basically end up with a Windows 3.x clone. Well,
I shouldn't say clone per se, because I hope you'd give it a much better
interface than that of that eyesore.
In theory you could develop small apps (and even run them multitasked) for a
shell. Basically you'd include in your shell a rudimentary virtual machine
which would execute bytecode a'la Java. What this bytecode would be is
completely up to you. Do you make a custom bytecode which is powerful and
compact yet not understood by any existing development tools out there? Do you
make the bytecode basically a direct ripoff of the x86 instruction set,
enabling you to run small programs compiled by anything from NASM to
QuickBASIC? Do you say screw it and just make a whole new kernel which will
handle all this fanciness at a hardware level as it was meant to be? These are
all issues you'd have to address if you took this route. Granted, the virtual
machine approach would require lots of patience and time to implement, but it
can be done. Don't ask me how I know lol
Anyway, my shell project (as of my last firing it up a couple years ago)
basically launches, does some environment probing, sets up some structures and
then sits in a loop where you can access a menu and test out the various
features and such. There's code for handling VESA mode switching, drawing in
and manipulating off-screen memory buffers known as pixmaps, text string
manipulation, mouse polling, direct LBA disk access and even the tiny
beginnings of PCI bus probing. I still have the Watcom source around if you
want to check it out or use it as a starting base.
So far as your question, a 16-bit shell can load whatever graphics formats it's
been programmed to handle. The biggest hang-up to doing so is the screen mode
situation under DOS. There's a good chance you're going to want graphics which
don't look blocky and colors depth beyond 256. If that's true, then your code
needs to use VESA. Doing so gives you access to smooth animation, millions of
colors and high resolutions (up to 1600 x 1200, I believe), all of which you
normally can't have under plain DOS. I have 16-bit code (some written from
scratch, some retooled from public domain works) to load and save images in
jpg, bmp, pcx, gif (and a few other) formats. Although it's not all been ported
to Watcom as of yet, it may come in handy for you as well. Images can be quite
large and working with them can therefore involve large amounts of data, so I
would definitely recommend using speedy 32-bit Watcom code (and the
access-to-gobs-of-memory associated with it) for this kind of work.
Others have given many nice examples of DOS GUI software but I didn't see Qube
mentioned. I'm not sure if it was ever released or whatever, but I think it
certainly is a nice looking addition to the list. Make your shell sport an
interface like that, and you just may have something. :) Also, our own Chelson
works on DOSCore (formerly OZone, I believe), so he may be a valuable resource
to you as well. Small world, eh?
Personally, while I may not use a GUI much for my DOS needs, I still think it
would be nice to see FreeDOS get this addition because... well, you know why. ;)
On 2/17/2016 3:19 PM, Maarten Vermeulen wrote:
Hi all,
It’s not really about FreeDOS… but it has something to do with it. :)
I thought that maybe if you all like the idea, I could make a GUI shell. It
would be exclusive of course. Though, It will be especially for FreeDOS. And
maybe also MS-DOS and Night DOS. It’s a sort of a vote. Would you like the idea
of a new GUI shell? Something new, newer then the old original (still nice)
Windows shells (Windows 1.0; 1.10; 2.0 etc.). I liked the idea, but if no one
likes the idea it’s a bit of a pointless thing. Also this will be a second
project, where I can work on when my other project (BirdOS) is paused for a
bit. Then I can wipe my mind for a bit.. :)
Some things though:
- Can a 16-bit OS load bitmap images?
- Can, if the idea is voted as a yes, I ‘borrow the FreeDOS logo for [1].
[1] a ‘made for FreeDOS 1.2’ and ‘compatible with FreeDOS ‘1.1’ emblem/image.
This will (maybe) be done with several OS’s.. It will be especially for FreeDOS.
Get the discussion going! :)
-Maarten
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