On 12/27/13, Michael Robinson <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 10:40 -0500, James Crawford wrote: >> Hey Guys, >> >> >> >> I have a Pentium 3 running Freedos alone. I tried to load Win 3.1 and >> got the error : Win 3.1 will not run in protected mode. I understand >> that the command.com runs in protected mode. Do I have to change this >> permanently to run Windows. How do I get Windows to work? >> >> >> >> Thanks! >> >> >> >> Jim Crawford > > I have Windows 3.1 working on a Pentium 3 running freedos 1.1. I think > I'm using Jemmex for the memory manager and I believe I'm running it in > 386 enhanced mode. That said, I get a memory manager crash when I exit > Windows 3.1 and I notice that Loderunner for whatever reason crashes > before I reach the first level with bombs. Too bad I can't get sound in > Windows 3.1. I have a Soundblaster 16, but it's the PCI version that > only comes with an expanded memory dos driver, a Windows 9x driver, and > XP drivers. > > I wish there was a 100% compatible replacement for Windows 3.1 that is > free. There is a lot of software that requires Windows 3.1. ReactOS is > an attempt to clone Windows NT and support Windows software designed for > at least Windows XP. Developers are trying to crank out a 0.4 release, > the last release was 0.3.15 back in September. See > http://www.reactos.org. > > I wonder if someone could debug what is causing Windows 3.1 running on > freedos to crash and develop workarounds? > > In other news, ReactOS is gaining an emulated dos environment of it's > own. Very recent development, so don't expect the environment to be > stable. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT > organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance > affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your > Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics > Pro! > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >
As far as getting the PCI SB16 to run in Win3.1: The "DOS driver" is really just an emulator/controller that sets up the PCI "Plug-N-Play" SB16 to show fixed address, IRQ, and DMA settings for the real SoundBlaster drivers that are in any "non-Plug-N-Play" DOS program that uses sound. I don't know why the Win3.1 SB16 driver that is available on many different Internet sites (it is mostly used for running Win3.1 in virtual PC software) wouldn't interface with that same emulator/controller. In other words, if you can play something like DOOM with full sound by merely setting the DOOM SoundBlaster driver to use Address 220, IRQ 5, and DMA 1, the Win3.1 driver should work the same way (I don't really know if that's true, but I would try it anyway). As for having a stable Win3.1 environment, I just go ahead and use MS-DOS when I want to fool around with something in Win3.1 and use FreeDOS for doing things FreeDOS has been developed to do. MS is known to put subtle bits of code in their products to try and keep customers as "MicroSoft centric" as possible. I doubt there would ever be enough free development effort available to successfully produce a 100% compatible clone of any MS operating systems. Very few people have that much "free" time in their lives (at least, not those that have a life...) That being said, I do know that one of the things that might be causing stability problems is how Win3.1 grabs as much memory as it can when it goes into enhanced mode. Remember, Win3.1 was designed back when the average new "high-end" PC only had maybe 4 MB of total memory available. MS wanted it to run well on such machines and one of the tricks they used was to grab any kilobytes of ram available in the upper and high memory areas. Those particular memory addresses are used in special ways in the DOS environment and the FreeDOS memory managers operate in strictly standardized and documented ways while MS did not. Maybe if you used exclude statements in the SYSTEM.INI file to force Windows to stay away from those areas some of these stability problems might go away. Just an idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
