Hi there, nice to see that you're trying to tweak old software to fit on modern screens... still I have a cold shower for you :-) Sorry about it.
Not sure where DOS borrowed its "terminal" / console code, whether CP/M or UNIX... the fact is, that in the way of "support", the DOS console lacks quite a bit of flexibility, compared to modern terminal emulators running in the windowing GUI. Namely, DOS doesn't seem to support or understand an arbitrary number of rows or columns. As others have pointed out, the choice is quite limited: https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/base/mode/-/blob/master/SOURCE/MODE/MODECON .C?ref_type=heads#L266 https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/base/mode/-/blob/master/SOURCE/MODE/MODECON .C?ref_type=heads#L151 http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Mode So much for support on part of DOS, which practically means the command line itself, plus maybe some apps that rely on DOS for the console display (which ones are those?) A part of the problem is, that most software for DOS handles the video resolution and video output itself, directly with the hardware, typically using the VGA+VESA BIOS services to configure a resolution (if more than the classic 80x25 text mode is supported by the app). Some software understands 43 or 50 rows too - various Borland TurboVision TUI's and some file managers, if memory serves. But, that's about it. The source code to FreeDOS "mode" command speaks even about 60 rows text mode support, which is interesting. Some 2 decades ago, I sometimes used that in Linux at the text-mode console. Type vga=ask at the kernel command line, etc. The other key aspect is, that without detailed knowledge of your proprietary video hardware, you likely need to select one of the graphics modes offered by the VESA BIOS services. On graphical cards of the general "SuperVGA category", i.e. more modern derivatives of the legacy original VGA, the VESA BIOS typically offers a plethora of high-res graphical modes (addressed per pixel) and also some text modes, addressed by the character. There was also a resident extension called UNIVBE, which could add support for some modes on some popular hardware that shipped with a shoddy VESA option ROM. And this selection of VESA BIOS modes, is exactly what you get offered by the Linux "vga=ask", and what you can use in DOS, if your software supports the higher VESA VBE modes. To get a listing of available VESA modes in DOS, I recall a tool called VESATEST. Or was it VTEST ? Possibly this one: https://archive.org/details/msdos_VESA24_2_shareware Apparently that was written in 1993. Also my friend Rayer has written something: http://rayer.g6.cz/programm/programe.htm#VESATEST The current version is from 2018... If the VTEST shows you a text mode with 60 rows and about 132 characters, you can try supplying that one to "MODE CON COLS= LINES=". But it will only work in the pure DOS prompt. As already mentioned, various apps will mostly not respect this setting, and will set the video mode based on their own respective historical preference. I've just stumbled over a page that points to various VESA/VBE-related proggies for DOS: https://dosdriver.de/graph.php You may also find or write some tool to ask the BIOS for just any supported VESA mode, including graphical, and exit to DOS without switching the mode back to 80x25. Sometimes you'd end up in this state after a game has crashed gracefully enough to return. You can see the command.com working, characters do get displayed, the graphical modes often do support the BIOS text-mode output routines too - but the cursor probably won't blink, you may still be limited to 80x25 text-mode characters, and there are possibly other downsides, including the risk of a sudden freeze. Also, the DOS console code is not aware of the actual resolution of the screen, and keeps running in 80x25 characters (or whatever it was before). Times they are a changin'. While a character terminal with an 8x8 or 8x14 font size on a full HD display may look like punk to us greybeards, the same font size on a 4k display is clearly a case of "why bother". Technically no problem in Linux, and yes I have tried. Frank _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
