> On Jul 2, 2025, at 11:00 AM, Lutalli via Freedos-user > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > Thanks for the replies! Sorry for not providing the context, and yeah > PocketDOS is an emulator for WindowsCE, so mainly for pocket PCs / handheld > PCs. > > Website of PocketDOS: http://pocketdos.com <http://pocketdos.com/> > > After some research I figured it's true that PocketDOS supports only up to > 186. Thanks for pointing this out. > (I found there is a plugin that gives PocketDOS the ability to emulate 486, > however A) it doesn't work with the latest version of PocketDOS; B) even if > it did, it would be extremely slow (expectedly). > But can FreeDOS really not run on 186? > > On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 7:57 AM Rugxulo via Freedos-user > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > <mailto:freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net>> wrote: > Hi, > > On Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 9:18 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > <mailto:freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net>> wrote: > > > > Just to save others the search: I didn't remember what PocketDOS was, and > > assumed by the name it was some other version of DOS. > > > > >>"PocketDOS is a powerful virtual PC software environment for your pocket > > >>computer that allows you to run a DOS operating system and have instant > > >>access to many DOS applications* on your pocket computer, whilst > > >>simultaneously allowing the use of the pocket computer's native > > >>applications." > > http://www.pocketdos.com/ <http://www.pocketdos.com/> > > > > So in other words, it is a virtual machine system for WinCE. > > Although I never tried it, I think I remember reading up on it (back > in the day). IIRC, it's 186 emulation only, so perhaps that's the > problem. >
First the CD and USB installers Require a 386 or better CPU. CDs were not really available until 486 machines. Even then they were not common until Pentium based machines arrived. USB came after CD-ROM. The Floppy installer is compatible with 8086 was designed for EGA or better. However, it “should" work with lesser video cards. I say “should” because very little testing has been done for systems less than EGA. You stated that you get to the first Y/N prompt with a blinking cursor and cannot proceed. The input for that prompt is handled by VASK (part of V8PowerTools for DOS). It is a fairly simple assembly language program that waits for a user to provide a character matching the available options. Based on where you encountered a problem, there are two probable areas that could be the problem. VASK uses well defined BIOS routines to check if a key has been pressed. When it has it then retrieves that keystroke from the BIOS. These calls are standard BIOS calls which go back to the earliest Personal Computers. However, thee are other ways to retrieve keystrokes. For example, they can be fetched using the DOS function dispatcher or through I/O ports. VASK uses the BIOS because it is easy, reliable, simple and does not have any issues related to having DOS perform actions because of the keystroke. The second is related to reduced power consumption. There is CPU instruction that tells the processor to sleep in order to reduce power usage until the next interrupt occurs. A keystroke (among many things) will generate an interrupt and return full power. This instruction (HLT) has been around forever. Nothing that tool is doing requires anything more than a fully compatible 8086. The problem you have experienced sounds similar to a problem that was occurring in FDIMPLES back in 2017 when using the very popular commercial virtual machine Parallels. In that case, I was able to implement a work-around. However, the great team at Parallels had become aware of the issue. They found and created a fix for the bug in their Virtual Machine. https://github.com/shidel/FDIMPLES/issues/1 While it is not impossible there is a bizarre bug in VASK, it works fine in the other virtual machines and real hardware that has been tested. I highly suspect there is an issue with the PocketDOS BIOS implementation. Unfortunately, I do not have any WindowsCE devices and cannot perform any tests. Therefore, I will be unable to see if I can create a work-around solution or find a bug that may only effect PocketDOS. Sorry. If you like to dabble in assembly, the sources for V8PowerTools are at https://github.com/LoopZ/V8Power They just need NASM and either DOS (or Linux, Unix or macOS) to compile. I do recommend cross-compiling. It is a lot faster. As it was developed on a “need this yesterday” along side the current FreeDOS installer and has grown since then, the code is rather spaghetti and could use a rewrite. But, at least it is all inclusive and has no external libraries to try and find and integrate.
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