Re: [Freedos-devel] Package survey

[Antony Gordon]

 Hi,

I always thought it would be a good idea to model the FreeDOS install after
the MS-DOS 6.x or IBM Personal Computer DOS 6.x (or 7.x) and include the
actual core components of DOS. All the other stuff should be extra so a
fresh FreeDOS install would look exactly like what MS-DOS 6.x looked like
after installation. If you're using a ZIP file, that core install could be
unzipped to the :\DOS or :\FDOS.

-Tony

On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM Jerome Shidel  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Had a good time on the FreeDOS conference call. :-)
>
> We did spend a while going over some of the  current Survey statistic and
> some interesting trends.
>
> I just made a couple minor tweaks to it.
>
> Mostly, you can easily see the size of each package without hopping out to
> my repo.
>
> Obviously, no permanent decisions have been made regarding any packages.
>
> So, please. If you haven’t done so already, jump over to
> https://fd.lod.bz/survey and make your opinion known.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Jerome
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Application to check DOS API compatibility

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

There are some “unofficial” tests for genuine MS-DOS that can be used (within 
reason) to establish a “level” playing field for DOS. Microsoft used these 
methods as a part of the AARD code hidden in the Windows 3.1x startup program.

Undocumented DOS discusses the AARD code somewhat in detail. Generally 
speaking, the DOS API does experience some changes over it’s lifetime from 
about 2.0 until 6.22 although I believe after 5.0 it remained mostly unchanged.

-T

> On Jun 2, 2019, at 11:36 PM, Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-devel 
>  wrote:
> 
> Darn. I was hoping that, in light of the early MS-DOS clone market, there was 
> something maybe released by a third party to help users determine if their 
> DOS was MS-DOSsy enough. A reach, I know, but... oh, well. If I end up making 
> one, I'll certainly share! :)
> 
> Night is coming along well so far, and I'm trying my best to minimize 
> slipping the development schedule. Hopefully we'll be on track next year to 
> start test-running the first small .COM executables before later moving on to 
> EXE and even ELF binaries. 
> 
> 
> Sent with ProtonMail  Secure Email.
> 
> ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> On Saturday, June 1, 2019 3:18 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> 
>> Not that I'm aware of. Such a thing has never really been needed, since 
>> MS-DOS was always the gold standard, and Microsoft set the goalposts for 
>> most of DOS history. A "compatibility check" tool would have had to come out 
>> of Microsoft, but I can't see they would have been motivated to create a 
>> product to help others create competing DOS implementations.
>> 
>> Would be neat, though. If you write a tool to do this, please share it. You 
>> can use the RBIL as the basis for DOS interrupts.
>> 
>> I assume the NightDOS kernel is doing well, then? 
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/night-dos-kernel/PaPrNIvVWyo 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Jun 1, 2019 at 2:08 PM Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-devel 
>> > > wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> Ultimately, I'm looking for an application which can probe the DOS function 
>> calls on a given system and report how "compatible" the current system is, 
>> perhaps presenting a list of what DOS functions have successfully returned 
>> legitimate output. E.g. "Your DOS implementation supports interrupt 
>> functions X and Y but not Z."
>> 
>> I understand that in reality there may be no application which does exactly 
>> this... but perhaps in all of the collective knowledge here someone knows of 
>> a program to do something close? Thanks in advance!
>> 
>> 
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[Freedos-devel] C/C++ Compilers

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I’m still working on these compilers, Jim and I talked about another one that 
I’m playing with now, we’ll see what happens. 

Once I figure that part out, then I can work on the libraries…

-T
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Branded C/C++ Toolchain

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I did a build of OW 2.0 (it was rebranded) but nothing else was changed at this 
point. It turns out the best way to build it was on Windows. I tried Linux and 
failed and the path was too deep for MS-DOS to be used for building.

> On Jan 18, 2018, at 1:18 AM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 11:11 PM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
>> 
>> AFAIK no one on this project is interested in building a C compiler from 
>> scratch for
>> the purposes of developing FreeDOS.
> 
> Nobody's directly working on such, AFAIK, unless you count SmallerC
> (which is not DOS nor FreeDOS exclusive but does partially support
> it).
> 
>> DJGPP can’t reliably generate code for all the DOS modes which rules it out, 
>> MSC and the Borland compilers.
> 
> FreePascal's i8086-msdos can target all models, but that's TP and
> Delphi, not ISO C nor POSIX.
> 
>> The only 2 compilers that could possibly be customized would be Bruce’s C 
>> compiler
>> which I hear is missing some things and OpenWatcom.
> 
> DeSmet C or SmallerC both work, but they don't support all models. And
> the latter is always 386+ (which isn't that big a deal at this late
> date).
> 
> Actually, I think SmallerC is quite good, and I still want to make an
> official package one of these days.
> 
>> I guess it was/is a stupid idea anyway so there’s no real need to discuss it 
>> further.
> 
> The idea to have a slim or DOS-only build isn't stupid. But I guess
> most people don't have the motivation. I find it vaguely interesting,
> but even I would be overwhelmed trying to rebuild OpenWatcom. I still
> haven't tried the latest 2.0-pre builds:
> 
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/openwatcom/files/open-watcom-2.0-2017-11-01/
> 
> ("open-watcom-2_0-c-dos.exe" is 107.7 MB, presumably .ZIP sfx compressed 
> again.)
> 
> IIRC, the full OW 1.9 DOS install (only for DOS targets) was "only"
> like 45 MB or so.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Branded C/C++ Toolchain

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

AFAIK no one on this project is interested in building a C compiler from 
scratch for 
the purposes of developing FreeDOS. DJGPP can’t reliably generate code for all 
the 
DOS modes which rules it out, MSC and the Borland compilers. Pacific C is free 
but 
we only have access to the binary build and I doubt we can make changes to the 
distribution (maybe we can).

The only 2 compilers that could possibly be customized would be Bruce’s C 
compiler
which I hear is missing some things and OpenWatcom. The OW modification with
the name change, in my mind was to identify a heavily customized build of OW 
that
while it maintains compatibility with the original source, things that we don’t 
need for 
FreeDOS development can be stripped out (to make a smaller package) and other 
customizations for the things we actually do use.

Think of it like Ubuntu. What is Ubuntu if you really think about it? Debian 
customized
with the things (mostly) that you have to optionally include from unstable and 
custom
repositories. 

If the name is a sticking point, we can leave it as OW, but it should be clear 
that 
the OS/2, Win32 support, Win64 support (in 2.0), Linux (2.0), and perhaps the 
Netware
things would be removed. It would contain everything else PLUS all the common 
libraries needed to build FreeDOS applications and tools. 

I guess it was/is a stupid idea anyway so there’s no real need to discuss it 
further.

-Tony

> On Jan 17, 2018, at 12:07 PM, Tom Ehlert  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> The OpenWatcom toolchain is the reference compiler for
>> FreeDOS.
> when I started with FreeDOS, MSC 6.x was the recommended compiler to
> use for FreeDOS. later this became TurboC (because it was free), then
> Watcom C (because it's free and open), and in not so far future people
> will be asking for GCC to be the reference compiler (because its even
> more free). naming them all 'freedos C++' is not such a good idea.
> 
> 
> 
>> I appreciate the effort, but I'm not sure I like the optics of
>> re-branding another project's work as "FreeDOS." That will seem like
>> we're trying to grab someone else's stuff and claim it as our own -
>> which we're not.
> 
> +1
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Branded C/C++ Toolchain

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I’m going to address all the emails at once instead of replying to multiple 
emails so it will be pretty easy to follow (I think). 

Jerome, it initially looks like that because I haven’t had the time to devote 
to fully building this idea out. Also, due to the amount of things involved in 
simply building OpenWatcom, i wanted to make sure it would compile and work 
before I did anything else major.

Jim and Steve, some of the reasons I am wanted to build a custom compiler 
toolchain based on OpenWatcom (kind of like what Microsoft did with Lattice C 
in 1983) is

The OpenWatcom toolchain is the reference compiler for FreeDOS.
Since the source is freely available with a license as such (instead of some of 
the abandoned but freely available compilers) it can be specifically customized 
for FreeDOS
Once completely built, all of the custom libraries that have been developed (or 
modified) for use with FreeDOS can be included with it, thereby making a 
customized toolchain.

 In the customized toolchain, all the non FreeDOS/DOS related stuff (Linux, 
Win32, Win64, and OS/2) would be removed. The OpenWatcom project MAY be 
interested in the custom libraries that we include specifically for FreeDOS 
development, and if so, I’d gladly send them over for inclusion, but I think 
the design goals of the OW project are different (at least for the C portion) 
which is making it compliant with the newer C/C++ standards and perhaps the 
Win32 and Win64 stuff.  

FreeDOS doesn’t have to be in the name, but I think having it there will 
signify while this is OpenWatcom, it will be a customized version tailored 
specifically for FreeDOS. 

-Tony

> On Jan 14, 2018, at 6:21 PM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 14 Jan 2018, Jim Hall wrote:
> 
>> Hi Tony
>> 
>> I appreciate the effort, but I'm not sure I like the optics of
>> re-branding another project's work as "FreeDOS." That will seem like
>> we're trying to grab someone else's stuff and claim it as our own -
>> which we're not.
> 
> QFT.
> 
> Personal opinion: A "FreeDOS C" toolchain should really, IMO, if it should 
> even exist, be a scratch one, not a rebadging of another toolchain.
> 
> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Branded C/C++ Toolchain

[Antony Gordon]

Hi all and Happy New Year,

I sent a screen shot, not knowing that there was a size limit on the emails, so 
I’m resending as a text only message.

I have been working on a project for FreeDOS for well over year and I think 
it’s about ready for prime time. I thought it would be cool if there was a 
FreeDOS branded toolchain, so I worked on the OpenWatcom code and re-branded it 
to FreeDOS. It still has all of the OpenWatcom copyright information, here’s an 
example from the WASM assembler.

[Output from WASM]
FreeDOS Assembler Version 2.0 beta Jan 13 2018 21:40:47 (32-bit)
Copyright (c) 2002-2017 The Open Watcom Contributors. All Rights Reserved.
Portions Copyright (c) 1992-2002 Sybase, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source code is available under the Sybase Open Watcom Public License.
See http://www.openwatcom.org/ for details.

[Output from WCL]
FreeDOS C/C++ x86 16-bit Compile and Link Utility
Version 2.0 beta Jan 13 2018 22:29:44 (16-bit)
Copyright (c) 2002-2017 The Open Watcom Contributors. All Rights Reserved.
Portions Copyright (c) 1988-2002 Sybase, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source code is available under the Sybase Open Watcom Public License.
See http://www.openwatcom.org/ for details.

The cool thing is that both the Watcom and FreeDOS toolchain can co-exist (as 
long as you set your paths properly. I am going to install it in FreeDOS and 
look for some code to compile in FreeDOS to see if it will work, especially 
since this is 2.0 and not the 1.x branch.

If anyone else would like to take it for a spin, let me know.

-Tony


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Booting other O/Ses from FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Try Loadlin with no memory managers installed.


> On Dec 29, 2016, at 11:49 PM, Ralf Quint  wrote:
> 
> On 12/29/2016 4:00 PM, Jose Antonio Senna wrote:
>> So no, it's not reasonable to expect FreeDOS to work under a
>>> running  Win95. It may be possible in theory (if someone
>>> fixed the bugs), but nobody has done it (yet, AFAIK).
>>   I did not say Win95, I said Win98SE, and I did not try to
>>  run FreeDos under Windows; I tried to start  Windows from
>>  FreeDOS.  This said,  I did not expect that to work, I just
>>  noted what did happen.
> NO version of Windows will start from FreeDOS, not 3.x nor any 9x...
>> 
>>> Dunno, try Gujin (DOS version) instead, it should work
>>> (although I likely only tried like once several years ago):
>>   The point was not how to boot Linux, it was to show another
>>  difference in behaviour between FreeDOS and MSDOS 7.
> There is no MS-DOS 7, despite what people are trying to tell. That "Boot 
> part" if Windows 9x will identify itself as DOS version 7, but never was 
> a standalone version of DOS. The last standalone version of MS-DOS was 
> 6.22 and that is as far as FreeDOS can reasonably take it...
>>  However, it would be nice if loadlin worked under FreeDOS.
> Have you tried to contact the maintainer of loadlin about this?
> 
> Ralf
> 
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[Freedos-devel] FDISK 1.3.1

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

FDISK 1.3.1 won’t run in the following VMs for me at least

* VirtualBox 5.1.8-11374
* VMWare Fusion 7.0.0

I did get it to run under Parallels 11.0.

This leaves me confused as to what is going on here.

Brian is busy, I guess, so I haven’t talked with him in a while. If someone 
would like to help me out, please reach out.

Thanks,

-Tony


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Re: [Freedos-devel] slow FreeDOS install - was: FreeDOS 1.2-RC1 on Hyper-V 2012 R2

[Antony Gordon]

@echo on in the batch files to the rescue. :)

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 1:43 PM Maarten Vermeulen 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Maybe it is good to give some extra information, if it helps:
> It hangs, the only thing it does is making the temporary folder. After it
> has done that, it will
> sit an hour doing nothing (as far as I can see). That's why I think it
> hangs at least.
>
> I am using Virtualbox version 5.0.24 r108355, for if that's interesting...
> Anyway, I tried to install it on a .vhd and a .vdi virtual harddrive it
> happend on both. My system is just a single core CPU, with 32MB RAM and a
> 500MiB hdd.
>
>
> I will look if I can find a solution to this on my own.
>
> Maarten
>
> 2016-11-15 19:33 GMT+01:00 Eric Auer :
>
>
> Hi everybody, update on the 2 Nov mail by Matthew:
>
> > The release candidate announcement encouraged people to try FreeDOS out
> > and report any problems, so here I am to say that I successfully booted
> > and installed 1.2-RC1 in a generation-1 Hyper-V 2012 R2 virtual machine
> > using the ISO image.  I pretty much took the defaults for everything
> > except RAM, which I set to 32 MB (the minimum allowed by Hyper-V), and
> > storage, which I set to 40 GB.  The installation took a long
> > time---several hours, although I didn't measure it carefully.
>
> This matches some observation by Maarten during a FreeDOS install:
>
> The installation spends a LONG time while displaying the text
> "gathering information". Question about the installer: What
> does that step do and are there ways to optimize it? I could
> imagine that it tries to compare existing file versions to
> the to-be-installed versions. This could be made faster by
> making a directory listing of the old DOS installation once,
> then keeping it in RAM (or in a file) while checking which
> packages are up to date and which are not. Educated guesses.
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 1.2-RC1 Fdisk still does not write a valid mbr

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I think Brian got too busy, I still haven't figured out what causes 1.3.1
to break. I have reached out and even provided him with a copy of my VM as
maybe I'm missing something. The CATS portion works now, but I haven't
resolved my other error.

Regards,

T

On Sat, Nov 5, 2016, 11:32 PM Paul Dufresne  wrote:

> Oh! My mistake.
> I was trying to reboot on the installed disk, rather than reboot on
> installation disk:
> was passing -boot c rather -boot d again.
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Getting ready for FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Host OS should not matter. If the "gold standard" of MS-DOS works in that
configuration with the disk images, there is definitely something that
isn't right in this release. For those having a problem, what happens in
FreeDOS 1.1.

Tony

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 12:10 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> Hello Juan,
>
> > On Oct 22, 2016, at 7:55 AM, Juan Manuel Guerrero 
> wrote:
> >
> > OFYI: I have tried to format a floppy image with a VMware Player 5.0.2
> using
> > FreeDOS 1.2-pre23 and I have observed the same issue as described for
> VirtualBox.
>
> The FreeDOS 1.2 preview releases are built under FreeDOS 1.2 build
> environment (BE),
> The BE is running under VirtualBox and contains 2 floppy drive images and
> 3 hard disk
> drive images. The USB and CD releases of 1.2 contain a utility FDIDEV.BAT
> that
> will convert a (virtual) machine into a FreeDOS BE. Each preview release
> is built
> automatically using the mkFDI.bat utility that is installed and part of
> the BE. During the
> build process performed by mkFDI, this utility reformats both Floppy
> images and two
> of the hard disk images. It does this to zero out unused portions for
> better disk
> image compression at release time. I have seen no issues formatting any of
> these
> images from FreeDOS inside VirtualBox. Earlier builds (like preview 10 and
> earlier)
> were running inside VMware Fusion. But, VirtualBox performed the build
> many times
> faster. I saw no issues under VMware Fusion either.
>
> Now, just as a quick verification, I duplicated a 1.44 floppy image and
> booted a test
> install of Preview 23 inside VirtualBox 5.0.28. Format reported no
> problems with
> any of the various methods I used to reformat that floppy image.
>
> Other than the errors you are getting towards the end. I see only line
> that differs
> in my debug log.
>
> [DEBUG]  Sector buffer at 0E17:6770, track buffer at 0E17:6B70
>
> This is probably just due to the difference in the virtual machine BIOS.
> Or,
> possibly the booted configuration.
>
> > [..]
> > [DEBUG]  Sector buffer at 1A3F:6770, track buffer at 1A3F:6B70
> > [..]
> > [DEBUG]  FAT Sectors: 1 to 18 ->
> >   0% +**Drive_IO(WRITE 1, count 1 ) [FAT12/16] [drive A*]
> >
> >  Critical error during DOS disk access
> >  DOS driver error (hex): 01
> >Description: unknown unit for driver
> >  Program terminated.
> > [DEBUG]  DOS 7+, UNLOCKing drive (by one level)
> > [DEBUG]  DOS 7+, UNLOCKing drive (by one level)
>
> Just as verification, I have a couple simple questions that you have
> probably already checked.
>
> What host OS are you using?
>
> If you booted the CD under VMware and installed FreeDOS, are you still
> booting the
> El Torito CD?
>
> Are you running the latest Version of VirtualBox (5.0.28)?
>
> Have you made major changes from the default VirtualBox settings?
>
> Have you modified the boot configuration of FreeDOS and is something
> conflicting?
>
> Are you sure the actual floppy image is a valid size, exists and is
> writable by the host OS?
> (maybe download the FD12FLOPPY.zip and try formatting it’s image)
>
> Jerome
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] making himemx and jemmex more foolproof on old bios versions

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I think at this point a comparison should be done with Microsoft's version
on this machine to see if any differences can be detected. Also, I would
run Microsoft's OS in the emulator to see

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 3:34 PM Maarten Vermeulen  wrote:

> I looked at int 15h lately, int 15h is not supported on older BIOS
> versions but every BIOS has it in the time called now. :)
>
> Error code 86h means "function not supported" and if you get 80h it means
> "invalid command"
>
>
>
>
> Op woensdag 20 juli 2016 heeft Eric Auer  het
> volgende geschreven:
> >
> > Hi experts,
> >
> > some interesting observations about an old 486 PC in the thread
> > with Dimitris about "Which freedos on 486" on freedos-user...
> >
> > His BIOS answers with AH=86h, carry=UNCHANGED to int 15.e801,
> > also leaving AL unchanged. So it seems to be a good idea to
> > STC before INT 15 when doing the 15.e801 call :-) Note that
> > AH=86 is a common failure code for int 15 functions. I would
> > also suggest to, in addition, treat AH=UNCHANGED as failure.
> >
> > Another issue is that RBIL says for this call that if AX=BX=0,
> > one should use CX and DX as memory size info instead. However,
> > DOSEMU only sets AX and BX and returns CX=DX=0 while FreeDOS
> > HIMEMX and JEMMEX both look ONLY at CX and DX, without even
> > checking for AX and BX! Luckily DOSEMU also supports the two
> > other int 15 calls for memory info afair, but it seems tricky
> > that DOSEMU and FreeDOS disagree about 15.e801, no?
> >
> > Also, it is interesting that the FreeDOS drivers say that if
> > CX is not 3c00 (the max value) then DX must be treated as 0.
> >
> > This sounds like "memory hole below 16 MB means end of RAM"?
> >
> > Finally, JEMMEX and HIMEMX both say "if CX plus scaled DX < 64
> > then fall back to 15.88", which is a somewhat weird way to say
> > "if CX and DX are both 0".
> >
> > RBIL writes about int 15.88 versus the carry flag:
> >
> >> the standard BIOS only returns memory between 1MB and 16MB; use AH=C7h
> >> for memory beyond 16MB
> >
> >> not all BIOSes correctly return the carry flag, making this call
> >> unreliable unless one first checks whether it is supported through
> >> a mechanism other than calling the function and testing CF
> >
> > Interestingly, JEMMEX and HIMEMX decide to trust int 15.88
> > even if it leaves carry unchanged: They CLC before int 15.
> >
> > I think it would be a good idea to check if AH=80, 86 or 88
> > after the int 15 call even if carry is not set, as all those
> > values would be possible return values if int 15.88 failed.
> >
> > What is confusing: JEMMEX works on the mentioned 486, while
> > HIMEMX does not work, not even with /NOABOVE16 and /X, why?
> >
> > Regards, Eric
> >
> > PS: In theory, int 15.c7 would also be a possible call to get
> > info about memory beyond the first 16 MB without 15.e??? BIOS
> > support, but that would only help for a very specific group
> > of PS/2 machines identified by int 15.c0 - not very useful.
> >
> > PPS: The same PC also fails to boot from FAT32 with any SYS
> > newer than 2.6, so SYS apparently sees LBA support while it
> > does not really boot later? See freedos-user, still ongoing.
> > Unclear regarding SYS 3.6e /FORCE:LBA and /FORCE:CHS options.
> >
> >
> >
> --
> > What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and
> traffic
> > patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols
> are
> > consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
> > J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity
> planning
> > reports.http://sdm.link/zohodev2dev
> > ___
> > Freedos-devel mailing list
> > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
> >
>
> --
> Project founder and developer of BirdOS by FeatherCode
>
>
>
> --
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> traffic
> patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols
> are
> consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
> J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity
> planning
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> ___
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reports.http://s

Re: [Freedos-devel] Fwd: I'd like an absolute minimal version of FreeDOS.

[Antony Gordon]

Most of you missed the point on this.

Here's the clearer version, based upon me reading (and re-reading several
times). As a matter of fact, I'll use an example.

Install any version of MS/PC-DOS prior to 6.0 on a computer. It boots up,
tells you that you are running that particular version of DOS and gives you
a command prompt (until you start customizing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT).
DOS 6.0+ automatically detects that it can toss in HIMEM.SYS and typically
does so. What it does not do (that FreeDOS does) is run through the
copyright, the GPL license, and that it's based on a project started by Pat
Villani and mentioning DOS-C and such. Not minimizing the importance, but
that doesn't need to appear on the splash screen for MS-DOS. That
information can be in a text file.

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 8:57 PM Jayden Charbonneau 
wrote:

> ​Time to program with the delete key then. (Pun)​
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 8:13 PM, Mercury Thirteen  > wrote:
>
>> Yep, the bootloader and a FreeDOS kernel with the boot message removed.
>> Problem solved. :)
>>
>> On 6/15/2016 6:57 PM, Jayden Charbonneau wrote:
>>
>> I may be wrong on this,but couldn't we just strip down the code used for
>> FreeDOS?Removing un-needed modules,drivers,and removing any COUT/PRINTF
>> statements to the point where it's just the kernel itself should do it.
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 4:25 AM, Maarten Vermeulen <
>> netraa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think that can be done right? If we are finished with 1.2, then we (or
>>> some of us) can make it. Unless, nobody wants to do such thing. So, yeah I
>>> am volunteering. but it still needs an under layer right (for running
>>> programs)?
>>>
>>> Maarten
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> 2016-06-15 9:23 GMT+02:00 Eric Auer < 
>>> e.a...@jpberlin.de>:
>>>

 >From Ben Hutchinson < benh...@gmail.com>

 By minimal, I mean that the boot sector program, and the kernel
 (kernel.sys), don't do any displaying of text. All they need to do is
 set up the DOS interrupt vectors (so that they behave correctly just as
 with MS-DOS), and then load and execute the first file, command.com. No
 displaying text at all. The screen should remain blank until something
 in command.com causes text or graphics to display. Such an absolute
 minimal version of FreeDOS would be useful for me, because it would
 allow me to write my own program in assembly language, call it
 command.com, and then copy that file to the disk, and use it to boot
 another computer directly into the software I've written. This minimal
 version of FreeDOS would be just a boot-loader for my own OS-level
 software, a launch-point for my application (my application existing in
 place of an OS, rather than being run from an OS), that would then run
 upon booting.


>>> Project founder and developer of BirdOS by FeatherCode
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and
>>> traffic
>>> patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols
>>> are
>>> consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
>>> J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity
>>> planning
>>> reports.
>>> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=1444514421&iu=/41014381
>>> ___
>>> Freedos-devel mailing list
>>> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and traffic
>> patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols are
>> consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
>> J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity 
>> planning
>> reports. 
>> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=1444514421&iu=/41014381
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Freedos-devel mailing 
>> listFreedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>>
>>
>> --
>> *This has been a Mercury Thirteen transmission.*
>> *"Why? Because FreeDOS, that's why."*
>>
>> Endorsements: AMD, ATI, BirdOS, eBid.net - A great eBay replacement which
>> doesn't habitually screw over its sellers, FreeDOS, Motorola - Maker of the
>> legendary 68K instruction sets architecture, MSI, Night DOS Kernel,
>> Samsung, Subaru - The most capable AWD ever!, Trump 2016 - Make America
>> great again!
>> I promote these things because awesomeness and excellence deserve
>> recognition, not for personal gain of any kind.
>>
>>
>> --
>> What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and
>> traff

[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Packaging

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Are source files going to still be packaged with the binary file in
FreeDOS, or will the source code be a separate optional install?

Granted, the whole core OS (what actually comprises DOS) isn't that big,
roughly 4.32MB before the other stuff (3rd party editors, a wide assortment
of GUI, development tools, and the like), so it's probably not much of a
difference, but if an end user has no plans of rebuilding from source, why
put it on their hard drive in the first place?

-Tony
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDISK Update

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

There hasn’t been an update to FDISK yet that I have released because I am 
working with Brian to get CATS into 1.3.1.

You can still use what is presently on iBiblio. I will send out something once 
the update is done.

-Tony

> On Feb 5, 2016, at 10:06 AM, Paul Dufresne  wrote:
> 
> I am a bit confused as to what is/should be the current version.
> 
> Antony Gordon said he made modifications to v. 1.2.1 and 1.3 but I
> don't know if the changes have been published and if so where.
> 
> Then there is (same code, two different categories):
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/spfdisk
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/fdisk/spfdisk/
> Is that linked to 1.2.1 version that I have in 'fdi-setup' USB image preview?
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Japheth's HX SRC files

[Antony Gordon]

I'm not contributing code, just archiving bits and pieces from the old site.

If there are updated sites and sources, they should probably be mentioned
in this group as well as comp.os.msdos.programmer, as most people believe
that there is no activity and the HXDOS extended is, much like Japheth's
site, defunct.

-T

I have no problems directing to your repository.
On Feb 1, 2016 9:51 AM, "Антон Кочков"  wrote:

> Hi!
> Please, consider contributing to this https://github.com/JWasm instead
> of setting up a new version of JWasm.
> We've added a few improvements and migrated issues as well.
> It does have AppVeyor and Travis-CI connected, as like as Coverity.
> Best regards,
> Anton Kochkov.
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 5:18 PM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I dug into the wayback machine and grabbed what I could from Japheth's
> site.
> > I'm working on dumping it into a Git repository so that it remains
> > accessible.
> >
> > So far, HXSRC is up at https://github.com/cuzintone/HXSRC. I am working
> on
> > JWASM and JWLINK as well and any additional code that I see on the site.
> >
> > -T
> >
> >
> --
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> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
> >
>
>
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[Freedos-devel] Japheth's HX SRC files

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I dug into the wayback machine and grabbed what I could from Japheth's
site. I'm working on dumping it into a Git repository so that it remains
accessible.

So far, HXSRC is up at https://github.com/cuzintone/HXSRC. I am working on
JWASM and JWLINK as well and any additional code that I see on the site.

-T
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI and FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

For Maarten and Mercury, look into DOS versions prior to 5.0, they included
DEBUG and (GW-)BASIC.
That would complete the DOS experience... well that and some sample BASIC
programs like GORILLA.BAS and having LINK.EXE along with EXE2BIN.

-T
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016, 4:06 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> At present, BASE is fairly close to the 1.1 BASE. Of course, it no longer
> includes XMGR and UIDE.
> this is the current ALL packages that are installed. Pull rdisk? Anything
> else?
>
> https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/SETTINGS/PKG_BASE.LST
>
> Please note, that FDI’s floppy boot image needs a CD/DVD driver and it is
> currently using UDVD2.
>
> These are the current additions that are installed when ALL is selected:
>
> util\v8power
>
> net\mtcp
> util\4dos
> util\doslfn
> util\fdnpkg
> util\memtest
> util\bootfix
> util\shsufdrv
> util\cwsdpmi
> archiver\zip
> archiver\unzip
>
> util\grep
> util\tee
> util\touch
> util\which
> util\pg
>
> archiver\tar
> archiver\gzip
> archiver\bz2
>
> devel\nasm
> devel\fpc
> devel\ow
>
> net\wget
> net\rsync
> net\curl
>
> Add or remove anything else?
>
> Jerome
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI and FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Exactly. If you want networking, install it afterwards. The same for sound,
the myriad of development choices and memory managers. Despite wanting to
emulate DOS, it seems FreeDOS more closely emulates a Linux distribution
from the verbose initial boot to the "package" selection.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016, 6:33 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:

> On 26/01/2016 12:10, Antony Gordon wrote:
> > Things would be so much simpler if FreeDOS emulated the Microsoft and
> > IBM (and Caldera, Digital Research) counterparts and installed the base
> > operating system.
>
> I second that. But it would seem we are isolated in this opinion, since
> I see all the time people talking about multiple-choice packages,
> "advanced" modes, "FULL 400M+ install", etc...
>
> What I'd love, as a user, is to be able to put the FreeDOS install CD
> (or floppy) into my computer, select a single choice "Yes, I want to
> install FreeDOS even though it means all existing data will be wiped
> out", and get a FreeDOS shell seconds later. A shell that mimicks what
> MS-DOS 6.x provided. And only THEN, if I wish/need, I'd install
> additional stuff using FDNPKG and/or FDINST.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016, 7:31 PM Ralf Quint  > <mailto:freedos...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/23/2016 3:45 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
> >  > Hi again, quick reply,
> >  >
> >  > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 5:43 PM, Rugxulo  > <mailto:rugx...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >  >> On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 12:44 PM, Ralf Quint
> > mailto:freedos...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >  >>> On 1/22/2016 3:36 PM, Eric Auer wrote:
> >  >>> BWBasic is an interpreter, which runs very well on FreeDOS,
> > despite some
> >  >>> shortcomings, hence should be very well kept within ant FreeDOS
> > "distro"...
> >  >> IMO, it was too buggy to use for much.
> >  >
> > Well, fix it. It's Open Source
> >
> > Ralf
> >
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI and FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Things would be so much simpler if FreeDOS emulated the Microsoft and IBM
(and Caldera, Digital Research) counterparts and installed the base
operating system.

All these extra drivers for this, a compiler for that can just be on the CD
and can be installed later.

Jerome, if you could find a copy of DOS 5 or later just to see how the
install goes, actually I think a lot of you all need to revisit what the
default install of DOS gives you.

It would make things a lot more compatible across the myriad of platforms
(both virtual and real hardware).

Anyone using DOS at this point doesn't need their hand held with regard to
configuration.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2016, 7:31 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:

> On 1/23/2016 3:45 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
> > Hi again, quick reply,
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 5:43 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> >> On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 12:44 PM, Ralf Quint 
> wrote:
> >>> On 1/22/2016 3:36 PM, Eric Auer wrote:
> >>> BWBasic is an interpreter, which runs very well on FreeDOS, despite
> some
> >>> shortcomings, hence should be very well kept within ant FreeDOS
> "distro"...
> >> IMO, it was too buggy to use for much.
> >
> Well, fix it. It's Open Source
>
> Ralf
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Welcome to FreeDOS n.n

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Why is there a welcome anyway? MS-DOS (and PC-DOS for that matter) just
booted, loaded drivers and dropped you to a command prompt. Microsoft (or
IBM) never welcomed you to anything. If you wanted a welcome, check out
that nice 3-ring binder with the DOS reference pages (I go way back to 2.1).

It seems to me (before you get to FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT) that FreeDOS
feels like a Unix distro with all the diag boot stuff.

Just my quarter of a cent.

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 10:21 AM Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 5:38 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
> >
> > I was thinking of pulling the “autoexec & config loaded", "Welcome to
> FreeDOS”
> > and "type help” messages out of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and placing them
> in a
> > %DOSDIR%\BIN\WELCOME.BAT file with the language translation files in
> > %DOSDIR%\NLS\WELCOME.%LANG%. Also, installing them via a WELCOME.ZIP
> > package. At present, FDI embeds the required stuff into a newly created
> > AUTOEXEC.BAT.
>
> Not the worst idea (although it's not very much crucial info).
>
> > 1) This would make the AUTOEXEC.BAT file a little cleaner with just a:
> >
> > if exist %DOSDIR%\BIN\WELCOME.BAT CALL %DOSDIR%\BIN\WELCOME.BAT
>
> Okay, but just for the record, there are some (very minor) problems with
> this:
>
> Having the file name and path twice is redundant, thus harder to
> change, more error-prone, etc.
>
> A better solution would be something like "for %%a in
> (%DOSDIR%\BIN\welcome.bat) do if exist %%a call %%a".
>
> Of course, just "call %DOSDIR%\BIN\welcome.bat" isn't horrible either,
> just a mild error message if not found, which is benign, so you can
> just ignore it. It's not worth overthinking minor things like this,
> they don't need error checking.
>
> > 2) Easily remove the messages with a "fdinst remove welcome” command.
>
> It's probably not even obtrusive enough to even bother "removing".
>
> > Thoughts?
>
> That's all.  :-)
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDNPKG design issues

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Zip is the default format right? What kind of zip library is being used?
The program should assume that networking is configured and operational and
should only have to establish connections in my opinion.

Since I'm on baby ALERT (my wife is due soon) and I'm not working as much,
I'll take a look.

No promises though

-T

On Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:15 PM sparky4  wrote:

> anyone?? think that a more segmented design would be better?
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://freedos.10956.n7.nabble.com/FDNPKG-design-issues-tp24281p24300.html
> Sent from the FreeDOS - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Build Tools

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

There are a lot of libraries that are used to BUILD FreeDOS from source. If
those libraries were all together, it would make the build process easier.
I also think that it would encourage some code re-use because the library
to do (x) function is readily available to be included instead of searching
for something.

FreeDOS would then provide "extensions" to the DOS API. For example, CATS
could be the standard internationalization library. When you download the
build tools, you automatically get this library and if you need to rebuild
FDISK, it's already there (as it's a build requirement for FDISK) and if
you wish to make a new application using CATS for internationalization,
it's readily available without having to search the web or dig through
FreeDOS source to find it.

I spend 8+ hours a day programming at my job. I know how crazy it can be
building something and one team used one library to build something and
another team uses a different library, but the output of the libraries are
the same, but the call requirements are different.

Case in point. I do Java development at work and some people use Jackson
for JSON processing and others use GSON to process JSON. The resulting
output is the same, but calling the two and how classes are setup to
interface with these APIs are different.

-T

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016, 5:48 PM Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Antony Gordon 
> wrote:
> >
> > If a package called FreeDOS Build Tools/Headers or whatever was built,
> what are
> > the common 3rd party libraries, such as internationalization, for
> example that we
> > could include to make building (re-building) things easier?
>
> I don't know how feasible that is (at least, for explicitly 16-bit DOS
> only stuff). There are some libs (e.g. msglib, suppl, d-flat ...
> probably many more that I forgot), but they are fairly scattered, so I
> don't know if they are much (re)use outside of one or two specific
> apps.
>
>
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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Build Tools

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Just thought I'd bring this back up as I am currently working on one of the
core components to transition it from Borland to OpenWatcom.

In looking at the code, I noticed that for internationalization, the CATS
library is used. One version of the FDISK source code didn't have the
source or the library file for CATS.

So in getting back to this developer studio, it appears obvious the
previous chain that there was no real agreement on an editor. However, we
do have a general agreement on the toolset, primarily because the spec says
so, that being OpenWatcom C (or C++) and NASM.

LIke I mentioned before, the DOS API is well represented, which makes this
easy. The next task is the supporting libraries, like CATS for example.

So to take a page from Linux, FreeDOS pretty much includes OpenWatcom. It
supports the core DOS functions. If a package called FreeDOS Build
Tools/Headers or whatever was built, what are the common 3rd party
libraries, such as internationalization, for example that we could include
to make building (re-building) things easier?
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[Freedos-devel] FDISK Update

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I updated FDISK 1.2.1 and made some changes so that it would compile. I
also managed to get in contact with Brian and he's helping me resolve the
issues with the 1.3 code base that I'm having with compiling it.

Hopefully soon I will have something together and I can start on the rest
of CAT implementation and transitioning from Borland compilers to
OpenWatcom.

-T
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[Freedos-devel] FDISK Update

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I haven’t quite figured out whats wrong with the 1.3 branch of FDISK, but I did 
manage to get 1.2.1 to compile. I had to do some minor code tweaks to fix some 
errors.

I also fixed the makefile so it works better with Borland/Turbo C. As I use 
GitHub, I haven’t as of yet updated my repository. I will probably update this 
code base as is, and then start a new code base and work on integrating the 
other compilers.

-Tony
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDISK issue

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

'default' is a keyword. I am also reworking the makefile so that hopefully
it will rebuild outside of the environment, then I'll work on OW
compatibility and maybe even Pacific C as well.

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 7:01 PM Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> >
> > I’m attempting to recompile FDISK and apparently you need to assemble
> bootnorm.asm
> > and booteasy.asm and I’m getting this error when assembling booteasy.asm
> >
> > booteasy.asm:260: error: invalid parameter to [default] directive
> >  This is line 260 below.
> >
> > default db  '?',' '+80h
> >
> > Any thoughts?
>
> The two .ASM files are both dated 2002. Inside BOOTEASY.ASM, it says
> "Ported to NASM by Tom Ehlert". IIRC, the last of the pre-2.x series
> of NASM (i.e. 0.98.39, without AMD64 support) was released in 2005.
> Some older tools obviously used (or even still require) older versions
> of NASM. E.g. SHSURDRV requires 0.98.39 (32-bit for more RAM) and
> won't work in newer due to incompatible macros.
>
> So, worst case scenario, just use old 0.98.39 and don't worry about it:
>
> 1).
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/asm/nasm/0.98.39/
>
> 2a).
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/files/DOS%2032-bit%20binaries/0.98.39/nasm-0.98.39-djgpp.zip/download
> 2b
> <http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/files/DOS%2032-bit%20binaries/0.98.39/nasm-0.98.39-djgpp.zip/download2b>).
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/files/DOS%2016-bit%20binaries%20%28OBSOLETE%29/0.98.39/nsm09839.zip/download
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDISK issue

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I’m using NASM. It seems to work well with all the other labels. 

In my digging, I have found that default may be a keyword. I’ll try that too 
just to be sure.

-T
> On Jan 4, 2016, at 4:07 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jan 4, 2016, at 10:54 AM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I’m attempting to recompile FDISK and apparently you need to assemble 
>> bootnorm.asm and booteasy.asm and I’m getting this error when assembling 
>> booteasy.asm
>> 
>> booteasy.asm:260: error: invalid parameter to [default] directive
>> This is line 260 below.
>> 
>> default db  '?',' '+80h
>> 
>> Any thoughts?
> 
> Yep. What assembler are you using?
> 
> default looks like it should be a label.
> 
> in nasm you would require a colon to inform the compiler it is label. like 
> this
> 
> default:  db …….
> 
>> 
>> -T
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[Freedos-devel] FDISK issue

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I’m attempting to recompile FDISK and apparently you need to assemble 
bootnorm.asm and booteasy.asm and I’m getting this error when assembling 
booteasy.asm

booteasy.asm:260: error: invalid parameter to [default] directive
 This is line 260 below.

default db  '?',' '+80h

Any thoughts?

-T
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Re: [Freedos-devel] fdisk translation

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Since I still have the Borland Compilers in my VMs, I can take over FDISK
if needed. I can try to re-work it to work with OW. Let me know a time
frame for completion so if I take it, I don't drag the project out.

-T

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 8:26 PM Paul Dufresne  wrote:

> I have encountered a little bit similar problem that is not really
> one, but looks like one.
> That was with testing the new installer floppy image, with a freshly
> created disk of 100Mb, and all_cd.iso under QEMU­.
> After fdisk had created the partition, the virtual system reboot.
> After reboot, the system BIOS (SeaBIOS) was telling me it could not
> start the system because the 0x55,0xAA signature of the MBR was not
> there.
> At first I considered it an error of the FDISK, but soon realized that
> if it was "fixed" the situation would be worst, because it would try
> to boot the MBR that was invalid. And indeed, adding a partition, I
> don't expect the MBR to be touched.
> So the real problem was me not giving the boot order... I need to tell
> it to boot the floppy disk in priority...which fixed the problem.
> Now it has come to my mind that the installer could install a MBR that
> would force to boot fhe floppy, but somehow it does not feels a so
> good idea.
>
> Later, reading fdisk history, I did read that fdisk was changed not to
> install a MBR by default and modified the 0x55, 0xAA signature. Which
> seems right to me after some thinking.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 ALL packages

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

An assembler and a Pascal compiler. Missing BASIC and C/C++.

That would make the programming languages complete. You should probably
mention sources for all packages in the "everything" install.

Base should just reference that the sources are on the install media. IIRC,
most Linux distributions don't specifically install the source code unless
requested by the end user.

-T

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 4:55 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> This is the list of the ALL package list for the FDI installer.
>
> Please let me know if I should anything else or remove something.
>
> Also, V8Power Tools is also installed when ALL is selected.
>
> This list includes all packages in the BASE. I just did not include them
> here to
> shorten the list.
>
> ; The remaining packages are only installed when ALL is chosen.
> net\mtcp
> util\4dos
> util\doslfn
> util\fdnpkg
> util\memtest
> util\bootfix
> util\shsufdrv
> util\cwsdpmi
> archiver\zip
> archiver\unzip
>
> ; Some packages I would like to see in ALL.
> util\grep
> archiver\tar
> archiver\gzip
> archiver\bz2
> devel\nasm
> devel\fpc
> net\wget
> net\rsync
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 BASE packages

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Given the changes in DOS since 2.X until now, Edlin and EXE2BIN should be
optional. DOS 5 replaced Edlin with EDIT and EXE2BIN wasn't included with
DOS after 3.3 or 4.01.

Which memory manager offers the most compatibility? FDXMS or HIMEMX?

-T

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 4:53 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> This is the list of the BASE Packages for the FDI installer.
>
> Please note that I switched out UIDE for UDVD2. UIDE was causing strange
> disk errors with FDINST and with FreeCOM.
>
> Remember this is the Minimalist, MS-DOS functionality only BASE for
> FreeDOS 1.2.
>
> Please let me know if I left anything out or should remove something.
>
> Also, V8Power Tools is not installed when only BASE is selected.
>
> ; Package list for BASE only installation.
>
> base\append
> base\assign
> base\attrib
> base\chkdsk
> base\choice
> base\command
> base\comp
> base\cpidos
> base\ctmouse
> base\debug
> base\defrag
> base\deltree
> base\devload
> base\diskcomp
> base\diskcopy
> base\display
> base\dosfsck
> base\edit
> base\edlin
> base\exe2bin
> base\fc
> base\fdapm
> base\fdisk
> base\find
> base\format
> base\fdxms
> base\fdxms286
> base\help
> base\jemm
> base\himemx
> base\kernel
> base\keyb
> base\keyb_lay
> base\label
> base\lbacache
> base\mem
> base\mirror
> base\mkeyb
> base\mode
> base\more
> base\move
> base\nansi
> base\nlsfunc
> base\print
> base\rdisk
> base\recover
> base\replace
> base\share
> base\shsucdx
> base\sort
> base\swsubst
> base\tree
> base\undelete
> base\unformat
> base\xcopy
> base\xmgr
> util\udvd2
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI

[Antony Gordon]

Well, there is always the DOS 3.3/4.0 way of doing things - Using SELECT.COM
and REPLACE.EXE

I am willing to bet no one remembers updating DOS using REPLACE.EXE or
installing DOS 4.0(1) using SELECT.COM

-Tony

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 11:33 AM Jim Hall  wrote:

> I worry that the new FreeDOS installer is becoming too complex, trying to
> do all things for every use case and every user.
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 11:49 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>
>> Tying to decide what to do about a specific upgrade situation regarding
>> package files.
>>
>> At present:
>>
>> DOSDIR is backed up.
>>
>>  All packages that are going to be installed are removed before
>> installation.
>>
>> Package data files are backed up.
>>
>> The the DOSDIR is purged.
>>
>> Package data files are restored.
>>
>> New packages are installed.
>>
>> Issue:
>>
>> Packages that have files in the DOSDIR, will lose those files.
>>
>> Solution 1: (Present behavior)
>>
>> Let the user worry about it, and let them do a remove/install of
>> those packages later.
>>
>> Solution 2:
>>
>> Also, uninstall any packages that have any files that reside in
>> the DOSDIR.
>>
>> Solution 3:
>>
>> Restore the missing files from the backup.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

DRIVPARM LOL

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 11:05 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Antony,
>
> > CONFIG.SYS entry
> > DEVICE=[drive:][path]DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /F:2
>
> That would be for 720k A: drive hardware, I
> doubt that the user has such hardware.
>
> > may work
> > http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/driver.sys.htm
>
> It will not work because driver.sys does not
> even exist in FreeDOS... ;-) You can indeed
> try the FORMAT A: /F:720 style as suggested
> by Mateusz. However, it does happen that some
> modern (USB) floppy drives and BIOS versions
> simply fail to support 720k disks properly...
>
> >> Those are 720K floppy disks. 9 sectors/track 80 tracks double sided =
> >> 737,280 bytes
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> PS: MS driver.sys was rarely used, but the topic
> was mentioned in 2009 regarding new mainboards.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Or ...

FORMAT A: /F:720

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:51 AM Antony Gordon  wrote:

> CONFIG.SYS entry
> DEVICE=[drive:][path]DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /F:2
>
> may work
> http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/driver.sys.htm
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:48 AM Antony Gordon 
> wrote:
>
>> Those are 720K floppy disks. 9 sectors/track 80 tracks double sided =
>> 737,280 bytes
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:15 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <
>> jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote:
>>
>>> The disks are the size of a standard floppy but they are also double
>>> sided. They are made by the company NASHUA,and the style number is MF-2DD.
>>> In general:
>>> 1.0 MB storage
>>> Double Density
>>> Double sided
>>> I hope this  helps find the problem.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Steve Nickolas 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015, Eric Auer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >> got my hands on a lot of unopened micro floppy disks, with a 1 MB
>>>> storage
>>>> >
>>>> > That is an unusual size for a floppy, I would say. How many inch?
>>>>
>>>> Prolly means unformatted 3.5" 720K disks, which are sold as "1 MB".
>>>>
>>>> -uso.
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

CONFIG.SYS entry
DEVICE=[drive:][path]DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /F:2

may work
http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/driver.sys.htm


On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:48 AM Antony Gordon  wrote:

> Those are 720K floppy disks. 9 sectors/track 80 tracks double sided =
> 737,280 bytes
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:15 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <
> jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote:
>
>> The disks are the size of a standard floppy but they are also double
>> sided. They are made by the company NASHUA,and the style number is MF-2DD.
>> In general:
>> 1.0 MB storage
>> Double Density
>> Double sided
>> I hope this  helps find the problem.
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Steve Nickolas 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015, Eric Auer wrote:
>>>
>>> >> got my hands on a lot of unopened micro floppy disks, with a 1 MB
>>> storage
>>> >
>>> > That is an unusual size for a floppy, I would say. How many inch?
>>>
>>> Prolly means unformatted 3.5" 720K disks, which are sold as "1 MB".
>>>
>>> -uso.
>>>
>>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Those are 720K floppy disks. 9 sectors/track 80 tracks double sided =
737,280 bytes

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:15 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <
jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote:

> The disks are the size of a standard floppy but they are also double
> sided. They are made by the company NASHUA,and the style number is MF-2DD.
> In general:
> 1.0 MB storage
> Double Density
> Double sided
> I hope this  helps find the problem.
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015, Eric Auer wrote:
>>
>> >> got my hands on a lot of unopened micro floppy disks, with a 1 MB
>> storage
>> >
>> > That is an unusual size for a floppy, I would say. How many inch?
>>
>> Prolly means unformatted 3.5" 720K disks, which are sold as "1 MB".
>>
>> -uso.
>>
>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

There should be only one of each "thing" in base that directly represents
the MS/PC DOS equivalent functionality.

Microsoft and IBM only provided one memory manager, one antivirus tool, one
editor...crowding the base install with several editors and memory managers
can make a "simple" install complex.

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 11:45 AM Tom Ehlert  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > This is what I have for the “BASE” install:
> > https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/INSFILES/FDBASEB.LST
>
> > base\edlin
> really ?  ;)
>
> > base\exe2bin
> not very useful in general; if at all then neaqr compilers
>
> > base\fdxms286
> ok, but
>
> > base\fdxms
> > base\himemx
> > base\xmgr
>
> a little too many memory managers with the same functionality
>
> personally I'd prefer himem,
>
>
> I'm missing UDMA/QDMA/XDMA/...; at least one of them (probably the
> latest open sourced one) should really be included
>
> Tom
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDNPKG16 port!

[Antony Gordon]

Where is the code? You probably just need some #defines

On Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 5:07 PM sparky4  wrote:

> i got the wattcp 16 version and...
>
> it is borland C ...
>
>
> crap!!
>
> so much problems!!
>
> please help!
>
> i need the makefiles to do their jobs!
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://freedos.10956.n7.nabble.com/FDNPKG16-port-tp23398p23604.html
> Sent from the FreeDOS - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Sometimes doing the "needful" exceeds the "requested". Jim has a vision of
what he wants, basically a batch file based simplified install. You
(Jerome) have created some very useful utilities for managing the screen
and such.

My thought was basically to incorporate your V8 tools as a part of FreeCOM
to make an "fdinstall.com" (or setup.com) which runs as a shell. The added
advantage is that the custom command shell retains the batch and
environment functionality, which can ultimately be expanded for other
install processes or even package management.

-T

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Jerome, for clarification: I was referring to
> the specific case where your tools are used as a
> part of the install process of FreeDOS :-)
>
> In your given "pick a file and unzip" example, it
> would be possible to do alternative tricks like:
>
> VASK-PRO /F *.zip "Pick a file to unzip" "unzip $F"
>
> The proposed VASK-PRO tool would display a file picker
> (another option could select a directory picker) for
> all files called "*.zip" together with the question
> text in the next option. Once the user picks a file
> (if the user aborts, VASK-PRO just exists) then the
> command "unzip THATFILENAME" will be invoked. Voila,
> a solution without SET /P and without pipelines :-)
>
> My question was: Which variables do you set using the
> SET /P trick and is it really necessary to have them
> in environment variables? Could you use the values in
> other ways (as in the above example)? Or would it be
> sufficient to have a small RAM storage area to keep
> status of your tools? An obvious example would be the
> cursor case:
>
> VCURSORX /PUSH /SET=full
>
> could store the current cursor size in a V-specific
> RAM area and change the cursor to full block size.
>
> VCURSORX /POP /CLEAN
>
> could restore the cursor size from that RAM area (if
> none found, do nothing) and deallocate the RAM area
> as far as cursor data is concerned. Of course it is
> not necessary to make a real stack here, probably a
> single cursor size storage slot will be enough.
>
> Other variations of the same idea will apply to other
> uses of your tools for the installer. My question is:
>
> Are there installer actions which REQUIRE some SET /P
> support and if no SET /P is available, what is lost?
>
> > The only tools that will require set /p support for any usable
> functionality
> > will be vask (when I get around to making it) and vmath. There are
> advanced
> > functions in vcursor, vfdutil, vgotoxy, vmode, vstr and vchoice that can
> be
> > taken advantage of when set /p works. But, for the most part they are
> > not needed or required to accomplish most things.
> >
> > Let’s take vchoice for example. You can fairly easily have a area that
> > vchoice will use for selection. It will by default output your choice
> > as an exit code (errorlevel). No set /p required.
> >
> > However, if lets say you have displayed 20 file names, your batch file
> does not
> > know what the filenames are since you basically are just listing a
> directories
> > contents. You want the user to pick one. If you knew what the names were,
> > you could use 20 “if errorlevel n” instructions to set an environment
> variable
> > you want to pass as an archive name to the zip utility. If you use the
> /Q option
> > on vchoice that text will be sent to STDOUT. So, you could use basically
> > 1 line to achieve something that is not really possible otherwise. Just,
> > by doing “vchoice /Q | set /p ZARC=“
> >
> > But, like I said this is an advanced function and would not be needed
> most
> > of the time.
> >
> > Another example is vfdutil. You can go directly to a drive and path of a
> > filename. changing the current drive and directory by using “vfdutil
> /c/p %SOMETHING%”.
>
> You can simply change the active directory to do thisk :-) As there
> is directory stack support (PUSHD, POPD...) in FreeCOM command.com,
> things get even more convenient. Same example, without SET /P usage:
>
> pushd
> VFDUTIL /PATH /GO-THERE
> dir *.* > x:\filelist.txt
> popd
>
> Note that I explicitly store the resulting file list in X:, which in
> my example could be a small ramdisk. If the user later has to pick a
> file from that list and unzip it, the example near the beginning of
> my mail can be combined with this to do everything WITHOUT ramdisk.
>
> On the other hand, if you plan to unzip a file, you probably unzip
> it to the drive where you install DOS, so you can simply use that
> drive for temporary storage of the file list as well... :-)
>
> > vfdutil /p %SOMETHING% | set /p FPATH=“
> > dir %FPATH%\*.* >FILELIST.TXT
>
> Regarding mathematical and cursor processing: Are you sure that you
> have to do this with several tools which have to communicate using
> a memory area or environment variables? How about doing ALL steps
> for a single cursor move inside a SINGLE call to one of your tools?
>
> This could be for example: VCURSORX /GOTO $WIDTH/2-10 $HEIGHT/2-

Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

If the Int 21h handler is available,  you can use INT 21 AX=3305. DL is
returned with an integer indicating the boot drive (1=A:, etc.). This works
for MS-DOS 4.0 and later. Given that FreeDOS aims for DOS 6+ compatibility
so that functionality should be there.

-T

On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 3:05 AM Joe Forster/STA  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> > set /p is a Windows NT feature of CMD.EXE. It was not available in
> > MS-DOS or Windows 9x.
>
> And even in Windows XP, it doesn't support capturing the output of a
> command. A small test batch:
> --- test.bat ---
> @echo off
> set X=
> echo Y | set /p X=
> echo %X%
> ---
> outputs:
> ---
> ECHO is off.
> ---
>
> It works only if the input comes actually from the user (standard
> input?):
> --- test.bat ---
> @echo off
> set X=
> set /p X=X?
> echo %X%
> ---
> outputs:
> ---
> X? <= enter "Y" here
> Y
> ---
>
> > Regarding finding the master environment, in order for FreeDOS to
> > maintain compatibility with MS-DOS and the all the abandoned DOS
> > software out there, FreeDOS has to implement SysVars, commonly called
> > the List of Lists. This list can?t change it?s structure because by
> > doing so, many DOS applications won?t be able to run because a lot of
> > them depend on this ?undocumented? (by Microsoft) structure.
>
> Yup, that would be very nice. I have a DOS program that can reassign
> drive letters: http://sta.c64.org/dlmanip.html which relies _heavily_ on
> these data strutures. I'm not sure if I managed to make it work under
> FreeDOS (new version is not released yet).
>
> Also, while executing config.sys (_not_ autoexec.bat yet), the (master)
> environment variable block is not pointed to anywhere. I've unable to
> finish another DOS program that would record the boot drive into an
> environment variable so that PATH can later be set in autoexec.bat to
> :\[...][;...] (where  can be A: for floppy, C:
> for hard disk etc.)
>
> Joe
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

set /p is a Windows NT feature of CMD.EXE. It was not available in MS-DOS or 
Windows 9x. 

I even double checked on my Win98 VM and my Win ME VM before I wrote this. 
(Don’t ask why I have those. Just don’t). I get “Syntax Error” in both Windows 
98 and Windows ME.

It was nice of whomever wrote FreeCOM to include that Windows NT command 
interpreter function. I never tested it, but did they also include Delayed 
Expansion and IF (…) ELSE (…) and stuff like %~dpn0?

If the utilities are small as you say, then building a custom FreeCOM with them 
built in would allow your programs to pass the information without necessarily 
using the environment. 

So assuming your install script always works under FreeCOM, you have guarantees 
that set /p is there. Assuming it is running under Microsoft’s COMMAND.COM 
 on MS-DOS, you won’t have set /p and your script will 
fail at stage 7.


If your installer, still using the same batch file, was spawned in a custom 
command shell, (or FreeCOM), than you can guarantee what you need will be 
there. 

Regarding finding the master environment, in order for FreeDOS to maintain 
compatibility with MS-DOS and the all the abandoned DOS software out there, 
FreeDOS has to implement SysVars, commonly called the List of Lists. This list 
can’t change it’s structure because by doing so, many DOS applications won’t be 
able to run because a lot of them depend on this “undocumented” (by Microsoft) 
structure.

I’m not trying to pick a part your program, just trying to point you to a 
hopefully better implementation. Jim wants a batch file, you have these power 
tools, why not build them into the interpreter as internal commands? You 
implement the same code minus the startup functions and you can probably create 
a “V8” area in DOS memory where the utilities communicate since they are a part 
of the command shell. 

This precludes using the environment as you can create an in memory “structure” 
that they can manipulate.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

What if you implemented V8 tools in a customized version of FreeCOM that starts 
the setup process?

The other option is to locate the master environment and write what you need 
there.
> On Oct 2, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
> 
> 
> On Oct 2, 2015, at 6:26 PM, Antony Gordon  <mailto:cuzint...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>> Hey,
>> 
>> Couldn't you use 4DOS as the command shell during the installation process?
>> 
> Unfortunately, no. 
> 
> Some of the things that need to be done require I/O redirection (pipes and 
> such) and using the output of some process to set the values of environment 
> variables. This does not work using the 4DOS shell. 
> 
> V8Power Tools work fine. However, there is no way to make any use of many of 
> their advanced features without this capability. 
> 
> For example, when using the standard command.com <http://command.com/> in 
> FreeDOS and with MS-DOS (I think 7, with XP), you can do smithing like this 
> to hide and restore the current cursor.
> 
> vcursor | set /p OldCursor=
> vcursor hide
> rem do stuff with hidden cursor
> vcursor %OldCursor%
> set OldCursor=
> 
> The cursor would be read, stored, hidden then restored to its original state. 
> 
>> On Oct 2, 2015 1:18 PM, "Jerome E. Shidel Jr." > <mailto:jer...@shidel.net>> wrote:
>> Well, best guess. I’m 70% done with the installer.
>> 
>> Just need to port the backup creation code, the system files transfer stuff 
>> and example package/zip installer portion.
>> 
>> But, the readme on using it for the OS release is mostly done. 
>> 
>> https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md 
>> <https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md>
>> 
>> FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Prototype
>> 
>> This project is for creating the FreeDOS <http://freedos.org/> 1.2+ 
>> installation kit based on V8Power Tools <http://up.lod.bz/V8Power> batch 
>> file enhancement utilities.
>> 
>>  <https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md#file-list>File List
>> 
>> README.md   - This file.
>> LICENSE - GNU GPL v2.
>> mkFDI.bat   - Create the Floppy installation media.
>>  
>> <https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md#build-files-in-insfiles>Build
>>  files in INSFILES\
>> 
>> MKBIN.LSTList of files copyied from C:\FDOS\BIN\ to A:\FDSETUP\BIN\
>> MKHELP.LST   List of files copyied from C:\FDOS\HELP\ to A:\FDSETUP\HELP\
>> MKV8P.LSTList of files copyied from V8POWER\ to A:\FDSETUP\V8POWER\
>> MKSETUP.LST  List of files copyied from INSFILES\ to A:\FDSETUP\SETUP\
>> AUTOEXEC.BAT Copied as-is to A:\
>> FDCONFIG.SYS Copied as-is to A:\
>> SETUP.BATCopied as-is to A:\
>>  
>> <https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md#what-the-installer-does>What
>>  the installer does.
>> 
>> AUTOEXEC.BAT calls SETUP.BAT RECOVERY
>> 
>> SETUP.BAT
>> 
>> Tests for presence of V8Power Tools.
>> Tests for I/O redirection support at present.
>> Does some basic settings initialization.
>> 
>> Loads configuration from STAGE000.BAT. This is where some of the
>> built-in default settings are stored. Things like New Volume Label,
>> OS Version and etc.
>> 
>> if RECOVERY option was present at launceh, tests if this version of
>> FreeDOS is already installed using STAGE001. If so, just exists to
>> prompt with a welcome message. Otherwise, proceeds with installer.
>> 
>> STAGE002, Loads current color scheme from either THEMENUL.BAT or
>> if THEMEADV.BAT (Advanced Mode).
>> 
>> STAGE003, Displays welcome to FreeDOS installer message. Offers to
>> continue or exit.
>> 
>> STAGE004, Checks if drive C exists. If not prompts user that C needs
>> partitioned and offers to run fdisk or exit. If user selects fdisk,
>> then offers to reboot or exit.
>> 
>> STAGE005, Checks if drive C is readble. If not prompts user that C
>> needs formatted and offers to format or exit. If user selects formats,
>> then rechecks if C is readble. If not, offers to reboot or exit.
>> 
>> STAGE006, Sets up temporary TEMP Directory so I/O redirection can
>> function and for storage of a couple temporary files. If I/O
>> redirection is still unavailable, it will abort the installation.
>> 
>> NOTE: Now that a TEMP directory exists,  FDIWIND.BAT and other
>> batch files that use I/O redirection for utilities like vmath can
>> now be used.
>

Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

Hey,

Couldn't you use 4DOS as the command shell during the installation process?
On Oct 2, 2015 1:18 PM, "Jerome E. Shidel Jr."  wrote:

> Well, best guess. I’m 70% done with the installer.
>
> Just need to port the backup creation code, the system files transfer
> stuff and example package/zip installer portion.
>
> But, the readme on using it for the OS release is mostly done.
>
> https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md
>
> FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Prototype
>
> This project is for creating the FreeDOS  1.2+
> installation kit based on V8Power Tools  batch
> file enhancement utilities.
> --
> File List
>
> README.md   - This file.
> LICENSE - GNU GPL v2.
> mkFDI.bat   - Create the Floppy installation media.
>
>
> Build
> files in INSFILES\
>
> MKBIN.LSTList of files copyied from C:\FDOS\BIN\ to A:\FDSETUP\BIN\
> MKHELP.LST   List of files copyied from C:\FDOS\HELP\ to A:\FDSETUP\HELP\
> MKV8P.LSTList of files copyied from V8POWER\ to A:\FDSETUP\V8POWER\
> MKSETUP.LST  List of files copyied from INSFILES\ to A:\FDSETUP\SETUP\
> AUTOEXEC.BAT Copied as-is to A:\
> FDCONFIG.SYS Copied as-is to A:\
> SETUP.BATCopied as-is to A:\
>
>
> What
> the installer does.
>
> AUTOEXEC.BAT calls SETUP.BAT RECOVERY
>
> SETUP.BAT
>
> Tests for presence of V8Power Tools.
> Tests for I/O redirection support at present.
> Does some basic settings initialization.
>
> Loads configuration from STAGE000.BAT. This is where some of the
> built-in default settings are stored. Things like New Volume Label,
> OS Version and etc.
>
> if RECOVERY option was present at launceh, tests if this version of
> FreeDOS is already installed using STAGE001. If so, just exists to
> prompt with a welcome message. Otherwise, proceeds with installer.
>
> STAGE002, Loads current color scheme from either THEMENUL.BAT or
> if THEMEADV.BAT (Advanced Mode).
>
> STAGE003, Displays welcome to FreeDOS installer message. Offers to
> continue or exit.
>
> STAGE004, Checks if drive C exists. If not prompts user that C needs
> partitioned and offers to run fdisk or exit. If user selects fdisk,
> then offers to reboot or exit.
>
> STAGE005, Checks if drive C is readble. If not prompts user that C
> needs formatted and offers to format or exit. If user selects formats,
> then rechecks if C is readble. If not, offers to reboot or exit.
>
> STAGE006, Sets up temporary TEMP Directory so I/O redirection can
> function and for storage of a couple temporary files. If I/O
> redirection is still unavailable, it will abort the installation.
>
> NOTE: Now that a TEMP directory exists,  FDIWIND.BAT and other
> batch files that use I/O redirection for utilities like vmath can
> now be used.
>
> STAGE007, Calls all Installation configuration batch files named
> FDASK???.BAT located in the FDSETUP\SETUP directory.
>
> STAGE008, Prompts user that installation will now begin, Offers
> to continue or exit. Then, scans current FDSETUP\SETUP for all
> FDINS???.BAT files. The scans all other drives for
> \FDSETUP\SETUP\FDINS???.BAT files and calls them in that order to
> perform the installation.
>
> STAGE009, Informs user that instalation is complete offers reboot or
> exit.
>
> STAGE999, Performs cleanup and is always run. It is only not run
> if the STAGE001 test for existing OS installation passes and the
> batch script is exiting without running the installer.
>
> If user had selected reboot in STAGE009, it is done now.
>
>
> Some
> global environment variables.
>
> OS_NAME = Should always be "FreeDOS"
> OS_VERSION  = Current OS Version.
>
> FADV= "y" if running in advanced mode.
> FDIDFMT = "y" if during this execution the batch file formatted
> drive C.
> FWAIT   = If your going to use vpause, This is how many seconds you
> should pause. Example: vpause /t %FWAIT%
>
>
> Options
> configured by FDASK???.BAT files.
>
> OVOLIf drive is formatted, set its labal to this text
> (actually OVOL is set in STAGE000)
>
> OBAKSet in FDASK000. If an operating system is detected.
> and user selects backup it will be set to "y". In advanced
> mode user can select 'archive to zip' then it is set as
> "z". If no OS was detected, or uses selects no backup it
> will be set to "n"
>
> 

Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2

[Antony Gordon]

For option 2, all you would need to do is execute a FreeDOS version function 
call. I don’t have the spec in front of me, however in the case of MS-DOS, and 
INT 21H/3306H and INT 21/30 returns the DOS version number.

Int 21/30 can be altered by SETVER, but INT 21/3306 should return BL as the 
major, BH as the minor. AL should be FFh if FreeDOS considers itself to be < 
MS-DOS 5.0

You may want to (in the case of someone wishing to install  FreeDOS over 
another DOS) use these functions I mentioned to determine the DOS that is 
running, i.e., DRDOS, OpenDOS, MSDOS 7.x. I’ll leave that up to your discretion.
Hopefully that helps you out a bit. 


> On Sep 30, 2015, at 10:32 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> 
> Did a little more restructuring. So now, the setup files make a little more 
> sense now for future updates to the installer.
> 
> So far this is what happens:
> 
>   1) boots from floppy or floppy image (like bottle CD)
> 
>   (Note: if user manually lauches installer, skip 2 and goto 3)
> 
>   2) Detects if latest FreeDOS version is installed (actual test not 
> written)
>   If it is the latest version, returns to prompt with welcome 
> message.
>   If not installer continues.
> 
>   3) Welcomes user to installer and asks if the want to continue.
>   If no, returns to prompt with install aborted message.
> 
>   4) Checks for drive C’s existence.
>   If it exists, skip to 7.
> 
>   5) Informs user they need to partition and offers to run partitioner.
>   if yes, runs fdisk.
>   If no, returns to prompt with abort message.
> 
>   6) Partitioner runs, then asked user to reboot.
>   if yes, reboots
>   If no, returns to prompt with abort message.
>   
>   7) Checks if C is formatted.
>   if yes, skip to 9.
>   
>   8) offers to format or exit to prompt.
> 
>   ——— to do ——— 
> 
>   9) Offer backup.
> 
>   10) install.
> 
> If user manually launches with "SETUP.BAT adv”, the installer will run in 
> advanced mode.
> 
> Also, at any choice box, if the User presses CTRL-C, they are provided with 
> choices to 
> either quit to DOS, go back to where they were or switch to and from Advanced 
> Mode.
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] exfat support from android linux for freedos sdxc support and more?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

So a cursory read of Wikipedia on this topic (ExFAT) and I stumbled across
this

Two experimental, unofficial solutions are available for DOS. The loadable
USBEXFAT driver requires Panasonic's USB stack for DOS and only works with
USB storage devices; the open-source EXFAT executable is an exFAT
filesystem reader, and requires the HX DOS

extender
to work.[48]  There are
no native exFAT real-mode DOS drivers, which would allow usage of, or
booting from exFAT volumes

Also Mac OS X 10.5 and later can read/write and repair exFAT, quite
possibly a solution there as well with minimal rewriting.

-T

On Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 11:43 PM Eduardo Casino 
wrote:

> Hi Geraldo,
>
> > does freedos have any vfs-equivalent interface? which files are involved?
> > is Pat's book a valid/current reference to freedos kernel?
> > which books would you suggest me to read?
> > what is the easiest way to setup the compiler?
> >
> > i mean, should i setup a freedos vm with with openwatcom or freeware
> > version of tc
> > or do we have a way to 'cross-compile' freedos kernel on linux and use
> > the vm just to test the code?
>
> You can have a look at vmsmount sources. A lot of the generic network
> redirector code can be reused and it is written for Openwatcom. You can
> cross compile from Windows or Linux and, if you use vmware and vmsmount,
> you can share a folder with a FreeDOS vm, which will ease a lot your
> testing.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/vmsmount/
>
> Good luck,
> Eduardo.
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] exfat support from android linux for freedos sdxc support and more?

[Antony Gordon]

Hmmm,

Possibly, BUT the resultant code would still have to be brought back to FreeDOS 
on virtual or real floppy. Might as well develop in a VM under FreeDOS. 

OpenWatcom, like I mentioned earlier was too much for me, so I went back to my 
Borland tools and add defines to cover the bases.

-T

> On Sep 27, 2015, at 9:45 PM, Louis Santillan  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, September 27, 2015, Antony Gordon  <mailto:cuzint...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Unfortunately, Linux doesn’t have a 16-bit C compiler (that I am aware of). 
> GCC has some fundamental differences in C dialect from OpenWatcom and Borland 
> which would require conditional defines (especially with regard to inline 
> assembly) and GCC doesn’t support 16-bit OBJ files as a target, mostly COFF 
> and ELF binaries which will not work on DOS (at least at the 8/16-bit level).
> 
> Can't openwatcom on Linux generate 16-bit dos binaries? 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] exfat support from android linux for freedos sdxc support and more?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I don’t know too much about the innards of checking in and out code however, if 
you have the current version installed, you more than likely have the  source 
to the current kernel. 

I would advise you to go the route of MSCDEX and use the network redirector 
interface. You may want to read Chapter 8 of Undocumented DOS, 2nd edition to 
get a feel for the DOS File System and Network Redirector (assuming you have 
that book). If you don’t have that book, then Google the DOS redirector 
interface, which appeared in DOS at version 3.1

That will give you some useful tidbits and examples on understanding system 
file tables (SFT), the current directory structures (CDS), and how things like 
NETX, SHARE, and ASSIGN (for example) work.

With regard to the development environment, Jim has posted somewhere that the 
general development tools are OpenWatcom and NASM. I personally have found 
OpenWatcom a tad bit overwhelming because of all that it can do. If you are 
more familiar with the Borland C compilers, you can use those, however, I would 
STRONGLY suggest gratuitous use of conditional defines and such to make the 
code more compatible for the final OpenWatcom build.

Unfortunately, Linux doesn’t have a 16-bit C compiler (that I am aware of). GCC 
has some fundamental differences in C dialect from OpenWatcom and Borland which 
would require conditional defines (especially with regard to inline assembly) 
and GCC doesn’t support 16-bit OBJ files as a target, mostly COFF and ELF 
binaries which will not work on DOS (at least at the 8/16-bit level).

I have a VirtualBox VM with FreeDOS installed that I can zip up and throw in my 
Dropbox if you’d like.

-T
> On Sep 27, 2015, at 6:57 PM, Geraldo Netto  wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I was talking to Eric a few days ago about this exfat thread
> and while we are worried with the license issues
> I would like to volunteer myself to port current exfat from linux
> kernel to freedos
> 
> Of course, once it's a no-trivial thing i would like to ask your support
> i cannot promise anything by now, once i know that talk is cheap as
> Mateusz and Tom reported :)
> 
> So, what do you think?
> what is the svn link to checkout the freedos kernel code?
> does freedos have any vfs-equivalent interface? which files are involved?
> is Pat's book a valid/current reference to freedos kernel?
> which books would you suggest me to read?
> what is the easiest way to setup the compiler?
> 
> i mean, should i setup a freedos vm with with openwatcom or freeware
> version of tc
> or do we have a way to 'cross-compile' freedos kernel on linux and use
> the vm just to test the code?
> 
> Suggestions are always very welcomed :P
> 
> 
> Kind Regards,
> 
> Geraldo Netto
> Sapere Aude => Non dvcor, dvco
> São Paulo, Brasil, -3gmt
> site: http://exdev.sf.net/
> 
> On 25 September 2015 at 19:14, Ralf Quint  wrote:
>> On 9/24/2015 12:33 PM, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
>>> We could undercut the competition and make our own free FAT
>>> implementation which does fills the same niche as exFAT.
>>> 
>> Which will be extremely hard to do without interfering with those patents...
>> 
>> Ralf
>> 
>> ---
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>> 
>> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDNPKG16 port!

[Antony Gordon]

Does the TCP stack work in 16-bit? If not, you'd probably have to build it
to support loading packages from floppy disks or CDs.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 3:08 PM Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro 
wrote:

> Hello, sparky4!
>
> Em Mon, 21 Sep 2015 08:07:17 -0700 (MST)
> sparky4  escreveu:
>
> > I am currently porting fdnpkg to 16 bit now~
>
> Thank you for this initiative!
>
>
> --
>  ,= ,-_-. =.  Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro (oitofelix) [0x28D618AF]
> ((_/)o o(\_)) http://oitofelix.freeshell.org/
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>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I think the best solution would probably be two setup programs. A quick
setup like Jim wants and then a more advanced setup that provides all the
advanced tools, disk image creation that more technical users would want.

Simple version is the batch file, advanced version is C (or some other high
end language).

-T

On Sep 16, 2015 11:26 AM, "JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU" 
wrote:

> I prefer as many advanced options as possible.I keep a backup of my ENTIRE
> network in FreeDOS (I'm funny like that,I guess.FreeDOS can't be affected
> by windows viruses.).So if data were to be erased,I would have a mental
> breakdown (In a sarcastic sense.).So,yeah.
>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Joe Forster/STA 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to
>>> optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I
>>> digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and
>>> there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a
>>> custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration
>>> files.
>>>
>>
>> I agree; I'd really hate such a situation. Replacing configuration files
>> should be an installation option, like "reset to default/factory settings".
>> I'm not sure whether this option should be enabled or disabled by default;
>> rather disabled.
>>
>> Joe
>> --
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

[Antony Gordon]

Herein lies the "problem" with FreeDOS. Before the next distribution goes
out, I think the most compatible XMS and EMS driver should be a part of
base (the one that works on majority of hardware and emulators) since we
are going for simplicity. The other versions should included as optional
installs.



On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> > On Sep 11, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> >
> > The "BASE" is nothing else than a set of packages, they are not
> > different from any other packages (besides the fact that they have been
> > elected as being part of "BASE"). These packages can be removed,
> > installed and updated at will. That's the whole point of having packages.
> >
> > For instance, "BASE" contains 4 different XMS managers. Why would I want
> > to keep them all on my disk, if I only need the one that works for me?
> >
> > Mateusz
>
> I don’t know what will be in the BASE for 1.2’s release.
>
> It’s just my opinion. You of course are correct about the BASE just being
> a set
> of packages. But in practice, I would have to disagree a little. It is
> that BASE that
> defines that version. If, you start adding and removing things from the
> BASE
> you no longer have that version of FreeDOS. You would have your own version
> that is BASE’d on a version of FreeDOS.  :)
>
>
> >
> > On 11/09/2015 18:40, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Sep 11, 2015, at 10:51 AM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On 11/09/2015 16:39, Jim Hall wrote:
>  (...) then use FDNPKG or
>  UNZIP afterwards to install the other packages that you want.
> >>>
> >>> To avoid confusion, I will add that using UNZIP is not a one-to-one
> >>> alternative to FDNPKG. I strongly discourage using UNZIP to install
> >>> packages - such packages won't be removable by FDNPKG afterwards, and
> >>> the files might get unziped in wild (ie. totally unexpected) places.
> >>> FDNPKG does more than just unpacking files.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I don’t know if you could do use FDNPGK to do an install of packages,
> then
> >> us zip to wrap up what is installed.
> >>
> >> However, that being said. The BASE is the BASE and should not be removed
> >> by a package manager. It should always be there. :)
> >>
> >> For a full install, the extra stuff may need to support removal using a
> package
> >> mananager.
> >>
> >>
> >>> Mateusz
> >>>
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to
optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I
digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and
there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a
custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration
files. If there is an issue, of course they can boot, use F5 and use a
support utility to replace their configuration files with the system
default (creating backups of course)

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 5:16 AM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:

>
> On Sep 15, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
> wrote:
>
> Could we just give the user the option?
>
>
> I could. But, Jim wants super simple. So, I guess I will have to see if he
> wants it to ask or not.
>
> But, I am really thinking purge the FDOS dir and install new config.sys
> and autoexec.bat is the best course.
>
>
> Also, you could call the backup FDOS folder *fdos.old* a'la Windows and
> its *windows.old* directory. At least that way some folks would know what
> it's for when they see it again months down the road.
>
>
> At present, it wraps all that stuff up into a zip file. And puts it under
> a dir called FDBackup. Enumerating the zip as next avail FDBAK0.zip (or 1,
> 2, 3)
>
> Easy to change to FDOS.OLD though.
>
> On 9/15/2015 8:53 PM, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>
> The installer is going well and is about 50% done. But, I have two questions.
>
> Situation:
> User is doing an upgrade install from FD1.1.
>
> FDI already prompts to backup. Then will backup config files and the c:\FDOS 
> directory.
>
> 1) should FDI purge the c:\fdos directory before it installs the new files. 
> Or, keep everything it doesn't overwrite?
>
> 2) should the installer keep the users current config files or install new 
> default ones.
>
> I see problems doing either of these, either way.
>
> The most reliable way would be to purge the c:\fdos directory and install 
> fresh config.sys and autoexec.bat files. But, that will force the user to 
> modify theirs post install. Not doing it, the system may be flakey or not 
> even boot completely.
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

[Antony Gordon]

Eric, I just get ...?  LOL I guess you're not liking me again. (Just
kidding).

On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 10:31 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Jayden (and Mateusz and Jim and...) :-)
>
> > Will we implement an "advanced" setup? [...]
>
> > The first would be the user friendly setup,and the second would allow the
> > user to manually choose packages,and even access the command line (I
> think
> > it has the prompt of X:\).This way,if the user wanted to conserve drive
> > space,or only wanted specific things installed,they could do so without
> > deleting directories AFTER installation.Just an idea,which I think would
> > make installation a bit more usable and convenient for both crowds.
>
> (PS: please do use whitespace after punctuation marks!)
>
> Of course it is good to be able to reach a prompt,
> but I would not put effort in extra magic. To let
> the user manually select packages, the user could
> do a BASE install and afterwards simply run FDNPKG
> to install more of the packages which are present
> on the CD anyway. I assume FDNPKG allows to do so
> in user friendly ways, for example selecting many
> packages first, then going for a coffee while the
> tool installs them all after you press "apply" :-)
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

How about this? The installer just does the basic core install. Once it's
done, the user is asked if they want to do the advanced install. If not,
exit and restart.

Simple, easy to use.

On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 9:50 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU 
wrote:

> Will we implement an "advanced" setup?For example,after the welcome
> screen,we could give the user two options:
> 1.Express install
> 2.Advanced setup
> The first would be the user friendly setup,and the second would allow the
> user to manually choose packages,and even access the command line (I think
> it has the prompt of X:\).This way,if the user wanted to conserve drive
> space,or only wanted specific things installed,they could do so without
> deleting directories AFTER installation.Just an idea,which I think would
> make installation a bit more usable and convenient for both crowds.
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 11:17 PM, Louis Santillan 
> wrote:
>
>> To make the Base install viable (usefully execute fdnpkg), will
>> networking (wattcp and/or mtcp) & shsufdrv become a part of Base?
>>
>> -L
>>
>> On Thursday, September 10, 2015, Jim Hall  wrote:
>> [SNIP]
>>>
>>> 1. Do you want to install all the extra software, or just the programs
>>> that replace MS-DOS
>>>
>>> 2. Do you want to install source code too?
>>>
>>>
>>> That gives you four possible outcomes:
>>> 1. everything, no source code
>>> 2. everything, with source code
>>> 3. Base, no source code
>>> 4. Base, with source code
>>
>> [SNIP]
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

[Antony Gordon]

Perhaps take a cue from Apple on this one.

The CD boots to an environment that can be used for recovery, diagnostics,
or an install.

For edge use cases where GPARTED would need to be used or some tweaking of
a GRUB boot loader could be performed prior to starting the install...
On Sep 10, 2015 9:46 PM, "Antony Gordon"  wrote:

> If you just want to do the EULA thing, you can put a generic, this
> contains free software based on several licenses, including GNU GPL, MIT,
> and BSD. By continuing with this install, you accept all applicable
> licenses. To view them in detail, view C:\FREEDOS\DOC.
> On Sep 10, 2015 9:34 PM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:
>
>>
>> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel 
>> wrote:
>> >> [..]
>> >> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
>> >
>> > Excellent!
>> >
>> >
>> >> Next up:
>> >>
>> >> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't
>> be found.
>> >>
>> >> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility
>> in V8PT)
>> >>
>> >> Give install options:
>> >> 1 basic
>> >> 2 full (default?)
>> >> 3 basic + sources
>> >> 4 full + sources
>> >> Quit
>> >>
>> >> Do sys c:
>> >> Do install packages.
>> >>
>> >> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?
>> >
>> > I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
>> > open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
>> > many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
>> > are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
>> > to display all of those for an EULA.
>> >
>> > I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
>> >
>> >> Welcome to FreeDOS!
>> >>
>> >> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>> >> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>> >> utilities.
>> >>
>> >> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>> >> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>> >> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>> >> similar license that includes source code.
>> >>
>> >> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>> >> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
>> >
>> >
>> > But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)
>> >
>>
>> Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all"
>> No Eula page then.
>>
>> Hummm
>> How about on welcome page? Something like:
>>
>> 1 Continue to install
>> 2 More information
>> 3 Quit
>>
>> >
>> > Jim
>> >
>> >
>> --
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>> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

[Antony Gordon]

If you just want to do the EULA thing, you can put a generic, this contains
free software based on several licenses, including GNU GPL, MIT, and BSD.
By continuing with this install, you accept all applicable licenses. To
view them in detail, view C:\FREEDOS\DOC.
On Sep 10, 2015 9:34 PM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:

>
> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel 
> wrote:
> >> [..]
> >> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
> >
> > Excellent!
> >
> >
> >> Next up:
> >>
> >> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't be
> found.
> >>
> >> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility in
> V8PT)
> >>
> >> Give install options:
> >> 1 basic
> >> 2 full (default?)
> >> 3 basic + sources
> >> 4 full + sources
> >> Quit
> >>
> >> Do sys c:
> >> Do install packages.
> >>
> >> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?
> >
> > I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
> > open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
> > many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
> > are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
> > to display all of those for an EULA.
> >
> > I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
> >
> >> Welcome to FreeDOS!
> >>
> >> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
> >> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
> >> utilities.
> >>
> >> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
> >> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
> >> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
> >> similar license that includes source code.
> >>
> >> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
> >> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
> >
> >
> > But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)
> >
>
> Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all"
> No Eula page then.
>
> Hummm
> How about on welcome page? Something like:
>
> 1 Continue to install
> 2 More information
> 3 Quit
>
> >
> > Jim
> >
> >
> --
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> >
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

On Sep 10, 2015 4:46 PM, "Eric Auer"  wrote:
>
>
> Hi!
>
> > How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
> > should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
>
> As far as I remember, it was 3 floppies and only "base" software...
> Also, under which conditions would it format / partition your disk?

It would only start fdisk if it didnt detect a DOS partition, but you had
to make the space.

If a usable FAT partition existed, it would offer to format it or just use
it. In order to boot DOS, you had to modify the boot loader...that would be
the only intrusion.

Windows does that now. If it detects a usable NTFS or FAT32 partition, it
will offer to format or use it as is. If it detects a Windows folder, it
will rename it to Windows.old.

> > across all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once
the
>
> All platforms back at that time was harddisks of at most 8 GB, with
> older BIOS even only 1/2 GB, only CHS, only FAT12 and FAT16, because
> nothing else was supported by MS DOS 6.22 :-p
>
> Also, there was minimal fuss because people did not have dual boot.
> You only had to care about "already has older DOS" versus "this is
> a new empty harddisk". If you format all disks which have "no DOS"
> today, you get MANY angry users who are surprised by the demolition
> of their existing Windows, Linux or other OS.
>
> > setup is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to
add
> > additional software and system tweaks.
>
> I do not care at which point a reboot is needed. However, for those
> who install in a VM, it is best if the install process does not need
> too many virtual CD insertions or removals. The installer should be
> able to detect which steps have been completed: That way, you do not
> have to remove the CD before rebooting and still get a full install.
>
> > The package manager could be a 16-bit or 32-bit application. (I remember
> > PKZIP running perfectly fine on my Tandy 1000 EX before I had 640K
RAM), so
> > FDPKG would have to work from a floppy disk/image on lower end systems
(or
> > lower end in emulation)
>
> As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
> from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
> only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
> floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
>
> You can always use UNZIP or FDPKG or similar later if you manage to
> connect a CD drive or network card to your 286 or 8086 for extra fun.
>
> On the other hand, if you have a computer which is less than 50 years
> old, simply use a generic boot CD or DVD with all the fun on it, with
> a small, probably bootable RAMDISK to make installation easy. And do
> not worry about what you whether you want 8086 ROM BASIC drivers ;-)
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, please give the existing distros
> of FreeDOS 1.x and their installers a try and do NOT re-invent all
> wheels. Start by what is already is working and improve from there.
>
> This includes letting the FDPKG / FDNPKG installer do most work of
> nicely unpacking the per-package ZIPs and doing bookkeeping, batch
> install triggers and similar nice FreeDOS package management stuff.
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

[Antony Gordon]

HI,

How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
across all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once the
setup is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to add
additional software and system tweaks.

The package manager could be a 16-bit or 32-bit application. (I remember
PKZIP running perfectly fine on my Tandy 1000 EX before I had 640K RAM), so
FDPKG would have to work from a floppy disk/image on lower end systems (or
lower end in emulation)


On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 5:28 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:

> On 10/09/2015 10:51, Eric Auer wrote:
> > My personal opinion is that on 8086, you should rather use a floppy
> > distro like RUFFIDEA or BREZEL which has the "base" category already
> > pre-installed on one or a few floppies and you just XCOPY that to a
> > disk of your choice manually. Imagine how many floppies and spanned
> > zip files across multiple floppies a full install on 8086 would be.
>
> I would tend to agree on that, but it's apparently not a common point of
> view. Not that long ago, I almost triggered an apocalypse on this very
> list by stating that 8086 machines probably do not need a package
> manager. I can only imagine that an installer will be perceived as even
> more fundamental.
>
> Without going into multi-floppies installations, it might be nice for
> the FreeDOS installer to be compatible with the lowest possible machine,
> if only to effectively present an intro screen, help to format the disk
> and copy the most basic stuff to C:\FREEDOS. Even on a full-blown
> Pentium PC there won't be more to do for the installer. Once the most
> basic system is up and running, then people can install any additional
> software via FDNPKG.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I'm curious as to why a batch file and DOS 6 setup automatically initiated
the format once the drive was selected.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015, 9:28 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:

>
> > On Sep 9, 2015, at 8:03 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi Jerome,
> >
> > if you want to store temp results in your batch, you could
> > work with errorlevels, the FreeCOM magic errorlevel variable
> > or indeed a ramdrive. In the past, we often used "memdisk",
> > which is a BOOTABLE RAMDRIVE. That way, the installer used
> > a virtual floppy to boot. As you cannot natively boot DOS
> > from network, CD, DVD or BluRay, you have to use a virtual
> > boot disk for those anyway. Memdisk gives you the advantage
> > that the virtual boot disk is a writeable ramdrive floppy.
>
> Most of how the FDI prototype passes data around with errorlevel
> processing.
>
> However, not having a functioning pipe will make some of the more advanced
> features of V8PT unusable in the installer.
>
> example: "vcursor | set /p START_CURSOR=“ would save the incoming cursor
> so when the batch exits, it can restore it to its previous state with
> “vcursor %START_CURSOR%". However, just doing a “vcursor small” will
> make the cursor visible again.
>
> (
> FYI, the default cursor for FreeDOS inside vmWare is 0x0607. Assuming you
> could actually get an errorlevel that high. Could you imagine having 1543
> if
> statements for that one?  :’-(
> )
>
> I can probably work around most or all of the issues caused by no pipe
> support.
>
> It’s just the installer won’t be quite as intelligent as it could be.
>
> At present, I’ve already added stuff to the installer batch that will
> automatically
> use the pipes if the TEMP var is set. If it is not set, it runs in dumb
> mode.
>
> This will give whoever actually makes the FD1.2 Distro Release the ability
> to either support it or not just by adding a ram disk or leaving it out.
>
> >
> > Memdisk is a bit more esotheric compared to using a floppy
> > image to directly make a CD or similar bootable, but both
> > methods work on most BIOS variants. As more and more users
> > have a BIOS which can boot from USB stick or SD cards, the
> > whole problem can be sidestepped with a bootable USB / SD.
>
> It would be nice if FD 1.2, “ships” with floppy, CD, USB and SD
> support.
>
> >
> > Disadvantage of both methods is that the files inside the
> > boot "floppy" are less visible and less editable to people
> > who want to tune the boot CD / DVD image to their needs,
> > they tend to overlook the floppy image and / or lack the
> > tools needed to edit it, although free tools are available
> > for all common operating systems :-)
>
> Yeah, they’re a pain. But, reliable.
>
> >
> > Cheers, Eric
>
> Thanks, Jerome
>
> >
> >
> >
> > PS: Why does FORMAT C: need pipes? You do not want to hide
> > messages and if you worry about confirmation requests, I
> > personally vote AGAINST automated saying yes to FORMAT C:
>
> Well, it was a suggestion/request that I mostly agree with.
> The installer asks “Do you want to format and erase this drive?”
> Just a little redundant for the formatter to ask again.
>
> > (also, our FORMAT has a command line option for that…).
>
> What is it? I don’t see one to have it format drive C without insisting on
> typing “YES”
>
> >
> >> If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors
> >> and cannot redirect the data from one program to another.
> >
> > Many? Only if you try to explicitly use pipes ;-)
>
> One error message is way way way too many. :)
>
> >
> >
> >
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>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] mTCP/IP stack by M Brutman is now closed source

[Antony Gordon]

Wow,

This is the most activity I've seen on this list in a while, and it's a
temper tantrum of sorts over whether someone has the right to close source
or open source something they wrote.

Talk about comedy. So how are those bugs looking on the bug list in
FreeDOS?

Yeah, I probably just got myself booted from this list, but honestly I
think (sans sarcasm) that there are bigger tasks to tackle in FreeDOS than
haggling and harassing someone over closed source versus open source.

It's really not that important, but I have a simple solution, it's a grand
waste of a cd image, but FreeDOS should ship like MS-DOS and PC-DOS with
just the operating system and let everyone else work out the other software
on their own.

This will eliminate all this back and forth about open source and closed
source and can you include my program in because...if it's not a DOS
command from 1981 until 1994 (DOS 1.0 - DOS 6.22/7.0) it's not there and
you just have to download and build/install yourself.

-T
On Sep 9, 2015 7:02 PM, "Ralf Quint"  wrote:

> On 9/9/2015 4:00 PM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU wrote:
> > Ralf,I would ask that you take a breather.It is his program,he may do
> > whatever he wishes with it.
> >
> Well, maybe you should actually read my reply, as that is exactly what I
> am saying...
>
> Ralf
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 package compilation

[Antony Gordon]

Perhaps it should take a cue from the MSDOS installer - prepare the drive
and copy over there core OS. Then at the end of the core install, prompt
for the additional stuff

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 12:47 PM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU 
wrote:

> The installer.We should add a more...'friendly' interface to it.Mostof the
> installer is a bunch of keypresses and text on the screen after you select
> the packages to install.(I myself often forget which keys to press).
>
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Mercury Thirteen  > wrote:
>
>> I'm removing the Pegasus mail app due to it being closed source.
>>
>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

>  I'd suggest using 0xC3 0x00 as a magic number for any non-8086 executable.
> Or, for preference, using a 4-byte magic number: 0xC3 0x00 0x00 followed by
> a byte giving the supported CPU architecture. Then the logic in the loader 
> would be:
> 

Here’s an easier solution. Follow the pattern Microsoft set with PE files. PE 
files BTW is the executable format for Windows EXE files.

Visit this link - 
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Disassembly/Windows_Executable_Files#MS-DOS_COM_Files
 


i think it might be a little simpler this way.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

It’s all semantics. Most signatures are MZ, but some old linkers (not sure if 
they are even in use) used ZM according to RBIL

Values for the executable types understood by various environments:
 MZ old-style DOS executable (see #01594 
<http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/doc/rbinter/it/94/15.html>)
 ZM used by some very early DOS linkers, and still supported as an
  alternate to the MZ signature by MS-DOS, PC DOS, PTS-DOS, and S/DOS

-T

> On Jun 8, 2015, at 9:16 PM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 8 Jun 2015, Antony Gordon wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> See my other email. In DOS, MZ=ZM, I guess Microsoft changed course at 
>> some point. They are typically called MZ executables.
> 
> I was specifically referring to the specific magic number that would show 
> up as "ZM" in a text editor.  All the files I've seen have the number in 
> the opposite order such that the magic number appears as "MZ".
> 
> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

See my other email. In DOS, MZ=ZM, I guess Microsoft changed course at some 
point. They are typically called MZ executables.

> On Jun 8, 2015, at 8:55 PM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 8 Jun 2015, Antony Gordon wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> 
>>> Do "ZM" EXEs actually exist?
>>> 
>> 
>> Yes. Any 16-bit MS-DOS target compiler generates MZ executables. FreeDOS is 
>> full of them.
> 
> I said ZM, not MZ.
> 
> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi


> 
>  I'd suggest using 0xC3 0x00 as a magic number for any non-8086 executable.
> Or, for preference, using a 4-byte magic number: 0xC3 0x00 0x00 followed by
> a byte giving the supported CPU architecture. Then the logic in the loader 
> would be:
> 
> 0xC3 0x00 0x00-> run as native EXE
> 0xC3 0x00 0x00  -> return an error
> 0x4D 0x5A   (or 0x5A 0x4D)   -> run in emulator as x86 EXE
> anything else-> run in emulator as x86 COM
> 

The only problem I see is that to make an executable file that DOS recognizes 
according to the API, it has to follow this structure (in C for clarity)

struct EXE {
  unsigned short signature; /* == 0x5a4D */
  unsigned short bytes_in_last_block;
  unsigned short blocks_in_file;
  unsigned short num_relocs;
  unsigned short header_paragraphs;
  unsigned short min_extra_paragraphs;
  unsigned short max_extra_paragraphs;
  unsigned short ss;
  unsigned short sp;
  unsigned short checksum;
  unsigned short ip;
  unsigned short cs;
  unsigned short reloc_table_offset;
  unsigned short overlay_number;
};

struct EXE_RELOC {
  unsigned short offset;
  unsigned short segment;
};
 To maintain compatibility with MS-DOS and FreeDOS, we are constrained by the 
loader.  The signature has to be first. Here are some additional signatures 
that can appear in a DOS .EXE file

Values for the executable types understood by various environments:
 MZ old-style DOS executable (see #01594 
)
 ZM used by some very early DOS linkers, and still supported as an
  alternate to the MZ signature by MS-DOS, PC DOS, PTS-DOS, and S/DOS
 NE Windows or OS/2 1.x segmented ("new") executable (see #01596 
)
 LE Windows virtual device driver (VxD) linear executable (see #01609 
)
 LX variant of LE used in OS/2 2.x (see #01609 
)
 W3 Windows WIN386.EXE file; a collection of LE files
 W4 Windows95 VMM32.VXD file
 PE Win32 (Windows NT and Win32s) portable executable based on Unix COFF
 DL HP 100LX/200LX system manager compliant executable (.EXM)
 MP old PharLap .EXP (see #01619 
)
 P2 PharLap 286 .EXP (see #01620 
)
 P3 PharLap 386 .EXP (see #01620 
)
Retrieved from http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/doc/rbinter/it/93/15.html 

Obviously we can add to the loader code in FreeDOS so it can recognize a 
FreeDOS non x86 architecture EXE file, or we can extend after offset 0x1C with 
architectural information as the EXE header is 512 bytes IIRC. This extension 
can be back ported to the 16-bit version, so at the very least it can say “This 
program requires FreeDOS 32” or something to that effect similar in function to 
the Windows PE executables. 

>  The reason for using 0xC3 0x00 as the magic number is that no useful 
> DOS COM file will start with those bytes (0xC3 is x86 for RET). The extended
> sequence 0xC3 0x00 0x00 also rules out CP/M-80 COM files, which might start
> with 0xC3 but won't follow that with two zeroes.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi


> Do "ZM" EXEs actually exist?
> 

Yes. Any 16-bit MS-DOS target compiler generates MZ executables. FreeDOS is 
full of them.

> I've also been curious as to what the format is for .TOS binaries (since 
> GEMDOS has such a similar API to MS-DOS).
> 

Grab one and run it through a hex editor. 

The API has no bearing on the executable file format. In addition, Atari 
computers were using Motorola processors and not Intel processors with a 
segmented memory model. 


> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 2.0

[Antony Gordon]

If there were only retail copies of FreeDOS.

On Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:25 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU 
wrote:

> If only there was a holographic FreeDOS (Like for the Samsung SMart
> window,or Microsoft's hololense).If there was a holographic FreeDOS,I would
> throw a party.(Think how cool that would be!).
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 10:30 PM, Mercury Thirteen <
> mercury0x0...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Correction... FreeDOS 1.2. Not 2.0.
>>
>> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Antony Gordon 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> If I were building the FreeDOS distribution, the only thing that would
>>> be included as a part of the official FreeDOS install would be the
>>> components that make up the OS depending on the MS/PC DOS version
>>> distribution we wanted to emulate.
>>>
>>> I would also supply these files as one complete ZIP file instead of
>>> individual files as they make up the core of what you expect to have
>>> available when using DOS. I think that is all the FreeDOS installer should
>>> install. Everything else should be separate.
>>>
>>> All the other stuff would be fluff, like GEM, NDN, and the developer
>>> tools.
>>>
>>> If the final line in the sand is that without source it can’t be
>>> included, I think a list of where to find stuff would be useful to find the
>>> tools or applications needed.
>>> > On May 28, 2015, at 3:52 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Although it is freeware, source code for NDN appears to be
>>> unavailable. Given this project's push towards 100% open software, I am
>>> inclined to exclude it from the FreeDOS 2.0 image.
>>> >
>>> > Any thoughts?
>>> >
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>>>
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>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

> On Jun 5, 2015, at 6:10 PM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> 
> A port of DOS to ARM would not be bound to any existing API and would not 
> need to be compatible with any existing DOS implementations, while still 
> being a port of DOS.
> 

That’s technically incorrect. The reason that Linux (and UNIX) work on 
different architectures is that the API is the same, but the low level 
interface to the hardware is the difference. Since there is no BIOS to speak of 
on other processors, nor a concept of real and protected mode, a lot will have 
to go into the kernel, basically making a hardware abstraction layer that 
emulates the BIOS, that can process a DOS executable for Intel processors and 
make determinations on whether it is a 16-bit application or a 32-bit 
application and run it accordingly.

If you don’t keep the basic DOS API (via Int 21h) then it’s technically not 
DOS, but another operating system.

Microsoft attempted (for the x86 version) to keep a compatibility layer in the 
OS so that you could run DOS applications, even though these applications were 
written for a single task, 16-bit real mode OS that allowed direct hardware 
access, which unfortunately can cause issues in a 32-bit protected mode 
environment.

Fortunately, the benefit in our favor is some of this work has already been 
done. There is an open source BIOS implementation that can be grafted in to 
FreeDOS, it’s just a matter of figuring out which one to use and how to 
implement it.

> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hey,


> On Jun 5, 2015, at 6:49 PM, Chelson Aitcheson  
> wrote:
> 
> Nothing is impossible if it was the case we would all still be using reel to 
> reel and tape decks lol.
> 
> Lots of ideas and spit balling here but hey why not write it up and if people 
> wana contribute then they will if not keep using old trusty xt
> 

Two thumbs up

> On 06/06/2015 8:39 am, "Steve Nickolas"  > wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Jun 2015, Chelson Aitcheson wrote:
> 
> > Doesn't matter, Mac os power pc applications dont work on new Mac os but
> > it's still the same os.
> > (rosetta comparability layer aside)
> >
> > I see this as more of a chance for a new generation of dos. Freedos 1.x has
> > accomplished the needs for the existing replacement or clone requirements
> > of a dos with enhancements and still caters to the needs of its users.
> >
> > Yes it's lots of work to port stuff and to add compatibility layers etc..
> > but where is your sense of adventure?
> >
> > Yeah merc I see doscore on arm in a few years.
> 
> If you can mark the EXEs as something other than MZ, you could perhaps
> make a TSR loader stub that loads an x86 emulator on demand to run EXE
> files.
> 
> COM... I think you're gonna be stuck with using only an EXE format because
> trying to detect a COM file by architecture is fraught with peril.
> 
> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

Eric,

> 
> That mainly is because Apple is Apple ;-) In DOS, you get very
> far with a standard C library, good old OpenWatcom or DJGPP, in
> the latter case even similar enough to the Linux GCC and G++ C
> and C++ infrastructure to ease porting of things to DOS. As DOS
> does not provide GUI, networking or other fancy things as part
> of the operating system itself, you can use existing popular C
> and other libraries for that (Watt32, Wattcp, SDL, FLTK, ...)
> without being bound to a specific choice. The better libraries
> of course also come with sample code and documentation :-) Our
> distro could include some of the more popular libraries, giving
> people a nice starting point for their projects :-)
> 

That is the whole idea behind the FreeDOS Developer Studio. I know as well as 
anyone that there are multiple ways to do anything in DOS. Including some of 
the popular libraries with documentation and sample code either from the 
library itself or written by us would be great.

In addition white papers or articles on best practices. When DOS was king, we 
had Peter Norton, Andrew Schulman, Jim Pyle, and a host of other great authors 
that provided information in books (some of which are out of print and most are 
hard to find) on how to do various things in DOS. I believe there are some very 
knowledgeable people on this list and we can recreate some of those resources 
in the form of bite sized articles. I consider you a great resource for 
example, but there are others on this list.

Let’s use long file name support as an example. We have included in FreeDOS, 
LFNDOS to support the long file names. Since it is open source and we have the 
code, why not include LFN as a library in the developer studio then someone who 
is writing an application using long file names can reference that code as a 
library. 

I know they can download it themselves and include what they need, but I think 
that as an example would bring a huge benefit to FreeDOS especially given all 
the updates made.

> Regarding OpenWatcom, NASM, RBIL, Japheth's HX (and JWASM!), I
> agree that those are nice things to include :-) Some are rather
> large, but I have seen people make compressed basic OpenWatcom
> install files that fit on one floppy. It is always hard to get
> a good balance in what to include. FreeBasic and FPC etc. are
> not very small, but e.g. the set of pre-ported things for DJGPP
> is outright huge. You could even have a distro just for DJGPP.
> 

Since OpenWatcom is “open” I was thinking perhaps taking the source and 
branding it as FreeDOS C based on OpenWatcom, (to give credit) which is what 
Microsoft did initially with Lattice C via a licensing agreement. The same is 
true for Free Pascal (if we so desired) albeit with a different name since we 
can’t call it Free Pascal.

> I hope Rugxulo can help you getting that HX download uploaded
> to a place where it is easier to get than from the web archive.
> 

The licensing for it (as it relates to FreeDOS) has me wondering if it is even 
worth the effort. Based on what I read, it sounds good, but if GPL is a factor, 
we may need to consider something else. I wouldn’t want any hang ups to prevent 
this from moving forward.

> Note that RBIL already tells quite a bit about XMS and EMS, so
> having the spec as separate document is just for added detail.
> 

Yes RBIL covers EVERYTHING, but I think having the “official” specification 
lends more credence to the information we’re providing. If we find that it’s 
not as useful, it can be removed or referenced via a hyperlink.

> In particular, XMS is relatively easy to use even if you do not
> have a library for it. Using XMS or EMS with old (C) compilers
> can take some effort (memory models and low level stuff to get
> into the way, maybe) but to be honest, why take the effort for
> manual memory management at all? Simply use any protected mode
> aware compiler (DJGPP or a larger memory model in OpenWatcom)
> and DPMI and other DOS extender things will magically work for
> all your basic needs. Note that when you go that direction, it
> will mean that you have to avoid assumptions about direct raw
> memory access (screen buffers and such). If you do want that,
> you will have to take some explicit efforts, but there is some
> sample code on the web to help you out :-) Or just use one of
> the existing GUI toolkit libraries to do the work for you :-)
> 

I’m glad we’re finally getting along. :) I was worried for a minute that you 
weren’t going to like me.

Have a wonderful day.

Tony


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

It could either be on the ISO or a package that's installed. The idea that
I had was to provide someone who wanted to develop for FreeDOS a collection
of pre configured tools, documentation and examples to get started.

Some of us know FreeDOS better than others as well as the internals of
MS-DOS. Most of the resources are out of print or hard to find in some
cases.

Templates for device drivers, templates for building FreeDOS compatible
packages.

On Wed, Jun 3, 2015, 5:40 PM Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Jun 3, 2015 4:13 PM, "Antony Gordon"  wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> > >>
>
> > >> I think SETEDIT comes with some programmer support and
> > >> there is some DJGPP IDE (RHIDE?) and maybe others.
> >
> > Is there an IDE that’s included with FreeDOS that we can
> > extend to read compiler messages and such?
>
> What do you mean? Included in the Software List or inside fd11src.iso or
> mirrored on iBiblio?
>
> I don't think FD EDIT was meant for that kind of thing, for instance.
> Can't remember if OpenWatcom's vi supports it.
>
> I haven't done it lately, but I've still got my script to rebuild JED with
> DJGPP. Wouldn't that be sufficient? Or do you have something more specific
> in mind?
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

Why is that important?

On Wed, Jun 3, 2015, 6:14 PM Steve Nickolas  wrote:

Keep in mind that OpenWatcom doesn't meet Debian or GNU's criteria to be
open source.



-uso.

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

Hi.
> On Jun 3, 2015, at 3:55 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>> 
>>> How about a FreeDOS Developer Studio?
> 
> I don't want to be pessimistic or discourage anyone, but this sounds 
> difficult.
> 

Not being pessimistic, being realistic.

Realistically speaking, there isn’t much else you can contribute to FreeDOS 
unless someone is planning on secretly recreating Central Point tools or Norton 
Utilities. Majority of the DOS commands are represented (maybe not well, but 
represented) there is a fair amount of what I would consider 3rd party software 
like OpenGEM, and such that is deemed open enough to include with FreeDOS.

>> I think SETEDIT comes with some programmer support and
>> there is some DJGPP IDE (RHIDE?) and maybe others.
> 

Is there an IDE that’s included with FreeDOS that we can extend to read 
compiler messages and such?

> Neither has been maintained (for DOS/DJGPP, at least) in a decade.
> Well, RHIDE is more of a sore spot because it only works with ancient
> GCCs (3.3.6 or such), either being built itself or debugging (RHGDB,
> GDB 6.3?? COFF debug info only, which doesn't work well with newer GCC
> 4.5+).
> 
> I'm not saying RHIDE isn't good. Most people used to love it. But it's
> probably not a great idea (anymore) unless you just can't live without
> it. (IIRC, DJGPP GNU Emacs is still built with GCC 3.4.4 due to
> reliance on COFF debug info for unexec.)
> 
> Anyways, IIRC, latest semi-official build (1.5c) is here ("No more are
> are planed in near future."):
> 
> http://ap1.pp.fi/djgpp/rhide/
> 
> BTW, there are newer DJGPP GDB ports, but I'm not sure how (fully)
> well they work. There is still some commotion about them needing some
> fixes. Some also had "--tui" built-in, dunno, never heavily used it in
> recent years. Latest DJGPP GDB port is 7.7.1.
> 
>> While I myself do not use free open source IDE for DOS, but do
>> remember that the Turbo C / Turbo Pascal IDE was not bad,
>> I suggest that there could be a discussion in this thread
>> about experiences that people have with existing DOS IDE,
>> in particular the free open source ones :-)
> 
> Some DOS editors can easily catch compiler error messages. Of course
> GNU Emacs (24.5) works with DJGPP. But you could also use (much
> smaller) JED, which (IIRC) supported several more error formats (even
> Watcom or Borland). Obviously others might work with DJGPP as well
> (e.g. FED, even TDE has very limited support, VILE might barely work
> too, not sure about VIM but presumably yes).
> 
> I don't really use IDEs. Some people love them. Of course, FreePascal
> builds its own TUI IDE in itself (with built-in compiler), so that IDE
> is always included. (Usually also has GDB built-in as well.)
> 
>> Regarding the OTHER aspect of your idea - collecting new
>> and classic tools which are nice for developers - I agree
>> that it is good to have all things needed to compile all
>> standard parts of the FreeDOS distro, but for some, there
>> will be license issues in providing downloads. You should
>> just point people to suitable official websites for such
>> things as the "free museum" Borland compiler versions.
> 

I wasn’t recommending the Borland stuff for this for that particular reason. 

> In other words ... forget "Borland" entirely. IIRC, Embarcadero still
> don't allow redistribution of their ancient DOS compilers. (You could
> email and plead nicely, but don't get your hopes up. And I don't
> honestly know if Jim Hall would want to mirror such things on iBiblio
> anymore.)
> 
> It would be better to convert everything like that to OpenWatcom, but
> lots of stuff has been unmaintained for years, so it's unlikely to
> happen. (Some of it isn't really portable and uses old Borland-isms.)
> 
>> I do not know what the PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia
>> license is, but remember that various similar projects
>> exist, so you could include one which is good and does
>> have a free license. And of course include RBIL - Ralf
>> Brown's Interrupt List :-)
> 
> ftp://ftp.lanet.lv/pub/programming/mirror-x2ftp/gpe/00index.html
> 
>>> It would combine all of the recommended build tools to build the
>>> operating from the source.
> 
> This is a lot harder than it sounds.  :-/
> 
>>> With that being said (theoretically), would it be a good idea?
>>> 
>>> OpenWatcom, NASM, FreePascal, what else?
> 
> These are already available in FDNPKG format, BTW.
> 
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/devel/
> 

Yes they are, but there is no environment setup, a la Visual Studio or Xcode. 
Just a bunch of tools and your wits. 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

Eric,

Finally I’m not irking your nerves :) I wasn’t thinking of even using the 
Borland Museum tools. What I actually envisioned was much like what Apple does 
with Xcode, they provide an IDE, LLVM (and GCC) and Swift along with sample 
code, an SDK and documentation.

Fortunately for FreeDOS, the MS-DOS API is included with every DOS based 
compiler, so we have the SDK covered. An HTML version of RBIL would be cool and 
as far as the toolchain, I was thinking OpenWatcom and NASM. I managed to pull 
Japheth’s source code from the web archive of his site, so perhaps we could 
include the HX DOS Extender along with the source he had…that’s a side bar for 
the maintainers though.

The XMS specification is publicly available as is the EMS specification. The 
Game Programmer’s Encyclopedia covered things like graphics modes, unreal mode, 
I think I may still have the disk set for the EMS specification (I definitely 
have the book - the pages were sent to be added to the IBM DOS reference 
binder).

If not, perhaps using the specification, we can build out a library in C or ASM 
that covers these specifications and include them.

Regards

> On Jun 3, 2015, at 2:12 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
>> How about a FreeDOS Developer Studio?
> 
> I think SETEDIT comes with some programmer support and
> there is some DJGPP IDE (RHIDE?) and maybe others. While
> I myself do not use free open source IDE for DOS, but do
> remember that the Turbo C / Turbo Pascal IDE was not bad,
> I suggest that there could be a discussion in this thread
> about experiences that people have with existing DOS IDE,
> in particular the free open source ones :-)
> 
> Regarding the OTHER aspect of your idea - collecting new
> and classic tools which are nice for developers - I agree
> that it is good to have all things needed to compile all
> standard parts of the FreeDOS distro, but for some, there
> will be license issues in providing downloads. You should
> just point people to suitable official websites for such
> things as the "free museum" Borland compiler versions.
> 
> I do not know what the PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia
> license is, but remember that various similar projects
> exist, so you could include one which is good and does
> have a free license. And of course include RBIL - Ralf
> Brown's Interrupt List :-)
> 
>> It would combine all of the recommended build tools to build the
>> operating from the source.
>> 
>> I know a lot of the individual components that comprise FreeDOS
>> commands are written using various tools, i.e., museum versions of
>> Borland compilers, and they also use Turbo Vision (or the free
>> representation thereof)
>> 
>> With that being said (theoretically), would it be a good idea?
>> 
>> OpenWatcom, NASM, FreePascal, what else?
>> 
>> I have the PC Game Programmer’s Encyclopedia. Most of those articles
>> were public domain documents (the XMS and EMS specifications are in
>> there as text files), the GIF87 spec, etc. [...]
> 
> 
> 
> 
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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Developer Studio

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Since I’ve become the “bain of everyone’s existence” regarding the 32-bit 
extension to FreeDOS, I am going to attempt to offer an olive branch so I can 
stay on the list.

How about a FreeDOS Developer Studio?

It would combine all of the recommended build tools to build the operating from 
the source.

I know a lot of the individual components that comprise FreeDOS commands are 
written using various tools, i.e., museum versions of Borland compilers, and 
they also use Turbo Vision (or the free representation thereof)…

With that being said (theoretically), would it be a good idea?

OpenWatcom, NASM, FreePascal, what else?

I have the PC Game Programmer’s Encyclopedia. Most of those articles were 
public domain documents (the XMS and EMS specifications are in there as text 
files), the GIF87 spec, etc. I know a lot of these articles are easily 
accessible via the web, but perhaps by providing a centralized location where 
you can find code examples and documentation.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 package compilation

[Antony Gordon]

What I think would be useful would be an Xcode/Visual Studio type of 
environment that includes all of the recommended build tools setup with a batch 
file to set paths to have the tools work from any location on the hard drive.

This can be used to rebuild the OS or to develop new applications for the OS. 


> On Jun 3, 2015, at 12:42 AM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> 
> That was a HUGE zip file (once uncompressed).
> 
> I’m just glad I use a sandbox for stuff like this, that zip file was like a 
> box of chocolates…
> 
> That being said…that much stuff comes on the FreeDOS full CD image? It kind 
> of reminds me of the old Linux distributions that would ship a distribution 
> on one CD and then a separate CD that was a snapshot of the Linux parts of 
> various FTP sites.
> 
> I guess when you have almost 700MB to fill, you gotta do something.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jun 2, 2015, at 8:09 PM, Mercury Thirteen > <mailto:mercury0x0...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Everyone take a look at this ZIP 
>> <http://mercurycoding.com/FreeDOS/FreeDOS-1.2.zip> and let me know your 
>> feedback. Anything which shouldn't be included? Anything which should but 
>> wasn't? There's a few non-open source programs I didn't catch for removal.
>> 
>> Let me know your input.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 package compilation

[Antony Gordon]

That was a HUGE zip file (once uncompressed).

I’m just glad I use a sandbox for stuff like this, that zip file was like a box 
of chocolates…

That being said…that much stuff comes on the FreeDOS full CD image? It kind of 
reminds me of the old Linux distributions that would ship a distribution on one 
CD and then a separate CD that was a snapshot of the Linux parts of various FTP 
sites.

I guess when you have almost 700MB to fill, you gotta do something.




> On Jun 2, 2015, at 8:09 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Everyone take a look at this ZIP 
>  and let me know your 
> feedback. Anything which shouldn't be included? Anything which should but 
> wasn't? There's a few non-open source programs I didn't catch for removal.
> 
> Let me know your input.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Eric,

It’s involved, but so was writing an MS-DOS clone almost 17 years ago that is 
able to run 98% of all DOS software natively factoring in the quirks and 
undocumented and partially documented structures that had to be "clean room" 
implemented to avoid infringement. 

You and I were around for the beginnings of FreeDOS (when Pat was involved) and 
it was looking shaky then. Now FreeDOS in places were there was nothing to fit 
the bill, such as BIOS update disks, disk recovery tools, and emergency boot 
disks.  What I am advocating is a next level inclusion. Version 1.2 of FreeDOS 
is what, pushing out things that don’t use the GPL license and/or is free but 
the source code is no where to be found. 

The idea I have isn’t to create DOS windows in Windows but rather to build, 
using the Windows kernel which we can pull portions from Wine and/or ReactOS, 
load Windows drivers, and create a hardware compatibility layer whereby you can 
map an onboard sound card to the Sound Blaster settings, i.e., SET BLASTER=A220 
I5 D1 T3 P330 H6 E620. USB game controllers can be mapped to the game port, USB 
printers to the parallel port, etc.

I’m not interested incorporating the GUI portion of Windows and given the open 
source nature of some of the other projects, I think having access to 
incorporate these pieces into a FreeDOS 32 project would be ideal. 

 

> On May 31, 2015, at 7:08 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Antony,
> 
> if the goal is only to use Windows driver, then writing
> a clone of Windows is a high price. Plus it already has
> been paid, by the ReactOS project. Note that DOS windows
> in Windows often do not gain from Windows drivers: For
> example if your soundcard comes with a Windows driver,
> your DOS games still can not use that, even in Windows.
> 
> The exception would be dosemu and dosbox in Linux and,
> only the latter, in Windows: Those simulate a PC with
> DOS compatible hardware. They are not just DOS windows.
> 
> So regarding the balance between gain and effort, the
> big question is: For WHICH (categories of) pieces of
> Windows hardware do you want better DOS support? You
> already say that mouse, keyboard and storage are not
> enough, so what else?
> 
> You mention VMware, Parallels and VirtualBox: Those
> all simulate complete PC hardware, VM aware client
> drivers there are just to add features, such as the
> host / client drive sharing for which at least some
> VMware DOS driver already has been written afaik :-)
> 
> I remember that the "joystick" category already is
> known to DOS USB drivers: The problem probably is
> that many games do NOT use the BIOS calls to query
> joystick status. Instead, they directly access the
> joystick port hardware, but that expects non-USB.
> 
> Again, full hardware simulations can give your DOS
> game access to non-DOS sound and joystick, but DOS
> windows in Windows are not enough for that...
> 
> And a full hardware simulation is not what you are
> looking for, apparently: You "only want DOS which
> somehow at the same time is almost Windows, so it
> can use Windows drivers". To make that really work,
> you would end up having a lot of Windows plus some
> PC hardware simulator, which is much more than DOS.
> 
> For thinking about how small a system could be to
> combine DOS and sufficient magic to support those
> pieces of "Windows" hardware you are intersted in,
> the main question is: WHICH Windows hardware driver
> categories are you interested in?
> 
> Regards, Eric
> 
> PS: Your intuition that using Windows drivers and
> not Linux drivers for DOS probably comes from DOS
> and Windows being from the same company. Yet BOTH
> modern driver ecosystems are totally DOS unrelated.
> There IS some DOS software with Linux sound drivers.
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Eric,

It’s simple. Every piece of computer hardware comes with a Windows driver. 
Depending on the age of the device, you may have the older Windows drivers, or 
the newer Windows Driver Model driver. The reality is that to the major 
manufacturers of hardware, DOS is dead. No one is using a 16-bit OS, especially 
DOS, excluding our demographic, or as an “emergency boot disk". The bare 
minimum is 32-bit and now the transition is to 64-bit operating systems. DOS is 
so “dead” that VMWare, Parallels, and VirtualBox (even though the latter is 
aware of FreeDOS/MS-DOS usage) do not provide integration services or support 
for DOS and Windows 3.x

USB support in DOS is limited to hard drives only, perhaps USB keyboards and 
mice as they can emulate their PS/2 counterparts. What about USB game 
controllers, if you weren’t fortunate enough to buy a game controller that runs 
off the game port of your sound card, you’re definitely not getting it to run 
on FreeDOS. Which means you have to play your favorite video games using the 
keyboard.

It’s true, you can install Linux or another OS, install the emulator of your 
choice, connect your game controller and have it emulate as a game port 
controller in FreeDOS, but what if you only want FreeDOS on your machine?

If we are able to graft the Windows API into FreeDOS (as FreeDOS 32) then we 
have access to thousands of drivers. If Windows is just so bad, then I guess 
we’re left to contemplate a way to graft the Linux driver model onto FreeDOS. 
Somehow, I think it would be much easier to do Windows.

Hope this helps,

> On May 29, 2015, at 11:31 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Anthony,
> 
> please explain in which way Windows WITHOUT a GUI would be
> something that we want to add to FreeDOS: There already are
> really good, free and open DPMI based DOS extenders for DOS.
> 
> FreeDOS itself is not running in protected mode, but every
> EMM386 style software must use protected mode (not to be
> confused with EMS hardware solutions for old computers) and
> Windows in 386 enhanced mode is not compatible with normal
> EMM386. Instead, it uses an exotic interface called GEMMIS
> to REPLACE EMM386 on the fly. This only works with non-free
> versions, for example Microsoft EMM386. The solution is to
> use either the Microsoft version or simply not use EMM386.
> In some cases, HIMEM and similar drivers can cause similar
> problems, but again, you can use the Microsoft drivers :-)
> 
> Microsoft mainly patches DOS when it tries to put it into
> a protected mode bubble to be able to run DOS windows in
> a Windows session. In standard mode, Windows is more like
> a normal program for DOS, which makes things easier :-)
> 
> As described earlier in this thread, you do have to edit
> your Windows config AND you have to use special versions
> of the FreeDOS kernel to support that bubble wrapping or
> patching of FreeDOS for 386enh Windows compatibility. If
> Windows can not figure out how to patch DOS, it will give
> a similar error message to the already protected mode one.
> 
>> Microsoft demonstrated a means of providing multitasking and 32-bit
>> functionality on top of a 16-bit OS through the development of Windows 3.x
>> and Windows 9x. If we are able to build a 32-bit subsystem that can utilize
>> the device drivers and other existing components of the 32-bit Microsoft
>> subsystem (Win32s or Windows 9x) then FreeDOS gains a 32-bit option that
>> provides the backwards compatibility that is needed to meet spec.
> 
> Everything that you mention in the previous paragraph is
> useful only for graphical Windows software: To summarize,
> you really should try Linux with Wine, or ReactOS for it.
> 
> Regards, Eric
> 
> PS: Even running only multiple DOS Windows in Windows is
> already something that does need the GUI of Windows, too.
> But you can work with DOS "task swappers", as TriDOS :-)
> They swap between different (full screen) DOS sessions.
> This is not related to how many bits your Windows has.
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Eric,

I only mentioned the Windows portion because it would tie in compatibility
on the Microsoft side of things for classic software, not necessarily to
re-invent Windows 3.x or Windows 9x.

I'll try to elaborate more.

If you strip the GUI from MS Windows, you have 3 important parts that run
to implement 32-bit protected mode. KRNL386, DOSX (the DOS Extender) and a
virtual machine manager. If we were able to recreate those three components
and build them in such a way that they are compatible with Windows virtual
device drivers, we'd have a 32-bit extension to FreeDOS that we could use

At the core of it's existence, The portions of the Windows 3.x subsystem
that tie into DOS in 386 Enhanced mode consists of a DPMI server and a
virtual machine manager of sorts. Microsoft patches certain aspects of DOS
when Windows runs. In 1993, we were at best guessing (unless you had an OEM
NDA) what was going on and depending on Andrew Schulmann et. al. to provide
insight. Now, that we can clearly see what was done (more or less), we can
implement a similar concept, but a different way.

FreeDOS presently appears to run in protected mode (I found that out trying
to run Windows in enhanced mode). The error message that Windows gave was
that the processor was already in protected mode.

Microsoft demonstrated a means of providing multitasking and 32-bit
functionality on top of a 16-bit OS through the development of Windows 3.x
and Windows 9x. If we are able to build a 32-bit subsystem that can utilize
the device drivers and other existing components of the 32-bit Microsoft
subsystem (Win32s or Windows 9x) then FreeDOS gains a 32-bit option that
provides the backwards compatibility that is needed to meet spec.

If, by doing that, running Windows applications becomes a possibility, that
is only a side benefit.

The other alternative is to find a way to implement the DOS API completely
in a 32-bit address space, which alienates the older applications.

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 8:55 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi :-)
>
> > 1. Start FreeDOS (16-bit mode) 2. Start FreeDOS-32 via a separate
> > executable (it would only be installed if it detected a 32-bit
> > capable processor), perhaps call it FD32. It would switch to
> > protected mode and spawn a protected mode shell.
>
> http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/ already exists. No news since 2011.
>
> FD32 runs more parts in 32-bit, but the advantages compared to using a
> classic DOS together with a DPMI compatible DOS extender are minimal.
>
> > The other possibility During the install, determine if the computer
> > can support 32-bit instruction set If so, install FreeDOS and install
> > the FreeDOS 32-bit components (provide an option to only run the
> > 16-bit OS) FreeDOS 32 starts automatically by running the initial
> > 16-bit environment, then spawning the 32-bit environment to take
> > over.
>
> We once pondered this as part of the ISO boot process. But because
> it is almost impossible to boot from CD on 8086 or 286 computers,
> we dropped the idea. Instead, just take a floppy with a special 16
> bit, 8086 compatible version of DOS if you have such old hardware.
> The ISO simply assumes that you have 386 or newer hardware anyway.
>
> Interestingly, 8086 or PC-XT compatible FreeDOS floppy distros are
> actively discussed here and even updated at this very moment :-)
>
> > All existing drivers developed for FD16 would work. If we use the
> > Windows SDK to clean build the 32-bit environment, then perhaps we
> > can use Win9x drivers (if they are even still available).
>
> You cannot use Win9x drivers for DOS software. Also, you cannot use
> Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in 386 enhanced mode and expect it to
> behave well: It will use built-in 32 bit disk and FAT drivers which
> do not work well at all with modern things like FAT32, LBA, SATA.
>
> You can disable those drivers, but running WfW 3.11 in that mode is
> like running Win9x in safe mode: A lot of comfort gets lost. If you
> want to enjoy Windows 3 in FreeDOS, use Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and use
> standard mode, not WfW 3.11 - even 386enh mode of 3.0 / 3.1 is very
> fragile as all your drivers have to cooperate and let Windows take
> over as the boss of your protected mode infrastructure, locking the
> DOS kernel into a vm86 bubble with a task switching wrapper around
> it. FreeDOS tries to support that in newer kernels, but this stays
> really hard to do well because basically Microsoft Windows is only
> skilled in making bubbles around Microsoft DOS, so we can only try
> to be very similar in the parts to which the 386enh bubble sticks.
>
> > Otherwise, we’d have to clean room Win NT to implement a 32-bit OS
> > and ReactOS is still in alpha...
>
> If you want to use 32 bit Windows programs (beyond Win32s for 3.x),
> you do not have the option to use DOS for that. You must use either
> ReactOS or Linux with Wine or a closed source OS like OS/2 or actual
> Microsoft Windows. In some cases, Japheth's HX / HXRT for DOS w

Re: [Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Here’s one possibility:

1. Start FreeDOS (16-bit mode)
2. Start FreeDOS-32 via a separate executable (it would only be installed if it 
detected a 32-bit capable processor), perhaps call it FD32. It would switch to 
protected mode and spawn a protected mode shell.

The other possibility
During the install, determine if the computer can support 32-bit instruction set
If so, install FreeDOS and install the FreeDOS 32-bit components (provide an 
option to only run the 16-bit OS)
FreeDOS 32 starts automatically by running the initial 16-bit environment, then 
spawning the 32-bit environment to take over.

All existing drivers developed for FD16 would work. If we use the Windows SDK 
to clean build the 32-bit environment, then perhaps we can use Win9x drivers 
(if they are even still available).

Otherwise, we’d have to clean room Win NT to implement a 32-bit OS and ReactOS 
is still in alpha...


> On May 28, 2015, at 4:58 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Agreed, that was my exact line of thinking.
> 
> However, the folks here seem to have come to the conclusion that FreeDOS will 
> not evolve into the 32-bit realm.
> 
> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Antony Gordon  <mailto:cuzint...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I was re-reading some emails and I think I have an idea of how this would 
> work.
> 
> The goal is existing compatibility so that older DOS applications will run. 
> Obviously, moving to 32-bit will eliminate most of the older processors, 
> HOWEVER. by implementing a Windows 9x like model and build a 32-bit kernel to 
> supplant the 16-bit kernel, we can then spawn 16-bit VM under a 32-bit kernel 
> to run each 16-bit application, as well as develop 32-bit applications.
> 
> The important pieces I believe that need to be figured out is the VMM 
> (Virtual Machine Manager) and the DOS Extender. I only suggest Windows 9x 
> because it was still able to utilize real mode DOS drivers.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
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[Freedos-devel] 32-bit FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

I was re-reading some emails and I think I have an idea of how this would work. 

The goal is existing compatibility so that older DOS applications will run. 
Obviously, moving to 32-bit will eliminate most of the older processors, 
HOWEVER. by implementing a Windows 9x like model and build a 32-bit kernel to 
supplant the 16-bit kernel, we can then spawn 16-bit VM under a 32-bit kernel 
to run each 16-bit application, as well as develop 32-bit applications.

The important pieces I believe that need to be figured out is the VMM (Virtual 
Machine Manager) and the DOS Extender. I only suggest Windows 9x because it was 
still able to utilize real mode DOS drivers.

Thoughts?



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 2.0

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

If I were building the FreeDOS distribution, the only thing that would be 
included as a part of the official FreeDOS install would be the components that 
make up the OS depending on the MS/PC DOS version distribution we wanted to 
emulate.

I would also supply these files as one complete ZIP file instead of individual 
files as they make up the core of what you expect to have available when using 
DOS. I think that is all the FreeDOS installer should install. Everything else 
should be separate. 

All the other stuff would be fluff, like GEM, NDN, and the developer tools.

If the final line in the sand is that without source it can’t be included, I 
think a list of where to find stuff would be useful to find the tools or 
applications needed.
> On May 28, 2015, at 3:52 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Although it is freeware, source code for NDN appears to be unavailable. Given 
> this project's push towards 100% open software, I am inclined to exclude it 
> from the FreeDOS 2.0 image.
> 
> Any thoughts?
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[Freedos-devel] Windows for Workgroups and FreeDOS

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

So for the pure fun of it, I decided to install Windows 3.11 on FreeDOS knowing 
full well how well it would work. (Cue laugh track)

I don’t know how far anyone has gotten with this process but so far what I have 
found is that FreeDOS (unlike MS-DOS) in it’s default configuration ends up in 
protected mode. If you’re in protected mode, Windows is unable to use DOSX and 
switch to protected mode.

Fortunately, Microsoft includes HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE with WfW. In 
VirtualBox, EMM386.EXE NOEMS appears to hang FreeDOS at boot, but HIMEM.SYS 
does work. Through process of elimination, I figured that DOSLFN is the culprit 
that is switching FreeDOS to protected mode.

Once I commented out the line, I got an error message that the DOS version is 
unsupported, at which point Windows returns to the command prompt. I think 
somewhere along the line the memory control blocks get mutilated because the 
next internal command I run (“dir”) bombs with a message regarding being unable 
to terminate the resident FreeCOM and then a message about invalid opcodes.

VirtualBox then hangs and I have to reboot.

I have a copy of Undocumented DOS 2nd Edition (complete with the source code) 
so I have been running some of the tools that they wrote to test DOS 
compatibility, and presently, there seems to be an issue with SHARE. The 
MSDETECT code that I fully expected to fail (after a reboot because of the 
invalid opcode) returned that FreeDOS is a legitimate Microsoft DOS (which we 
know isn’t true).



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS (ODIN) and 8086 compatibility

[Antony Gordon]

MORE and SORT typically work on files and console input. When piping a
temporary file is created. IIRC that is done even in UNIX from which the
file handle idea and pipes originated from.

I do believe MODE MONO was specifically for working with Hercules and
monochrome video cards, whereas working with CGA or better in B/W required
MODE BW80. However, there are idiosyncrasies across DOS versions (IBM DOS
vs MS OEM adapted DOS) that make this hard to track out.

IBM DOS 3.1 > Compaq MS DOS 3.31 > MS-DOS 5.0 > MS-DOS 6.x in my opinion
represents the stable Microsoft compatible and stable versions of DOS.

On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 2:27 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:

> On 25/05/2015 06:33, Ralf Quint wrote:
> >> MEMA: Prints out garbage to screen and quits.
> > What is MEMA?
>
> No idea, only Steve knows probably :) I assumed it is some kind of
> replacement for MEM (since MEM is missing on ODIN), but because of its
> crashing, I couldn't check.
>
> >> KEYB: immediately crash with "Runtime error 105 at :252F"
> > Do you use any country modifier? If so, it's bug in KEYB opening up the
> > language/country file NOT in a read-only mode, showing up due to having
> > the floppy disk write protected...
>
> No, no modifiers at all - bare FreeDOS without autoexec nor config.sys
> files.
>
> >> MORE: Exactly same symptoms as SORT.
> > ditto.
>
> Why does MORE requires a temp file is beyond me. BUt of course if it
> does, that's life. Will see then to maybe write a replacement that
> wouldn't need to write to disk(ette), if I can't find any free
> alternatives.
>
> >> DIR: When using DIR/P, DIR seems to think that the screen is 1-row high,
> >> and asks for a keypress for every line (the screen is CGA-based, 25
> rows).
> > That must be some issue with your PC, works fine for me and should not
> > be related to 8086 code or not at all...
>
> Not related to 8086, but this might be related to CGA. Are you a proud
> owner of a CGA, too?
>
> I was recently fixing a bug in another software that was exhibiting
> exactly same behavior (1-line virtual screen on CGA). The bug was
> related to the fact that on a CGA the location 0040:0084 does not
> contain the screen's height (no need, since CGA can't be anything else
> than 25 rows anyway). The solution was to test for an EGA, if EGA or
> better found then fetch 0040:0084 for screen's height, otherwise assume
> 25 rows.
>
> >> MODE: MODE MONO makes the screen blank. Had to type in blindly "MODE
> >> BW80" to recover. Might not be a bug, but would be nice if MODE could
> >> check if a given mode is supported, before running it.
> > Would have to test but that could be "compatible" behaviour with
> MS-DOS...
>
> Maybe. I have only MSDOS 3.3, and this one seem to lack "MODE MONO"
> entirely. It does understand MODE BW80, though - so maybe it's not
> 'missing' MONO but simply not exposing it when running on MDA/HERC
> incompatible hardware.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS (ODIN) and 8086 compatibility

[Antony Gordon]

That is pretty old.

Is that something that is still needed or wanted?


> On May 24, 2015, at 5:29 AM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Not sure that anybody cares about this, but just in case - I recently 
> tested the 1-diskette FreeDOS distribution "ODIN" on an 8086 PC, and 
> spotted a few more or less serious problems.
> 
> I got the ODIN image from odin.fdos.org, and more specifically this:
> http://odin.fdos.org/fdodin06.8088.zip
> 
> Now, here goes the list.
> 
> 
> MEM: The command MEM is missing.
> 
> MEMA: Prints out garbage to screen and quits.
> 
> KEYB: immediately crash with "Runtime error 105 at :252F"
> 
> DEFRAG: Blanks the entire screen, and freezes
> 
> SORT: Freezes. When executed with "DIR | SORT" it tries to write 
> something to my diskette (!) that I had write protected, fortunately.
> 
> MORE: Exactly same symptoms as SORT.
> 
> DIR: When using DIR/P, DIR seems to think that the screen is 1-row high, 
> and asks for a keypress for every line (the screen is CGA-based, 25 rows).
> 
> MODE: MODE MONO makes the screen blank. Had to type in blindly "MODE 
> BW80" to recover. Might not be a bug, but would be nice if MODE could 
> check if a given mode is supported, before running it.
> 
> 
> cheers,
> Mateusz
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Hello!

[Antony Gordon]

I think the original goal of FreeDOS has been met, based upon what I
remember from back in 2000 or so when I came across the project. I have
seen many posts back and forth about adding support for this and that
because Windows sucks and so forth and so on.

With that being said, here's what I see. Now I know opinions are like ...
and everyone has one...

The core FreeDOS aims to maintain compatibility with MS/PC DOS as it
pertains to in-memory data structures, like SysVars, Job File Tables,
memory control blocks, etc, documented (and undocumented API) based on DOS
6.22 such as the DOS routines (INT 21h), the multiplexer (INT 2FH),
Ctrl-Break (INT 23H), Critical Error handler (INT 24H), and although
superceded, absolute disk read and write (INT 25H, INT26H respectively).

DOS was designed in an extensible manner, so I believe rather than changing
the core of the OS, we need to EXTEND the OS. Obviously features such as
IPv4/IPv6, GPT, are not relevant to the class of users that are wishing to
still relive the glory days of the early x86 processors, i.e., 8086, 8086,
80186, 80286, etc.

There is a different class of user, mostly those commenting on this thread,
which would like to use DOS with newer machines. One alternative would be
to design and build a protected mode kernel that would map all of the real
mode calls and virtualize all hardware access. That would put us right
where OSes like Linux and Windows are. The other alternative is to develop
a platform that sits on top of DOS that runs and switches to protected mode
and virtualize all the hardware. That puts us where Windows 95/98 was.

To bring DOS into "the future" requires some parting with older
technologies, which isn't particularly a goal of this project. In
comparison, the issues that Microsoft has (and had) with Windows was in
part due to their attempts to bring along the past into the future. This is
why Microsoft let go of DOS in the Windows 9x code base and shifted to the
Windows NT code base. Even then, with 32-bit code, it was still possible to
run DOS applications (to an extent) but they were isolated to their own VM.

Basically, short of forking this project, I don't see a way to incorporate
the advanced features and still remain compatible with an OS that is over
20 years old.

On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 6:07 PM JK Benedict  wrote:

> Excellent.
>
> "Daily" builds was just an example and I agree, daily builds would be
> overkill.
>
> The angle I was coming from is when "core changes" start to be made.  How
> will this affect the 100 packages when core, resource, and drivers are
> re-tooled?  DOS is heavily classic, solid... but some of the changes will
> affect the core.  I should have been more specific in unit testing and
> planning as various drivers, kernel, and kernel-deps change.
>
> Ah, Zip files -- the beauty of DOS.  I love Linux, but sometimes I just
> don't feel like writing code or compiling things :)
>
> Thanks for the reply and will research/download the wifi drivers as soon as
> possible.
>
> --jesse/jkbs
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Eric Auer [mailto:e.a...@jpberlin.de]
> Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 7:17 AM
> To: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] Hello!
>
>
> Hi Jesse,
>
> Centralized documentation makes sense, but why would you put 100 packages
> in
> a centralized source code repository if 95 of them have not a single source
> code change in a whole year?
>
> And why do nightly builds of all 100 then? DOS heavily relies on classic
> software that simply is okay as it is and that no longer changes :-)
>
> As mentioned in the thread, there already is a considerable number of text
> and graphical web browsers. It probably is better to improve one of those
> instead of writing yet another browser.
>
> I agree that it is good to have a wishlist for shareware software that we
> would like to become free open source. Maybe the list could be done in wiki
> style?
>
> In general, if the hardware common for virtual machines is among the
> hardware for which there are drivers, there is no need to have separate
> development for virtualization and installation.
>
> We do already have a few VM-specific tools which are available :-) And
> there
> could be a download of a pre-installed VM, in case installation from ISO
> takes too much effort ;-)
>
> IPv6 is widely available already but is rarely required so I agree that DOS
> is not in a hurry.
>
> Regarding GPT, that is something that only needs some reasonably small
> amount of kernel code to support in passive scenarios. Having FDISK with
> GPT
> would be way more code, I guess. Most other tools never look at a partition
> table, so for them, this is not relevant.
>
> FileMaven basically does the LapLink thing, but it is closed source. It
> would be nice to have something open. On computers with network (LAN), it
> is
> better to use existing FTP, SCP, SMB or HTTP tools to copy files around.
> And
> there is a tool to copy files between VM

Re: [Freedos-devel] System Configuration Editor

[Antony Gordon]

I'm trying to build on what I've already done in the Pascal variant of
turbo vision.

Maybe I should learn the C++ variant instead.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 2:53 PM Louis Santillan  wrote:

> As an FYI, many terminal/text-based editors (taking gnu nano as an
> example here) simply perform a regex match on the text and
> prefix/postfix the text with VT100/ANSI color codes matching the 16
> VT100/ANSI standard colors (which align to similar colors in the 16
> color EGA/VGA palette).  See examples of nano's regex's here [0][1].
> DOS doesn't do VT100/ANSI translation without something like
> ANSI.SYS/NANSI.SYS installed.
>
> This operation essentially does something like:
>
> REM Load Mouse=>  REM Load Mouse
> LH C:\DOS\DRIVER.EXE =>  LH C:\DOS
>
> [0]
> https://code.google.com/p/nanosyntax/source/browse/trunk/syntax-nanorc/php.nanorc
> [1]
> https://code.google.com/p/nanosyntax/source/browse/trunk/syntax-nanorc/js.nanorc
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 10:15 AM, Antony Gordon 
> wrote:
> > In it's present version, it checks the system path and the boot drive and
> > loads the following files:
> >   AUTOEXEC.BAT
> >   CONFIG.SYS
> >   FDCONFIG.SYS
> >   PROTOCOL.INI
> >   WIN.INI
> >   SYSTEM.INI
> >
> > FDCONFIG.SYS was added in 2003. I never added FDAUTO.BAT, although I
> could.
> > I don't remember why either.
> >
> > I'll try to find someone on that project that may be willing to assist me
> > with the syntax highlighting. I'm also looking at SETEDIT.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 1:13 AM Rugxulo  wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I was originally going to sit this one out because I didn't have
> >> anything worthwhile to mention, but 
> >>
> >> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Antony Gordon 
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Jayden, I don't know if you have used Windows (I'm sure you have), but
> >> > my
> >> > program is essentially a DOS version of the System Configuration
> Editor
> >> > that
> >> > came with Windows 3.x.
> >>
> >> It's been many years since most of us used that. I don't even remember
> >> it, to be honest. I was weakly thinking of "msconfig" here.
> >>
> >> > I wrote this program using TV on Turbo Pascal when I
> >> > was working at CompUSA and customers would butcher Windows to the
> point
> >> > of
> >> > not booting. The program opened all the files at once so I could look
> at
> >> > them all easily to see what was messed up.
> >>
> >> Okay, sounds good.
> >>
> >> A quick suggestion here would be to try to find more than just
> >> CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Specifically, I'm thinking of
> >> FDCONFIG.SYS, FDAUTO.BAT, or similarly renamed files (e.g. DR-DOS
> >> 7.03:  DCONFIG.SYS, AUTODOS7.BAT or whatever).
> >>
> >> > At the time, the basic functionality was all I needed, so I didn't
> delve
> >> > into the program more. Releasing it to the FreeDOS community in it's
> >> > current
> >> > form will probably get comments around the fact that it is a basic
> Turbo
> >> > Vision app and I didn't do "anything".
> >>
> >> Okay.
> >>
> >> > I am looking for some examples on how to extend the Turbo Vision
> Editor
> >> > (or
> >> > FileEditor) object to include syntax highlighting. So far, I haven't
> >> > been
> >> > fruitful in my search.
> >>
> >> I've honestly never delved into TVision myself. I know you're using TP
> >> here, but IIRC even FreePascal has its own clone, FreeVision, which is
> >> used in their (TUI) IDE for DOS. They also have experimental 16-bit
> >> DOS target support, but I honestly don't know if FreeVision works
> >> there (yet). I'm not really in the loop on what's going on over there.
> >>
> >> But anyways, you may want to take a look at that. IIRC, their IDE
> >> supports syntax highlighting, so it may be something they added to FV.
> >>
> >> 1). http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision
> >> 2). http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/user/usersu52.html
> >>
> >>
> >>
> --
> >> BPM Camp - Free Virtual Workshop May 6th at 10am PDT/1PM EDT
> >>

Re: [Freedos-devel] System Configuration Editor

[Antony Gordon]

In it's present version, it checks the system path and the boot drive and
loads the following files:
  AUTOEXEC.BAT
  CONFIG.SYS
  FDCONFIG.SYS
  PROTOCOL.INI
  WIN.INI
  SYSTEM.INI

FDCONFIG.SYS was added in 2003. I never added FDAUTO.BAT, although I could.
I don't remember why either.

I'll try to find someone on that project that may be willing to assist me
with the syntax highlighting. I'm also looking at SETEDIT.



On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 1:13 AM Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I was originally going to sit this one out because I didn't have
> anything worthwhile to mention, but 
>
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Antony Gordon 
> wrote:
> >
> > Jayden, I don't know if you have used Windows (I'm sure you have), but my
> > program is essentially a DOS version of the System Configuration Editor
> that
> > came with Windows 3.x.
>
> It's been many years since most of us used that. I don't even remember
> it, to be honest. I was weakly thinking of "msconfig" here.
>
> > I wrote this program using TV on Turbo Pascal when I
> > was working at CompUSA and customers would butcher Windows to the point
> of
> > not booting. The program opened all the files at once so I could look at
> > them all easily to see what was messed up.
>
> Okay, sounds good.
>
> A quick suggestion here would be to try to find more than just
> CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Specifically, I'm thinking of
> FDCONFIG.SYS, FDAUTO.BAT, or similarly renamed files (e.g. DR-DOS
> 7.03:  DCONFIG.SYS, AUTODOS7.BAT or whatever).
>
> > At the time, the basic functionality was all I needed, so I didn't delve
> > into the program more. Releasing it to the FreeDOS community in it's
> current
> > form will probably get comments around the fact that it is a basic Turbo
> > Vision app and I didn't do "anything".
>
> Okay.
>
> > I am looking for some examples on how to extend the Turbo Vision Editor
> (or
> > FileEditor) object to include syntax highlighting. So far, I haven't been
> > fruitful in my search.
>
> I've honestly never delved into TVision myself. I know you're using TP
> here, but IIRC even FreePascal has its own clone, FreeVision, which is
> used in their (TUI) IDE for DOS. They also have experimental 16-bit
> DOS target support, but I honestly don't know if FreeVision works
> there (yet). I'm not really in the loop on what's going on over there.
>
> But anyways, you may want to take a look at that. IIRC, their IDE
> supports syntax highlighting, so it may be something they added to FV.
>
> 1). http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision
> 2). http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/user/usersu52.html
>
>
> --
> BPM Camp - Free Virtual Workshop May 6th at 10am PDT/1PM EDT
> Develop your own process in accordance with the BPMN 2 standard
> Learn Process modeling best practices with Bonita BPM through live
> exercises
> http://www.bonitasoft.com/be-part-of-it/events/bpm-camp-virtual-
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] System Configuration Editor

[Antony Gordon]

Jayden, I don't know if you have used Windows (I'm sure you have), but my
program is essentially a DOS version of the System Configuration Editor
that came with Windows 3.x. I wrote this program using TV on Turbo Pascal
when I was working at CompUSA and customers would butcher Windows to the
point of not booting. The program opened all the files at once so I could
look at them all easily to see what was messed up.

At the time, the basic functionality was all I needed, so I didn't delve
into the program more. Releasing it to the FreeDOS community in it's
current form will probably get comments around the fact that it is a basic
Turbo Vision app and I didn't do "anything".

I am looking for some examples on how to extend the Turbo Vision Editor (or
FileEditor) object to include syntax highlighting. So far, I haven't been
fruitful in my search.



On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 10:28 AM JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <
jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote:

> Editing configuration files is pretty straight forward when it comes to
> DOS,but,a GUI is nice.For syntax highlighting,I would do the following:
> Have a few default structures.Like "=[option]" or 
>  [options]
> So when the user (I am not sure how your program works,so bear with me)
> types a FDCONFIG.SYS line,the program changes the text colors corresponding
> with the different values.The general syntax for FDCONFIG.SYS is
>  "=[option]".As for editing the AUTOEXEC.BAT file,it is basically
> a batch file,save the fact that it runs at the start.So if the user types
> "LH  the option (executable) should be another.It is a matter of changing the
> colors of preset functions,using a general syntax.I hope this helps,as I
> have not programmed FreeDOS in at least a month/month and a half now.
> -Jayden
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Antony Gordon 
> wrote:
>
>> I've dug up an old program that I used when I was a PC tech to edit
>> configuration files (AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS,  and the assortment of
>> Windows 3.x config files).
>>
>> It's written in (Turbo) Pascal. Jim suggested I add syntax highlighting
>> and features from MEM to it. I need some pointers on the syntax
>> highlighting, however do you think this is good feature to have or tool?
>>
>> I'm open to suggestions for this.
>>
>>
>> --
>> BPM Camp - Free Virtual Workshop May 6th at 10am PDT/1PM EDT
>> Develop your own process in accordance with the BPMN 2 standard
>> Learn Process modeling best practices with Bonita BPM through live
>> exercises
>> http://www.bonitasoft.com/be-part-of-it/events/bpm-camp-virtual-
>> event?utm_
>> source=Sourceforge_BPM_Camp_5_6_15&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=VA_SF
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>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>>
>>
>
> --
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> Learn Process modeling best practices with Bonita BPM through live
> exercises
> http://www.bonitasoft.com/be-part-of-it/events/bpm-camp-virtual-
> event?utm_
>
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>
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[Freedos-devel] System Configuration Editor

[Antony Gordon]

I've dug up an old program that I used when I was a PC tech to edit
configuration files (AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS,  and the assortment of
Windows 3.x config files).

It's written in (Turbo) Pascal. Jim suggested I add syntax highlighting and
features from MEM to it. I need some pointers on the syntax highlighting,
however do you think this is good feature to have or tool?

I'm open to suggestions for this.
--
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 boot method?

[Antony Gordon]

I can send you a virtualbox VM that has FreeDOS installed and working. I'm
using it to test a system configuration editor I wrote years ago.

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 10:31 AM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <
jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote:

> I previously had FreeDOS on my laptop by doing this:
> I formatted my flashdrive/USB to boot into FreeDOS.I then copied (using
> xcopy /s) all the files from my desktop which had FreeDOS installed on it.I
> then booted my laptop into the Flashdrive/USB,and I ran the format /s
> command on the laptop's hard drive.I then copied all the files from the
> Flashdrive/USB to the laptop's hard drive.But,the problem is this time,my
> desktop has ubuntu on it.So I would have to reinstall FreeDOSmaybe I
> will.As for using emulators,as I said,I like using a real computer.If I am
> going to have my computer boot into the matrix,(funny pun),I want to do it
> for real.I have three main computers I use.I have my desktop,which usually
> has Windows or Ubuntu on it (Although currently I am having problems with
> Ubuntu).My new Acer laptop has Windows 8.1 on it.My 'lil HP laptop form
> 2000/2001 is my FreeDOS computer.So,I really don't need an emulator.(That
> and having a computer that freaks your friend out when he/she turns it on
> is funny,because they think you are hacking the CIA or something).I also
> tried running FreeDOS on virtualbox before,and It wouldn't work,what so
> ever.Perhaps I could install FreeDOS into virtual box(which doesn't like
> booting into FreeDOS on the virtual harddrive),and then boot the VM into a
> USB,and copy the files.
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Jayden, Rugxulo,
>>
>> >> I went through the ISO file,but I couldn't find the files needed
>> >> for the format /s command,
>>
>> The kernel and command.com are probably on the
>> (compressed) boot floppy image on the ISO, so
>> you do not see them unless you boot from that
>> CD. Maybe we should also put the files on the
>> ISO directly, for those who want to use them
>> without having to boot from the CD or having
>> to take extra steps to reach the files...
>>
>> Rugxulo has some boot floppy images as well
>> as the files from them and the sources online:
>>
>> > https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/
>>
>> If you "just want to SYS your C: drive", it
>> can be easier to use those, in particular if
>> you know what you are doing and you know that
>> you can not boot from CD or DVD drive... :-)
>>
>> > "/s" just means "system", which is optional (so you can do it
>> > manually). So that's (IIRC) just copying kernel.sys and command.com
>> > , which is bare minimum. The actual boot sector itself has to be
>> > calculated by sys.com (which can save boot sector to file, if
>> > needed). fdisk.exe is what creates partitions and adjusts the MBR.
>> > format.exe is to make the FAT readable / usable.
>>
>> As far as I remember, FORMAT /S is identical
>> to formatting, then running SYS to copy those
>> files and make the boot sector. Copying them
>> without running SYS is not enough, as format
>> itself probably only puts a boot sector which
>> shows some "this does not boot" message...
>>
>> > In other words, it's not just raw files that can be copied (due to
>> > drive geometry differences), so there still needs to be some proper
>> > installation "work".
>>
>> Exactly. In particular, "mkdosfs" (of Linux
>> dosfstools) or some Windows FORMAT tool will
>> NOT put a boot sector which loads the kernel
>> of FreeDOS.
>>
>> > USB jump drive is probably your best bet. Although you can
>> > "probably" use Eric's sys-freedos-linux (Perl?) script, if
>> > direly desired.
>>
>> The tool is a Perl script which calls nasm to
>> compile a boot sector and sets a few specific
>> values in the boot sector depending on various
>> partition and filesystem properties. You would
>> need PERL and NASM to run it. Also, you would
>> have to specify some of the values manually if
>> the script does not find them in simple ways.
>>
>> In short, it is easier to use SYS after booting
>> DOS from anything that can boot DOS, such as an
>> USB stick or CD. Note that booting from USB or
>> CD can have an effect on drive letter "numbers"
>> so make sure that you use SYS on the drive that
>> you actually want to use...
>>
>> >> As for a VM, I don't like emulated things.
>>
>> In that case, I recommend that you use Windows
>> or Linux tools to make your existing partitions
>> (e.g. Windows NTFS or Linux) smaller: This is
>> often possible "on the fly" without formatting
>> but of course you want to make backups before!
>>
>> After making space as described, you can again
>> use Linux or Windows to create for example some
>> FAT32 partition of a few gigabytes for DOS. As
>> last step, boot from a DOS boot disk for SYS :-)
>>
>> Of course, if your computer is big and fast, you
>> can easily run DOS in a VM while keeping the rest
>> of your computer busy with other things. When you
>> boot DOS on the raw hardware, you c

[Freedos-devel] New version of FreeDOS and backwards compatibility (RE: FreeDOS 1.2 and 2.0 roadmap discussion)

[Antony Gordon]

I was reading all the posts regarding the FreeDOS 2.0 roadmap and a
possible move to a 32-bit kernel.

So for the TL;DR crowd, I think the FreeDOS roadmap should include every
possiblity. Continue reading below if interested.

Now while my involvement has been pretty non-existent for nearly 5 years
(hotmail account hacked back in 2010), my opinion may or may not matter,
but this is what I think:

FreeDOS can, much like Linux exist in two flavors, possibly 3 if there is
enough interest and manpower:

  1. Classic 16-bit FreeDOS (current version)
  2. Hybrid 16-bit/32 bit FreeDOS can possibly implement the mode
switching done in Windows 95
  3. A Full 32-bit FreeDOS

When I think of DOS, especially within the scope of this project, I
envision being able to pull out my somewhat extensive collection of old
software, games, and development tools and relive a foregone era of (to me)
simplistic computer usage.

I see no need to end development of that current path. However, how much
real work is left on this current path? Most, if not all of the core DOS
commands are represented. There are several OSS and freeware utilities,
development tools, browsers, and add-ons that have added to the core
functionality of DOS. I've even downloaded some of these pieces when I was
using DOS 6.22 in VMWare a few years back and they work well there. This
team has done a great job.

I think options 2 and 3 offer some interesting alternatives that Microsoft
ad hoc'd into DOS. Imagine for example, on 386+ hardware being able to boot
directly into a flat memory mode and instead of kludging through XMS/EMS
and VCPI/DPMI? How about hardware virtualization and dynamic resource
allocation?

It's a big dream, and a coding nightmare, but even if it served no
additional purpose other than a PoC, sometimes building the next "thing"
can inspire something greater. I know there is presently 3rd party support
via Paragon for NTFS, but what if it was built-in to the OS? Imagine being
able to use FreeDOS (now a brand rather than just an OS) for emergency
recovery disks instead of the present method where the Emergency Disk does
some things in Linux and others in DOS?

Imagine FreeDOS as a VM that runs virtual 16-bit isolated instances of
FreeDOS? What can we achieve with that?
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[Freedos-devel] (no subject)

[Antony Gordon]

http://membres.multimania.fr/eaoyjpa/
  
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Re: [RDA-L] Announcement of RDA publication date

[Antony Gordon]

Hi Diane,

Is there a mechanism for typo correction?  I was just casually looking
through the list and found RDA Form of Musical Notation > Tomic sol-fa

'Tomic' should read 'Tonic'

Best wishes,

Antony
-- 
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Senior cataloguer/System administrator
British Library Sound Archive
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
United Kingdom

t: +44 20 7412 7412
f: +44 20 7412 7441
e: antony.gor...@bl.uk



On 4/12/09 14:14, "Diane I. Hillmann"  wrote:

> Folks:
> 
> The vocabulary portions of RDA are essentially complete and available
> at: http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm.  Updates to the
> vocabularies from the last JSC meeting in March have been integrated,
> and although we expect to see some minor editorial tweaks prior to the
> formal publication of the guidance text, what you see there is, we
> believe, ready for use and experimentation by those whose interest in
> RDA is in data rather than instruction.
> 
> In addition, we are putting the finishing touches on an article about
> the process of building the RDF vocabularies which will appear in the
> January issue of DLib Magazine, due to be issued on January 15, when
> many of us will be in Boston for ALA Midwinter.  In the meantime, we
> encourage those who want to work with the vocabularies to feel free to
> contact us with questions or issues, either via email or the Registry
> feedback tab.
> 
> Regards,
> Diane Hillmann
> Co-chair, DCMI/RDA Task Group
> 
> Mary Ghikas wrote:
>> 
>> RDA: Resource Description and Access will be published in June 2010.
>> While we regret this delay in release of RDA, the transition from
>> publication of AACR2 as a printed manual to release of RDA as a web
>> based toolkit is a complex process with many interdependencies.
>> 
>> The updated text of RDA incorporates recommendations from
>> constituencies and other stakeholders approved at the JSC meeting
>> earlier this year.  The revised text has been successfully loaded into
>> the RDA database.  The product is currently undergoing thorough
>> quality review and testing in preparation for release.
>> 
>> We recognize that customers and prospective users of RDA need reliable
>> and timely information for planning and budgeting.  We are confident
>> that this revised deadline is a realistic target for publication of RDA.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Pricing and purchasing information will be introduced at the time of
>> the ALA Midwinter Meeting, 15-18 January 2010.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Mary Ghikas,  Chair Committee of Principals
>> Alan Danskin, Chair Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA
>> Don Chatham, Chair Co-publishers
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 

[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Installer

[Antony Gordon]

Who is currently working on this project? I have a couple of ideas I'd like to 
bounce off them.

 

 -Tony

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Re: [Freedos-devel] "Rebooting" without restarting the PC

[Antony Gordon]

You may have to take a page from the Win98 boot floppy, if possible. If you've 
ever watched it load, it cycles through several drivers trying to find the 
CD-ROM...especially in the SCSI territory.
 
> Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:35:38 +1000
> From: adam-nos...@servfire.net
> To: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] "Rebooting" without restarting the PC
> 
> I'm not sure why devload causes problems, shouldn't be running out of 
> memory (loading himem.exe and umbpci.sys), yeah, it's the MS Protocol 
> Manager (protman.dos), a slightly modified dis_pkt.dos from the original 
> boot disk, as well as whatever NDIS driver the card should use. All 
> loaded with classic DEVICE(HIGH) lines in config.sys and Ghost picks it 
> up. Do the same with DEVLOAD and it just doesn't detect them (can't 
> pick network options, only gives local).
> 
> I'll play around with it a bit more, as well as looking at the NWDSK to 
> see how they're doing it. And yeah, I don't think METAKERN will do what 
> I want, but looks to be an interesting program in itself, so I'll keep 
> it in mind.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Eric Auer wrote:
> > Hi, you should have a look at how NWDSK does the
> > network card detection and driver loading :-).
> >
> > One FreeDOS way to do it would be to use PCISLEEP
> > to list all PCI devices of the "network" category
> > and use the new SET /E (or so) feature to put the
> > first output line of PCISLEEP into an environment
> > variable. Then you would indeed use DEVLOAD... You
> > did not say why devload caused problems. Do things
> > work with classic DEVICE lines in config sys or
> > does GHOST load things in a completely other way?
> >
> > To boot a kernel of your choice, you can have a
> > look at METAKERN. You could modify it to make the
> > choice depending on some PCI scan results. But I
> > doubt that this is what you want. You always want
> > the same kernel, just different config sys lines.
> > As said, it should even be possible to figure out
> > how to do all loading later with DEVLOAD. Do make
> > sure that enough memory is free - it might be the
> > case that using BASH for your "which driver?"
> > decision takes too much memory, so DEVLOAD cannot
> > give the driver enough memory to load properly.
> >
> > Eric
> > 
> 
> 
> -
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Projects in need of a maintainer?

[Antony Gordon]

Probably the best idea would be to have multiple script engines. Existing DOS 
apps use .BAT kinda like PowerShell in W2K. It would even be possible to use 
BASIC (or any other programming language). Default to .BAT, but the script 
engine could be swapped out...remember overlays?


-Original Message-
From: Alain M.
Sent: 4/15/2009 2:44:31 AM
To: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] Projects in need of a maintainer?

lyricalnanoha escreveu:
>
> Though, a truly free 16-bit bash or ash would be nice.

Why do you need it to be 16 bit. DOS's programs can be 32 bits without
any problem.

How many 286 PC are there still around? Most are dead, but DOS in new
machines is alive just fine :)

Alain

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Re: [Freedos-devel] Projects in need of a maintainer?

[Antony Gordon]

I didn't think JP Software had 'abandoned' 4DOS...

> Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 18:01:13 +0200
> From: michael_reichenb...@freenet.de
> To: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] Projects in need of a maintainer?
> 
> Well, there is a list more or less up to date.
> http://www.freedos.org/freedos/software/
> 
> There are many programs with no development ongoing.
> - DOSLFN
> - Arachne
> - FreeDOS installer
> - 4dos
> - freecom
> - tridos (multitasking, not a freedos packet but interesting, licence
> unclear (free?),
> http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.TripleDOS)
> - freedos kernel
> - ...
> 
> Perhaps it's more easy to make a list where development is ongoing?
> 
> -mr
> 
> Bruce Axtens schrieb:
> > G'day everyone,
> > 
> > Is there a list of projects and maintainers anywhere? What projects are
> > currently without a developer / maintainer?
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > Bruce.
> > 
> > P.S. If this has already been covered in that long thread about
> > volunteering, my embarrassed apologies in advance.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
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