Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
As per Tom's request, below is a short batch file to show the issue. It appears that the DIR command prematurely terminates it's listing without error if a directory bearing the same name is encountered. As I understand it, the DIR command should make no distinction between file and directory names? And now back to work, the procrastinator that I am. Here's what I did to demonstrate the problem in it's simplest form. 1. Take a clean flash drive and move to that drive. 2. Create a text file named "Q" in the root. 3. Create a batch file named demo.bat with contents below and run it. CD \ MD A12 CD A12 MD Q MD DEF CD \ COPY Q A12\Q COPY Q A12\DEF 4. Type command "DIR Q /S /B" Result below. File Q is NOT shown in directory DEF. f:\Q f:\a12\q\Q 5. Type command "DIR Q. /S /B" Result below. File Q is NOT shown in directory DEF. f:\Q f:\a12\q.\Q 6. Type command "DIR Q.? /S /B" Result below. File Q is shown in directory DEF. f:\Q f:\a12\Q f:\a12\def\Q f:\a12\q\Q 7. Rename directory Q to QA 8. Type command "DIR Q /S /B" Result below. File Q is shown in directory DEF. f:\Q f:\a12\def\Q f:\a12\qa\Q On 2024/06/04 19:48, tom ehlert wrote: Hi I think the issue is more complicated/ subtle than I first thought. If you create the structure I showed, you will be able to reproduce the problem. It would be cool if you posted a batch job that creates the structure, so we would all talk about the exact same thing, not something similar too each other. and probably the command(s), too, as IMO DIR Q /S /B and DIR Q. /S /b should result in the precisely same result. Tom ___________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] "fdnpkg update" not working
Well, a pox on me for thinking I could fix something when I clearly have no idea what I'm doing. I guess there was a reason why the FreeDOS developers disabled "physical hardware networking" even though I was trying to run it on 86Box. I think there are still a number of kinks to work out in that particular department... I went back and spun up a fresh FreeDOS VM on VirtualBox, and fdnpkg update works correctly that way. Why it's flaky with 86Box, I have no clue... (Sigh) Brandon Taylor From: Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2024 7:57 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Cc: Jerome Shidel Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] "fdnpkg update" not working On Jun 4, 2024, at 7:33 PM, Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user wrote: I've tried several times lately to run fdnpkg update, but the command hangs repeatedly at Loading http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/latest/base... ` and no progress is ever made. I've tried pinging www.ibiblio.org and discovered that it's up and running. The nearest I can figure is that, somehow, the FreeDOS repository on that server may have disappeared. Can anyone out there confirm whether it's working? When you browse that directory on ibiblio, that is the repository directory for that group “base”. However, server can do some odd things sometimes. So, I double checked by running FDNPKG update on FreeDOS 1.3. No issues detected. Try clearing the FDNPKG cache “see its help /?” If that does not help, it could be networking related. Something like a virtual machines host operating system firewall settings. If it's not, where can I find an acceptable mirror, and how do I configure the fdnpkg program to access that mirror? I upload all packages in the FreeDOS update repository used by FDNPKG on ibiblio. Those packages and several more are also uploaded to my “unofficial” repository on my server. It is not technically a mirror. But, it does get all the same updates as on ibiblio. Actually, since the repository management software makes a few changes to new uploads. I usually upload them to my server first. Then download the modified package and push it to ibiblio. That way the management software there sees the needed changes have been made and include the package as-is. You can browse the repository on my server at https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/ or through html https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/ But, accessing that server through the domain name https://fd.lod.bz/ will force a TLS connection. The reason for that is because of how search engines have been punishing domains that allow non-TLS connections. FDNPKG does not support TLS. Recently, I setup an alternate subdomain specifically for compatibility with FDNPKG. At present, its directory structure is not browsable. That subdomain does have access to the same repository on that server and you can browse the html index at http://dos.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/ Because I think you are having a local problem, I don’t think it will help. But, you are welcome to pull updates from my server. It is relatively easy to make the adjustments to your system for that. In your \FREEDOS\BIN directory there is a FDNPKG.CFG file. Make a copy of the current one before you start editing it. That way you can always switch back if you want. Towards the end of the file you will see a bunch of urls for each of the groups, including the one for base you mentioned. You just need to change the main part of the url for each link. For example, to pull items in the base group from my server, you would change that link to: http://dos.lod.bz/repos/current/base And so on for each link. Brandon Taylor :-) Jerome _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] "fdnpkg update" not working
> On Jun 4, 2024, at 7:33 PM, Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user > wrote: > > I've tried several times lately to run fdnpkg update, but the command hangs > repeatedly at Loading > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/latest/base... > ` and no progress is ever made. I've tried pinging www.ibiblio.org and > discovered that it's up and running. The nearest I can figure is that, > somehow, the FreeDOS repository on that server may have disappeared. Can > anyone out there confirm whether it's working? When you browse that directory on ibiblio, that is the repository directory for that group “base”. However, server can do some odd things sometimes. So, I double checked by running FDNPKG update on FreeDOS 1.3. No issues detected. Try clearing the FDNPKG cache “see its help /?” If that does not help, it could be networking related. Something like a virtual machines host operating system firewall settings. > If it's not, where can I find an acceptable mirror, and how do I configure > the fdnpkg program to access that mirror? I upload all packages in the FreeDOS update repository used by FDNPKG on ibiblio. Those packages and several more are also uploaded to my “unofficial” repository on my server. It is not technically a mirror. But, it does get all the same updates as on ibiblio. Actually, since the repository management software makes a few changes to new uploads. I usually upload them to my server first. Then download the modified package and push it to ibiblio. That way the management software there sees the needed changes have been made and include the package as-is. You can browse the repository on my server at https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/ or through html https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/ But, accessing that server through the domain name https://fd.lod.bz/ will force a TLS connection. The reason for that is because of how search engines have been punishing domains that allow non-TLS connections. FDNPKG does not support TLS. Recently, I setup an alternate subdomain specifically for compatibility with FDNPKG. At present, its directory structure is not browsable. That subdomain does have access to the same repository on that server and you can browse the html index at http://dos.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/ Because I think you are having a local problem, I don’t think it will help. But, you are welcome to pull updates from my server. It is relatively easy to make the adjustments to your system for that. In your \FREEDOS\BIN directory there is a FDNPKG.CFG file. Make a copy of the current one before you start editing it. That way you can always switch back if you want. Towards the end of the file you will see a bunch of urls for each of the groups, including the one for base you mentioned. You just need to change the main part of the url for each link. For example, to pull items in the base group from my server, you would change that link to: http://dos.lod.bz/repos/current/base And so on for each link. > Brandon Taylor :-) Jerome > ___________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Well..it goes without saying that I use DOS for all my professional and personal activities. Just had a computer put together so I can keep doing this in fact. It is much harder to get a freedos specific machine built though. Would love a laptop for example. Karen On Mon, 3 Jun 2024, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: Roger wrote: Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. Of course, not including testing environments, as these can get really exquisite! And, I already realize one of the environments DOS is still used, for engineering and bare-metal programming projects. [..] More so curious, does anybody use DOS/FreeDOS for daily office work? We've all heard of one writer doing so. Mercury Thirteen wrote: Actually, a book exists which is all about that question! :) Check out Why We Love FreeDOS available at https://freedos.org/books/ Roger wrote: Just what I was looking for. Thanks! I'll add that I met with someone last year who uses FreeDOS to drive a CNC router to make actual products. (CNC = "Computer Numerical Control" .. that is the fancy term for "a machine controlled by a computer.) I recall that the CNC was running from a Dell PC, and they had a serial selector that let the PC control two (or three?) different CNC routers .. but one at a time. I also found a video on YouTube from a few years ago, about some trainspotters in Russia (I think) who found a PC in some remote booth next to a rail line that ran the communications systems. I don't think it was "train signal control" but "announcements sent to the trains, like for an automated voice to read over the speaker." (Probably boring stuff like "Staff will check for valid tickets" or "Trains will run slow on Wednesday due to the holiday" or "No smoking aboard trains" or whatever.) The PC was off, so they turned it on to see what it did .. and if you paused the video at the right time, you could see it was booting FreeDOS. My favorite example of someone running FreeDOS was years ago, probably around 2005. They built pinball machines, and FreeDOS ran the scoring system, lit the lights, and played sound effects from a sound bank. I have no idea how that was hooked up, but I've always imagined that each element (bumpers, etc) provided input on a keyboard bus, and then a DOS application read the keyboard to know what was happening. But that was a long time ago, and I'm sure they aren't doing that anymore. My favorite example before that was a nebulous one. Someone from NASA emailed me in the late 1990s to say they were using FreeDOS on some of their computers. They never provided details, so I don't know what it was doing - but how cool that NASA was using FreeDOS!? For myself, I usually run FreeDOS in a virtual machine. I like QEMU because it's easy - but mostly because it's already installed by default on my Linux desktop system, so I don't have to install some other package like VirtualBox or PCem. More recently, I bought a Pocket386 micro laptop, and now that's running FreeDOS (see other email thread). That's $200 for the laptop, $20 for the CF card reader, and another $20 for the PS/2 keyboard. Not bad! And while I don't use FreeDOS for daily work, I do use it almost daily. One thing I do is play DOS games to take a break. I purchased legit copies of classic DOS games from GOG.com (for like $5 each) and I installed those on FreeDOS. I loved replaying Jill of the Jungle. I'm replaying Commander Keen now. I also use FreeDOS as a demonstration when I teach a university class. That class is basically two parts: "How computers work (plus a history of technology)" and "How to use Word & Excel." These are freshmen students, so almost no one has used a spreadsheet before. When I start the Excel unit, I bring in FreeDOS and show them some classic spreadsheets: I show them VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, As Easy As, and then Quattro Pro. And then the students understand that spreadsheets just haven't changed that much over time. The interface has changed (graphical) and modern spreadsheets support more functions, but the core features of "letters for columns, numbers for rows, cells are A1, .. and so on" haven't changed since 1979 (VisiCalc on the Apple II was the first desktop spreadsheet that we would recognize as a "spreadsheet"). I love As Easy As. That saw me through my physics undergrad program. And it does so much that modern spreadsheets can do - just differently (like conditional formatting). I sometimes think that if I didn't need to share spreadsheets with others, As Easy As could meet more than 95% of my spreadsheet needs in 2024. That's one reason I keep showing off As Easy As in the videos on our YouTube channel. *We have links to VisiCalc and As Easy As on the website: https://www.freedos.org/about/apps/ _
[Freedos-user] "fdnpkg update" not working
I've tried several times lately to run fdnpkg update, but the command hangs repeatedly at Loading http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/latest/base... ` and no progress is ever made. I've tried pinging www.ibiblio.org and discovered that it's up and running. The nearest I can figure is that, somehow, the FreeDOS repository on that server may have disappeared. Can anyone out there confirm whether it's working? If it's not, where can I find an acceptable mirror, and how do I configure the fdnpkg program to access that mirror? Brandon Taylor ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
> 1. The computer powers on and does a Power On Self Test ("POST") to
> verify that the hardware is working, then loads the kernel (FreeDOS)
Nope. The computer (the BIOS) reads the first sector from the firat hard disk,
and jumps to it. Usually, but not necessarily, this happens to have some code,
and a "partition table", which is a list of disk partitions where filesystems
start.
this code searches the partiton table for a partition marked "active", reads the
first sector of it, and jumps to it.
Usually, but not necessarily, this code understand the file system of *this*
partition.
FAT16/32 for FreeDOS, maybe EXT4 for linux, NTFS for Windows.
it then searches for the OS File(s) (which in case of freedos are named
KERNEL.SYS, but could
be some bootmanager (like GRUB) that helps load several different partitions
from different locations
on the disk).
> 2. The FreeDOS kernel reads \FDCONFIG.SYS (or \CONFIG.SYS) to read its
> configuration - this might include SHELL to tell the kernel which user
> shell to use
...
Tom
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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 7:46 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Roger wrote: > > I finished reading the "Why We Love FreeDOS" book a few nights > > ago. A really good read, and led myself to a similar conclusion, > > DOS/FreeDOS is a really good platform for learning and implementing > > initial experimental engineering for experimental or working hardware > > due to simplicity and bare metal access. I was inspired by this thread to also read the "Why We Love FreeDOS" book, and finished it this morning. What a fun read! Thanks for putting it together, Jim! For me, coming back to Freedos after ~22 years has been a lot of fun. I'm quite technical, and a professional software engineer now (I was a student when I last participated), so diving deep into the intricacies of old Undocumented DOS and the FreeDOS kernel code has been both refreshingly straight forward (I keep having to remind myself that DOS is not multithreaded) and complex (how does COMMAND.COM and friends split itself into a resident and transient parts?). It's been a month of re-discovery and learning. :D On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 7:46 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > DOS was created for a different purpose. When IBM created the IBM PC > 5150 in 1981, they needed an operating system to run on it, so the > computer could run programs. I'll save the backstory, but Microsoft > licensed a "DOS" from Seattle Computing, and that became the PC's DOS. > But DOS was not intended to be a set of tools like Unix. Instead, the > DOS command line was something you might use to do a few things like > format a floppy or edit a file, or do basic file management, but > mostly you just ran an application (such as the BASIC interpreter). > DOS has always been very application-based. > This explanation has so much truth to it, and clicked with me. I grew up on DOS, but graduated on Linux, and so have tended to lean towards the unix tool philosophy, but this really explains a lot of DOS applications. A lot of them were really complete Applications and you would often have that one application which you would use to solve a problem, rather than I'll combine these tools to solve my problem. It might even make me change the way I build some of my commands for DOG :) -Wolf -- |\_ | .\---. / ,__/ / /Wolf _ > -- > > I'm very off-topic with this, but here's an example: 'cat' will print > the contents of a file (or files) to the terminal. 'tr' will translate > one character set to another character set, or delete characters from > a set. 'uniq' will remove duplicate lines from a file. 'sort' will > sort the lines in a file. And 'comm' will compare two files and print > the lines that are unique to file1, file2, or both. > > Individually, these are interesting commands that you can use to do a > lot of different things. And by combining them in a specific way, you > can do something like find misspelled words in a text file: > > (The first command just makes sure you have a correctly sorted list) > > > $ sort /usr/share/dict/words > words > > > $ cat hello.txt > Hi there! This is a demnstration of how to find misspelled words. > > > $ cat hello.txt | tr A-Z a-z | tr -d '.,:;()?!' | tr ' ' '\n' | sort | > uniq | comm -2 -3 - words > demnstration > > > In other words: convert uppercase to lowercase, remove punctuation, > turn spaces into new-lines (each word will be on a separate line), > sort the list, remove duplicates, compare to the dictionary (the > 'words' file') and only show the lines (words) that do NOT appear in > the dictionary. > > So that just shows how to combine tools to do different things, rather > than relying on a single application to do it all for you. There's > tradeoffs either way for "tools" v "applications," I'm just showing an > example of "tools." > > > *The sort command was an original program from Unix 1st Edition > (November 1971), uniq arrived in Unix 3rd Edition (February 1973), and > tr and comm were both introduced in Unix 4th Edition (November 1973). > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Roger wrote:
> I finished reading the "Why We Love FreeDOS" book a few nights
> ago. A really good read, and led myself to a similar conclusion,
> DOS/FreeDOS is a really good platform for learning and implementing
> initial experimental engineering for experimental or working hardware
> due to simplicity and bare metal access.
I'm glad you liked the book!
I also think FreeDOS is a great platform to learn about computing. One
reason is it is so simple; DOS has very few "moving parts" to confuse
things. I recently wrote an article for Allthingsopen.org about "how
FreeDOS boots" to help people understand how a computer boots up. If
you can understand this for a simple operating system like DOS, you
can use that to figure out the more complex operating systems like
Linux, Windows, and Mac. For example, DOS computers essentially do
this:
1. The computer powers on and does a Power On Self Test ("POST") to
verify that the hardware is working, then loads the kernel (FreeDOS)
2. The FreeDOS kernel reads \FDCONFIG.SYS (or \CONFIG.SYS) to read its
configuration - this might include SHELL to tell the kernel which user
shell to use
3. The kernel starts the user shell (or \COMMAND.COM if the shell was
not specified)
4. COMMAND.COM executes commands in \AUTOEXEC.BAT (or another file
like FDAUTO.BAT, if given) to set the initial environment
5. The user gets the ">" prompt and can type commands
Once you understand those steps, you can start to understand how more
complex operating systems boot up.
> No wonder I had such a difficult time with DOS, DOS was a morphed
> incarnation of CP/M. Main difference, instead of a ready prompt,
> put the user at the C:\ prompt.
>
> I more so enjoy the Unix/Linux platform, all the software tends to
> co-exist more peacefully than the intricate parts of DOS. On the
> flip, DOS is assembly, whereas Unix/Linux is primarily C programming
> language. Unix/Linux, when using the command line, typing just flows
> far better than typing DOS commands.
Well, Unix/Linux and DOS have very different origins to solve
different problems - and because of that, they grew up quite
differently.
The main thing about Unix is that it was created with the idea that
each program should be specific and do one thing really well, and you
can combine programs to do something really cool. That design idea
meant that you didn't have "applications" on Unix, you had a set of
tools.
DOS was created for a different purpose. When IBM created the IBM PC
5150 in 1981, they needed an operating system to run on it, so the
computer could run programs. I'll save the backstory, but Microsoft
licensed a "DOS" from Seattle Computing, and that became the PC's DOS.
But DOS was not intended to be a set of tools like Unix. Instead, the
DOS command line was something you might use to do a few things like
format a floppy or edit a file, or do basic file management, but
mostly you just ran an application (such as the BASIC interpreter).
DOS has always been very application-based.
--
I'm very off-topic with this, but here's an example: 'cat' will print
the contents of a file (or files) to the terminal. 'tr' will translate
one character set to another character set, or delete characters from
a set. 'uniq' will remove duplicate lines from a file. 'sort' will
sort the lines in a file. And 'comm' will compare two files and print
the lines that are unique to file1, file2, or both.
Individually, these are interesting commands that you can use to do a
lot of different things. And by combining them in a specific way, you
can do something like find misspelled words in a text file:
(The first command just makes sure you have a correctly sorted list)
> $ sort /usr/share/dict/words > words
> $ cat hello.txt
Hi there! This is a demnstration of how to find misspelled words.
> $ cat hello.txt | tr A-Z a-z | tr -d '.,:;()?!' | tr ' ' '\n' | sort | uniq |
> comm -2 -3 - words
demnstration
In other words: convert uppercase to lowercase, remove punctuation,
turn spaces into new-lines (each word will be on a separate line),
sort the list, remove duplicates, compare to the dictionary (the
'words' file') and only show the lines (words) that do NOT appear in
the dictionary.
So that just shows how to combine tools to do different things, rather
than relying on a single application to do it all for you. There's
tradeoffs either way for "tools" v "applications," I'm just showing an
example of "tools."
*The sort command was an original program from Unix 1st Edition
(November 1971), uniq arrived in Unix 3rd Edition (February 1973), and
tr and comm were both introduced in Unix 4th Edition (November 1973).
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Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Hi Eric I think the issue is more complicated/ subtle than I first thought. If you create the structure I showed, you will be able to reproduce the problem. Two other FreeDos respondents were able to reproduce the problem. I was perplexed as to why I could not find files that I knew existed. I thought that it was perhaps a known issue. The work around is to simply append ".?" to the file being searched for, now that I am aware of the issue. I will pursue later .. back to real work for now. I don't think it is a file system issue. More likely the file matching algorithm which appears to share commonality between various versions of DOS ... but I am probably way off mark. John On 2024/06/04 00:40, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi! Not sure whether I can reproduce the problem... If I have a directory with files 1.2, 3, 4.5 and 6, DIR and DIR *.* shows all files and DIR * only shows the files without extension: 3 and 6. DIR *. does the same. So everything seems to work as expected? Tested on FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and DOSEMU2-redirects, with FreeCOM version 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap Aug 26 2006. Regards, Eric _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
I finished reading the "Why We Love FreeDOS" book a few nights ago. A really good read, and led myself to a similar conclusion, DOS/FreeDOS is a really good platform for learning and implementing initial experimental engineering for experimental or working hardware due to simplicity and bare metal access. With the low-boot times of older hardware, can imagine likely has a constant foothold within certain areas. Albeit, more so within the private/civilian sector nowadays. No wonder I had such a difficult time with DOS, DOS was a morphed incarnation of CP/M. Main difference, instead of a ready prompt, put the user at the C:\ prompt. I more so enjoy the Unix/Linux platform, all the software tends to co-exist more peacefully than the intricate parts of DOS. On the flip, DOS is assembly, whereas Unix/Linux is primarily C programming language. Unix/Linux, when using the command line, typing just flows far better than typing DOS commands. However, have an open mind and would likely spend some time in DOS/FreeDOS, if I can find some purposeful use besides just using Word Perfect. I rarely ever waste time playing games. You'll readily realize, if you find me wasting time playing a DOS game, it'll likely be because I'm sitting in a retirement home after having my computer/Internet confiscated, trying to patiently await for my funeral. And there's an idea, pretty sure prisons likely allow prisoners to use DOS without Internet, for playing games... Roger On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 8:23 PM Norby Droid via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > I love FreeDos and it s the only operating system on my opd msi computer > running a quad core 2.66ghz cpu amd 4gb of ram. My main use is just > programming in PowerBasic or FreeBasic, and I may sometime try C thanks to > the great videos Mr Hall has on youtube. I do rarely play games, or play > mp3 or midi files for some fun. Personally I prefer to use an old computer > running FreeDos than a new computer running Linux. I am no pro programmer, > but I do love to program and see what I can create. > > On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 20:11 Eric Auer via Freedos-user < > freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > >> Hi Jim! >> >> > My favorite example of someone running FreeDOS was years ago, probably >> > around 2005. They built pinball machines, and FreeDOS ran the scoring >> > system, lit the lights, and played sound effects from a sound bank... >> >> Maybe they used some type of lab control or GPIO type ISA or PCI card? >> >> > My favorite example before that was a nebulous one. Someone from NASA >> > emailed me in the late 1990s to say they were using FreeDOS on some of >> > their computers. They never provided details, so I don't know what it >> > was doing - but how cool that NASA was using FreeDOS!? >> >> I remember somebody asking whether FreeDOS had contributions from people >> from evil countries, because they wanted to use it to run some type of >> in-flight entertainment system with some media player app for DOS :-) >> >> More recently, during a small demoscene event, I noticed that one of >> the presented demos was a 256 byte demo running on FreeDOS. The boot >> message was only visible for a moment, so I do not know what type of >> virtual hardware that FreeDOS instance was running on. >> >> Cheers, Eric >> >> >> >> >> _______ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
I love FreeDos and it s the only operating system on my opd msi computer running a quad core 2.66ghz cpu amd 4gb of ram. My main use is just programming in PowerBasic or FreeBasic, and I may sometime try C thanks to the great videos Mr Hall has on youtube. I do rarely play games, or play mp3 or midi files for some fun. Personally I prefer to use an old computer running FreeDos than a new computer running Linux. I am no pro programmer, but I do love to program and see what I can create. On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 20:11 Eric Auer via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Hi Jim! > > > My favorite example of someone running FreeDOS was years ago, probably > > around 2005. They built pinball machines, and FreeDOS ran the scoring > > system, lit the lights, and played sound effects from a sound bank... > > Maybe they used some type of lab control or GPIO type ISA or PCI card? > > > My favorite example before that was a nebulous one. Someone from NASA > > emailed me in the late 1990s to say they were using FreeDOS on some of > > their computers. They never provided details, so I don't know what it > > was doing - but how cool that NASA was using FreeDOS!? > > I remember somebody asking whether FreeDOS had contributions from people > from evil countries, because they wanted to use it to run some type of > in-flight entertainment system with some media player app for DOS :-) > > More recently, during a small demoscene event, I noticed that one of > the presented demos was a 256 byte demo running on FreeDOS. The boot > message was only visible for a moment, so I do not know what type of > virtual hardware that FreeDOS instance was running on. > > Cheers, Eric > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Hi Jim! My favorite example of someone running FreeDOS was years ago, probably around 2005. They built pinball machines, and FreeDOS ran the scoring system, lit the lights, and played sound effects from a sound bank... Maybe they used some type of lab control or GPIO type ISA or PCI card? My favorite example before that was a nebulous one. Someone from NASA emailed me in the late 1990s to say they were using FreeDOS on some of their computers. They never provided details, so I don't know what it was doing - but how cool that NASA was using FreeDOS!? I remember somebody asking whether FreeDOS had contributions from people from evil countries, because they wanted to use it to run some type of in-flight entertainment system with some media player app for DOS :-) More recently, during a small demoscene event, I noticed that one of the presented demos was a 256 byte demo running on FreeDOS. The boot message was only visible for a moment, so I do not know what type of virtual hardware that FreeDOS instance was running on. Cheers, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?
On June 29, 2024, FreeDOS will turn THIRTY YEARS OLD! I'm writing some articles about FreeDOS for places like https://allthingsopen.org/ and https://www.both.org/ - and I'm currently writing more articles to submit elsewhere. If anyone out there wants to write an article about FreeDOS, this is the perfect time! You don't have to be an expert - just write about your experience. A few examples: * If you are a developer, write about "one cool trick" that's useful for writing DOS programs - could be assembly, C, Pascal .. anything! * If you are a user, write about "one cool thing" you did with FreeDOS. Maybe you set up FreeDOS on an old PC. Maybe you figured out how to get FreeDOS to recognize a CD-ROM drive on a system that didn't "see" the drive before. * Write about why you like using FreeDOS, or why you first started contributing to FreeDOS, or why you are interested in FreeDOS today. Maybe you write documentation. Maybe you translate messages. Maybe you maintain a program. Whatever you do, people will want to read about it. Jim ___________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Roger wrote: > >> Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using > >> DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. Of course, not > >> including testing environments, as these can get really exquisite! And, > >> I already realize one of the environments DOS is still used, for > >> engineering and bare-metal programming projects. [..] > >> More so curious, does anybody use DOS/FreeDOS for daily office work? > >> We've all heard of one writer doing so. Mercury Thirteen wrote: > >Actually, a book exists which is all about that question! :) > > > >Check out Why We Love FreeDOS available at https://freedos.org/books/ Roger wrote: > Just what I was looking for. Thanks! > I'll add that I met with someone last year who uses FreeDOS to drive a CNC router to make actual products. (CNC = "Computer Numerical Control" .. that is the fancy term for "a machine controlled by a computer.) I recall that the CNC was running from a Dell PC, and they had a serial selector that let the PC control two (or three?) different CNC routers .. but one at a time. I also found a video on YouTube from a few years ago, about some trainspotters in Russia (I think) who found a PC in some remote booth next to a rail line that ran the communications systems. I don't think it was "train signal control" but "announcements sent to the trains, like for an automated voice to read over the speaker." (Probably boring stuff like "Staff will check for valid tickets" or "Trains will run slow on Wednesday due to the holiday" or "No smoking aboard trains" or whatever.) The PC was off, so they turned it on to see what it did .. and if you paused the video at the right time, you could see it was booting FreeDOS. My favorite example of someone running FreeDOS was years ago, probably around 2005. They built pinball machines, and FreeDOS ran the scoring system, lit the lights, and played sound effects from a sound bank. I have no idea how that was hooked up, but I've always imagined that each element (bumpers, etc) provided input on a keyboard bus, and then a DOS application read the keyboard to know what was happening. But that was a long time ago, and I'm sure they aren't doing that anymore. My favorite example before that was a nebulous one. Someone from NASA emailed me in the late 1990s to say they were using FreeDOS on some of their computers. They never provided details, so I don't know what it was doing - but how cool that NASA was using FreeDOS!? For myself, I usually run FreeDOS in a virtual machine. I like QEMU because it's easy - but mostly because it's already installed by default on my Linux desktop system, so I don't have to install some other package like VirtualBox or PCem. More recently, I bought a Pocket386 micro laptop, and now that's running FreeDOS (see other email thread). That's $200 for the laptop, $20 for the CF card reader, and another $20 for the PS/2 keyboard. Not bad! And while I don't use FreeDOS for daily work, I do use it almost daily. One thing I do is play DOS games to take a break. I purchased legit copies of classic DOS games from GOG.com (for like $5 each) and I installed those on FreeDOS. I loved replaying Jill of the Jungle. I'm replaying Commander Keen now. I also use FreeDOS as a demonstration when I teach a university class. That class is basically two parts: "How computers work (plus a history of technology)" and "How to use Word & Excel." These are freshmen students, so almost no one has used a spreadsheet before. When I start the Excel unit, I bring in FreeDOS and show them some classic spreadsheets: I show them VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, As Easy As, and then Quattro Pro. And then the students understand that spreadsheets just haven't changed that much over time. The interface has changed (graphical) and modern spreadsheets support more functions, but the core features of "letters for columns, numbers for rows, cells are A1, .. and so on" haven't changed since 1979 (VisiCalc on the Apple II was the first desktop spreadsheet that we would recognize as a "spreadsheet"). I love As Easy As. That saw me through my physics undergrad program. And it does so much that modern spreadsheets can do - just differently (like conditional formatting). I sometimes think that if I didn't need to share spreadsheets with others, As Easy As could meet more than 95% of my spreadsheet needs in 2024. That's one reason I keep showing off As Easy As in the videos on our YouTube channel. *We have links to VisiCalc and As Easy As on the website: https://www.freedos.org/about/apps/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Hi! Not sure whether I can reproduce the problem... If I have a directory with files 1.2, 3, 4.5 and 6, DIR and DIR *.* shows all files and DIR * only shows the files without extension: 3 and 6. DIR *. does the same. So everything seems to work as expected? Tested on FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and DOSEMU2-redirects, with FreeCOM version 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap Aug 26 2006. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Nope, not just FreeDos. I have tried about four flavours of DOS with the same result. Same with XCOPY or XXCOPY with /L option. Almost like the DIR and related utility programs "file matching code" share similar source code. I know zero about DOS internals ;-) I just stumbled across this issue and was puzzled why I couldn't locate files that I knew existed. On 2024/06/03 17:37, Tomas By via Freedos-user wrote: On Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:05:13 +0200, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the DIR command [...] The sources are available, no? Fix it yourself? I just tried it in Dosbox and it seems to stop even earlier, not listing any deeper files or directories. But I suspect you are right and this is a bug in Freedos. /Tomas _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Nope, not just FreeDos. I have tried about four flavours of DOS with the same result. Same with XCOPY or XXCOPY with /L option. Almost like the DIR and related utility programs "file matching code" share similar source code. I know zero about DOS internals ;-) I just stumbled across this issue and was puzzled why I couldn't locate files that I knew existed. On 2024/06/03 17:37, Tomas By via Freedos-user wrote: On Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:05:13 +0200, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the DIR command [...] The sources are available, no? Fix it yourself? I just tried it in Dosbox and it seems to stop even earlier, not listing any deeper files or directories. But I suspect you are right and this is a bug in Freedos. /Tomas _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
On Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:05:13 +0200, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: > The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the > DIR command [...] The sources are available, no? Fix it yourself? I just tried it in Dosbox and it seems to stop even earlier, not listing any deeper files or directories. But I suspect you are right and this is a bug in Freedos. /Tomas ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Actually, I'd say that's better behavior than I get from a command line in windows 10. When I create the structure you showed below, I do indeed get all the files/directories (made them all directories except the .asm files), then I get output equivalent to your first listing. When I change q4 to q, and run it again, I get the second listing (twice) with a file not found error between the two listings. (very odd). So, I think that freedos handles it better than MSDOS does, so I'd have to call this one expected behavior. Interesting enough though, if I do the DIR Q4 /S /B, after renaming Q to Q4, I do indeed get the whole structure as expected, so not sure what's going on there. Perhaps it's a problem with single letter nested directory names? On 6/3/2024 3:05 PM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the DIR command and that is if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. In my example, if the Q directory is renamed to Q4 and the command "DIR Q /S /B " issued, all occurrences of Q file are found. Eg. f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q f:\a12\q4\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q.ASM f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q.ASM With the Q directory in place and issuing the command "DIR Q /S /B ", only files in the Q directory are displayed. Eg. f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 I suspect that if there are deeper levels of directories and Q files are at levels prior to the Q directory, these Q files will be displayed until the Q directory is encountered and the then listing will stop. Further Q files will not be found/ displayed. I have not verified this. Is this expected behaviour, an anomaly or a bug? On 2024/06/03 15:10, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Regardless of whether they're files or directories, if there is no file extension, then don't put on the second star, just a *. will do the search for you. By placing the second star, you're making the os search for extensions by default. Leave it out, and it will search for just files w/o them. I only said before that typically directories don't have extensions, so that's an easy way to find them. but in your case, The same thing applies for files without extensions. On 6/3/2024 6:19 AM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the DIR command and that is if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. In my example, if the Q directory is renamed to Q4 and the command "DIR Q /S /B " issued, all occurrences of Q file are found. Eg. f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q f:\a12\q4\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q.ASM f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q.ASM With the Q directory in place and issuing the command "DIR Q /S /B ", only files in the Q directory are displayed. Eg. f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 I suspect that if there are deeper levels of directories and Q files are at levels prior to the Q directory, these Q files will be displayed until the Q directory is encountered and the then listing will stop. Further Q files will not be found/ displayed. I have not verified this. Is this expected behaviour, an anomaly or a bug? On 2024/06/03 15:10, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Regardless of whether they're files or directories, if there is no file extension, then don't put on the second star, just a *. will do the search for you. By placing the second star, you're making the os search for extensions by default. Leave it out, and it will search for just files w/o them. I only said before that typically directories don't have extensions, so that's an easy way to find them. but in your case, The same thing applies for files without extensions. On 6/3/2024 6:19 AM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Regardless of whether they're files or directories, if there is no file extension, then don't put on the second star, just a *. will do the search for you. By placing the second star, you're making the os search for extensions by default. Leave it out, and it will search for just files w/o them. I only said before that typically directories don't have extensions, so that's an easy way to find them. but in your case, The same thing applies for files without extensions. On 6/3/2024 6:19 AM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Look at python for dos - http://www.caddit.net/pythond/ If it has the os module, I'll bet you could do it. On Sun, Jun 2, 2024, at 11:19 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: > Hi > I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I > have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It > comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by > the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. > John > > On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: >> Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* >> directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows >> you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to >> get them is to do something like: >> >> dir *. >> >> Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out >> the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but >> those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with >> little to no trouble. >> >> >> On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: >>> Hi All >>> It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file >>> one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early >>> without error. >>> I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the >>> commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files >>> in a directory named "Q". >>> An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the >>> file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears >>> in all the subdirectories. >>> I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct >>> behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about >>> file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various >>> DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I >>> have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also >>> only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's >>> going on? >>> John >>> >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\*.* >>> [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] >>> [Q1] [TS] >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* >>> [.] [..] Q >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* >>> [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM >>> Q1 Q12 >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* >>> [.] [..] Q Q.A >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* >>> [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 >>> >>> Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* >>> [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM >>> >>> Entering the command below gives the following result. >>> F:\>DIR Q /S /B >>> f:\a12\q\Q >>> f:\a12\q\Q.A >>> f:\a12\q\Q.ASM >>> f:\a12\q\Q1 >>> f:\a12\q\Q12 >>> >>> The Q file is only found in the Q directory. >>> >>> Same result as above with:- >>> F:\>DIR Q. /S /B >>> >>> Typing command: >>> F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B >>> Gives this result. >>> f:\a12\Q >>> f:\a12\Q.A >>> f:\a12\j\Q >>> f:\a12\q\Q >>> f:\a12\q\Q.A >>> f:\a12\q.a\Q >>> f:\a12\q.a\Q.A >>> f:\a12\q1\Q >>> f:\a12\q1\Q.A >>> f:\a12\ts\Q >>> f:\a12\ts\Q.A >>> >>> The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ___ >>> Freedos-user mailing list >>> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] VICTORY! How I got networking operational in 86Box
Very good explanation, I'm hoping these findings make it to the release build of FreeDos as it will bring in more users if internet is available after all we all love tinkering with it and DOS does make it much easier -Ed EdzUp On Mon, 3 Jun 2024, 01:36 Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user, < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > I've been agonizing over the question of why I can't connect an 86Box > virtual machine powered by FreeDOS to the Internet. But now, it seems, I > have found a fix, or at least a preliminary one. > > Using a fine-toothed comb (as it were), I went over the FDAUTO.BAT file > and found that it referenced another batch file that handled all of the > networking stuff, namely, C:\FREEDOS\BIN\FDNET.BAT. So, going over THAT, I > arrived at what I figured was a critical line in the second batch file, > which was vinfo /m. Typing this into the command line didn't seem to do > anything, but when I typed vinfo /m | echo %errorlevel%, lo and behold, > FreeDOS returned the number 5. So, going back into FDNET.BAT, I eventually > arrived at this piece of code: > ``` > :hw086 > :hw186 > :hw286 > :hw386 > :hw486 > :hw586 > :hw686 > :NoHardware > vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE > goto End > ``` > and that's why it told me that Physical hardware networking is not > supported at this time. > > Well... > > Not willing to admit defeat, I continued going through FDNET.BAT to find > out what it was about VirtualBox and VMware that made the network go... > > ...and both of them branched to :vmGeneric. > > From THERE, I discovered that FreeDOS supports three network card > families: AMD PCnet, Realtek RTL8139, and NE2000-compatibles – the same > ones used by VirtualBox, VMware, and (though I haven't used FreeDOS on > this) QEMU! > > So, going back to the physical hardware section of the batch file, I > simply added a branching line after :hw686, so that the code block now > reads: > ``` > :hw086 > :hw186 > :hw286 > :hw386 > :hw486 > :hw586 > :hw686 > goto vmGeneric > > :NoHardware > vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE > goto End > ``` > and opened the 86Box configuration to install an AMD PCnet-FAST III into > an emulated PCI slot, which triggered a hard reset. > > And wouldn't you know? The network worked! > > I was able to ping www.google.com and get a pong sent back to me. I'm > kinda having a little bit of difficulty with fdnpkg though, so maybe > there are still some kinks to work out. But for right now, I can declare at > least a preliminary victory! > > Brandon Taylor > ___________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] VICTORY! How I got networking operational in 86Box
Excellect work! On Sun, Jun 2, 2024, at 5:35 PM, Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user wrote: > I've been agonizing over the question of why I can't connect an 86Box virtual > machine powered by FreeDOS to the Internet. But now, it seems, I have found a > fix, or at least a preliminary one. > > Using a fine-toothed comb (as it were), I went over the FDAUTO.BAT file and > found that it referenced another batch file that handled all of the > networking stuff, namely, C:\FREEDOS\BIN\FDNET.BAT. So, going over THAT, I > arrived at what I figured was a critical line in the second batch file, which > was `vinfo /m`. Typing this into the command line didn't seem to do anything, > but when I typed `vinfo /m | echo %errorlevel%`, lo and behold, FreeDOS > returned the number 5. So, going back into FDNET.BAT, I eventually arrived at > this piece of code: > ``` > :hw086 > :hw186 > :hw286 > :hw386 > :hw486 > :hw586 > :hw686 > :NoHardware > vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE > goto End > ``` > and that's why it told me that `Physical hardware networking is not supported > at this time.` > > Well... > > Not willing to admit defeat, I continued going through FDNET.BAT to find out > what it was about VirtualBox and VMware that made the network go... > > ...and both of them branched to `:vmGeneric`. > > From THERE, I discovered that FreeDOS supports three network card families: > AMD PCnet, Realtek RTL8139, and NE2000-compatibles – the same ones used by > VirtualBox, VMware, and (though I haven't used FreeDOS on this) QEMU! > > So, going back to the physical hardware section of the batch file, I simply > added a branching line after `:hw686`, so that the code block now reads: > ``` > :hw086 > :hw186 > :hw286 > :hw386 > :hw486 > :hw586 > :hw686 > goto vmGeneric > > :NoHardware > vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE > goto End > ``` > and opened the 86Box configuration to install an AMD PCnet-FAST III into an > emulated PCI slot, which triggered a hard reset. > > And wouldn't you know? The network worked! > > I was able to `ping www.google.com` and get a pong sent back to me. I'm kinda > having a little bit of difficulty with `fdnpkg` though, so maybe there are > still some kinks to work out. But for right now, I can declare at least a > preliminary victory! > > Brandon Taylor > > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] VICTORY! How I got networking operational in 86Box
I've been agonizing over the question of why I can't connect an 86Box virtual machine powered by FreeDOS to the Internet. But now, it seems, I have found a fix, or at least a preliminary one. Using a fine-toothed comb (as it were), I went over the FDAUTO.BAT file and found that it referenced another batch file that handled all of the networking stuff, namely, C:\FREEDOS\BIN\FDNET.BAT. So, going over THAT, I arrived at what I figured was a critical line in the second batch file, which was vinfo /m. Typing this into the command line didn't seem to do anything, but when I typed vinfo /m | echo %errorlevel%, lo and behold, FreeDOS returned the number 5. So, going back into FDNET.BAT, I eventually arrived at this piece of code: ``` :hw086 :hw186 :hw286 :hw386 :hw486 :hw586 :hw686 :NoHardware vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE goto End ``` and that's why it told me that Physical hardware networking is not supported at this time. Well... Not willing to admit defeat, I continued going through FDNET.BAT to find out what it was about VirtualBox and VMware that made the network go... ...and both of them branched to :vmGeneric. From THERE, I discovered that FreeDOS supports three network card families: AMD PCnet, Realtek RTL8139, and NE2000-compatibles – the same ones used by VirtualBox, VMware, and (though I haven't used FreeDOS on this) QEMU! So, going back to the physical hardware section of the batch file, I simply added a branching line after :hw686, so that the code block now reads: ``` :hw086 :hw186 :hw286 :hw386 :hw486 :hw586 :hw686 goto vmGeneric :NoHardware vecho /t %_FDNET.LANG% ERROR.HARDWARE goto End ``` and opened the 86Box configuration to install an AMD PCnet-FAST III into an emulated PCI slot, which triggered a hard reset. And wouldn't you know? The network worked! I was able to ping www.google.com and get a pong sent back to me. I'm kinda having a little bit of difficulty with fdnpkg though, so maybe there are still some kinks to work out. But for right now, I can declare at least a preliminary victory! Brandon Taylor ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Is DOS Navigator 16 or 32bit?
Hi,
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 11:14 AM Jim Hall via Freedos-user
wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 4:02 AM Sabina Zelená.
> wrote:
> >
> > If it is 32bit,since which version?
> >
> > Which is the last 16bit version & which is the 1st 32bit version?
> >
> > I do not c DOS4GW like extender in it...
I don't know what it uses offhand, but DOS4GW (and DOS32A) use LE
internal format for whatever reason. (LC is DOS32A's compressed
variation.)
> > & I wish to sort my SW collection properly,i have separate folders
> > Programs.D16 ,Programs.D32 ,Programs.W16 & Programs.W32
> > & I try to have programs sorted this way by architecture,it is also
> > relevant,when for example I am building a 286 system,in which
> > case it is good to have 16bit programs sorted away from 32bit
> > ones to avoid wasting storage with incompatible ones.
(N.B. The biggest waste of space is cluster slack, so, for example, I
don't recommend making your main FAT16 partition larger than 510 MB,
if possible.)
This is not a bad idea, but it's still imperfect, especially since
.EXEs can be "bound" to run in more than one mode (or even have
embedded stubs). So it's possible to have a 386 Win32 PE with an 8086
DOS MZ inside it where they will both be called as needed on their
respective OSes.
286 or 16-bit pmode (or DPMI) stuff is pretty rare, though (outside of
a few Borland Pascal programs, using NE format). Some people naively
(and incorrectly) call 186 code "286", too.
Keep in mind that you can also determine at runtime (CPUID) what cpu
and branch to alternate (faster??) code paths. So an .EXE can have
"optional" 386 (real mode!) code while still being 100% faithful to
8086.
> Correct, DOS Navigator 2 ("DN2") is a 32-bit DOS program. It uses
> DOS/32A as its extender.
Usually (but not always) a pmode .EXE uses a "stub" that calls an
external extender or DPMI host. Sometimes you can manually call a
different extender on the image itself, e.g. "cwstub myapp.exe arg1".
> I haven't followed the history of this app, but I think DN2 has always
> been 32-bit.
DOS Navigator 1.51 was compiled by Borland Pascal, so 16-bit. Then
they open-sourced it, so several people forked it to create their own
variations (e.g. NDN or DNOSP). NDN was for a while only using Virtual
Pascal, but I think some builds of it (Win64?) use FPC nowadays.
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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Just what I was looking for. Thanks! Roger > On Sat, Jun 01, 2024 at 07:47:13AM +, Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-user > wrote: >Actually, a book exists which is all about that question! :) > >Check out Why We Love FreeDOS available at https://freedos.org/books/ > >Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/) secure email. > >On Saturday, June 1st, 2024 at 2:51 AM, Roger via Freedos-user >freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: > >> Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using >> DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. Of course, not >> including testing environments, as these can get really exquisite! And, >> I already realize one of the environments DOS is still used, for >> engineering and bare-metal programming projects. >> >> More specifically, what Jim Hall uses for day to day tasks, whether he >> entirely resorts to using DOS/FreeDOS for daily (office) tasks, or uses MS >> Windows, Mac or Linux for office related tasks. >> >> Guessing, this would make a good video for the FreeDOS YouTube site. >> Lots of video clips, but nothing really showing his daily >> hardware/software environment, except for one recent photo of his >> (powered-off) desktop. >> >> More so curious, does anybody use DOS/FreeDOS for daily office work? >> We've all heard of one writer doing so. >> >> Roger >> >> _______ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >___ >Freedos-user mailing list >Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Actually, a book exists which is all about that question! :) Check out Why We Love FreeDOS available at https://freedos.org/books/ Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/) secure email. On Saturday, June 1st, 2024 at 2:51 AM, Roger via Freedos-user freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: > Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using > DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. Of course, not > including testing environments, as these can get really exquisite! And, > I already realize one of the environments DOS is still used, for > engineering and bare-metal programming projects. > > More specifically, what Jim Hall uses for day to day tasks, whether he > entirely resorts to using DOS/FreeDOS for daily (office) tasks, or uses MS > Windows, Mac or Linux for office related tasks. > > Guessing, this would make a good video for the FreeDOS YouTube site. > Lots of video clips, but nothing really showing his daily > hardware/software environment, except for one recent photo of his > (powered-off) desktop. > > More so curious, does anybody use DOS/FreeDOS for daily office work? > We've all heard of one writer doing so. > > Roger > > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user_______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS Actively Used Scenarios
Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. Of course, not including testing environments, as these can get really exquisite! And, I already realize one of the environments DOS is still used, for engineering and bare-metal programming projects. More specifically, what Jim Hall uses for day to day tasks, whether he entirely resorts to using DOS/FreeDOS for daily (office) tasks, or uses MS Windows, Mac or Linux for office related tasks. Guessing, this would make a good video for the FreeDOS YouTube site. Lots of video clips, but nothing really showing his daily hardware/software environment, except for one recent photo of his (powered-off) desktop. More so curious, does anybody use DOS/FreeDOS for daily office work? We've all heard of one writer doing so. Roger signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Contribution of Free Source Code without License for Everyone
Funny. a) your link doesn’t work. It’s a ZIP not a 7Z b) Your API.ZIP is flagged as “Malware Detected” by SourceForge. Download at your own risk. wOOdy Von: Samuel V. via Freedos-user Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. Mai 2024 18:17 An: Technical Discussion and Questions for FreeDOS Developers. ; Discussion and General Questions About FreeDOS. Cc: Samuel V. Betreff: [Freedos-user] Contribution of Free Source Code without License for Everyone I have been developing low level source code over the years, and continue doing so daily: http://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/api-simple-completa/api.7z?viasf=1 I think I could need money, books (scanned, code CD-ROMs/floppies), information, source code or other donations to continue easily, be it with PayPal, Western Union or virtual items via email to study and clean them as no license (public domain/free) code. Or if you could tell me about options to collect money and programming resources by myself (where/how, specially online to receive them easily): https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=QEKQS2YTW3V64 This year I have been working in explaining how a x86 CPU emulator works. The goal is being able to extract hardware drivers from BIOS/DRV/VxD and other sources for use under DOS and other custom software. This is the kind of software I am writing, and other things like detecting ATA-ATAPI without failing, making floppy or disk images with direct hardware access/PIO, among any other task a PC is equipped for. The goal is slowly explaining all of the tricks about how software and hardware works so that they become common knowledge easy to understand with anything left that could look strange, no matter how low level the code is. I will continue, and if you have ideas of what else to add, it will be great. I would just want to receive any kind of donations or suggestions about how or where I could collect money and resources to continue permanently. If continued, this kind of work of explaining and cleaning available software/programming resources could benefit FreeDOS and any similar project, big or small, by making the documentation and code base clearer or at least accompanying it by explaining it much more. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAtuuvZSlQWBdTfsKs4S790ZmxGm4SDLQ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Contribution of Free Source Code without License for Everyone
I have been developing low level source code over the years, and continue doing so daily:http://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/api-simple-completa/api.7z?viasf=1 I think I could need money, books (scanned, code CD-ROMs/floppies), information, source code or other donations to continue easily, be it with PayPal, Western Union or virtual items via email to study and clean them as no license (public domain/free) code. Or if you could tell me about options to collect money and programming resources by myself (where/how, specially online to receive them easily):https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=QEKQS2YTW3V64 This year I have been working in explaining how a x86 CPU emulator works. The goal is being able to extract hardware drivers from BIOS/DRV/VxD and other sources for use under DOS and other custom software. This is the kind of software I am writing, and other things like detecting ATA-ATAPI without failing, making floppy or disk images with direct hardware access/PIO, among any other task a PC is equipped for. The goal is slowly explaining all of the tricks about how software and hardware works so that they become common knowledge easy to understand with anything left that could look strange, no matter how low level the code is. I will continue, and if you have ideas of what else to add, it will be great. I would just want to receive any kind of donations or suggestions about how or where I could collect money and resources to continue permanently. If continued, this kind of work of explaining and cleaning available software/programming resources could benefit FreeDOS and any similar project, big or small, by making the documentation and code base clearer or at least accompanying it by explaining it much more. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAtuuvZSlQWBdTfsKs4S790ZmxGm4SDLQ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Is DOS Navigator 16 or 32bit?
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 4:02 AM Sabina Zelená. wrote:
>
> Greetings,I got a delivery-failure notification,when I tried to ask
> the user-email-forum,so sorry for bothering U again,but probably I
> have Read-Only access to the mailing list,even,when I posted my guide
> to selective installation of FreeDOS to an SD card used as system
> drive,then it looked,it was sent to the forum successfully(then I did
> not received an error message),but maybe even that was not posted,as
> I never got a replay to that,that was about a half year ago.
>
> Tonight I asked,is DOS Navigator 16 or 33bit & got an error message,so
> I am probably banned from the forum/limited to read-only access,is it
> possible,my guide to install FreeDOS to SD card pissed off some admin &
> thus I cannot post anything else to the forum?
>
> Because I did not posted anything else,just that guide a half year ago
> & tonight the following text,to which I got error message as an only
> reply,so may I ask U for answer,as I can obviously no longer write to
> the mailing-forum?
>
It just didn't get through. We use SourceForge for our email lists,
and it looks like the SF email list servers have been down all
weekend. I also received a "failure" message this morning, for an
email I sent on Saturday morning. We have a support ticket opened with
SourceForge, so we're hoping it will get resolved soon.
The email list server issue aside, I wouldn't "read" anything else
into not receiving a reply. If it was just informative (which it
sounds like it was; you wrote: "..posted my guide to selective
installation of FreeDOS to an SD card..") then probably no one felt
they needed to reply to it.
But you cc'd my personal email when you sent this message, so I'm able
to reply to you. I'm cc'ing the email list with hopes that this email
thread makes it through there somewhere, when SF fixes the email list
servers.
[..]
> /the original text,i tried to send to the mailing-forum & failed/:
>
> Greetings,I noticed some messages like DOS/32A etc.after closing DOS
> Navigator,is it 32bit,or that is only about 32bit file access?
>
> If it is 32bit,since which version?
>
> Which is the last 16bit version & which is the 1st 32bit version?
>
> I do not c DOS4GWlike extender in it...& I wish to sort my SW
> collection properly,i have separate folders Programs.D16 ,Programs.D32
> ,Programs.W16 & Programs.W32 & I try to have programs sorted this
> way by architecture,it is also relevant,when for example I am building
> a 286 system,in which case it is good to have 16bit programs sorted
> away from 32bit ones to avoid wasting storage with incompatible ones.
>
Correct, DOS Navigator 2 ("DN2") is a 32-bit DOS program. It uses
DOS/32A as its extender.
I haven't followed the history of this app, but I think DN2 has always
been 32-bit.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Web forum
On Tue, 21 May 2024 at 17:30, Norby Droid via Freedos-user wrote: > > Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos? Please no. :-( -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Web forum
Yes. On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 5:30 PM Norby Droid via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos? > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] If you use smartdrv, load it before mkeyb
Hi! Japheth found an interesting problem and explains on BTTR: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=21818 It turned out that Mkeyb and MS SmartDrv don't like each other. The root of the problem is that MKEYB's Int 15h handler expects the carry flag to be set, else it does nothing. If SmartDrv is loaded AFTER Mkeyb, it also installs an Int 15h handler, to catch Ctrl-Alt-Del. It doesn't care about the the carry flag, and the crucial code is: > cmp ax, 4F53h jnz prev_handler That also explains why it's just key 56h that isn't translated, the usual keys have scan codes < 53h. > The simplest fix is to load MKeyb AFTER MS SmartDrv. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Web forum
On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 11:28 AM Norby Droid via Freedos-user wrote: > > Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos? This question comes up from time to time, and the consensus has always been a clear "No." Email lists work very well for discussion, especially for developers, and email is an open standard that works for everyone. Migrating to a web forum also adds questions like "what platform will everyone want to use?" (several to choose from) and "who will maintain the web forum" (upgrades) "is the web forum accessible for everyone?" (if some users cannot use it because it's poorly designed for accessibility, then it's useless for communication). There's also an additional issue of user login data (such as GDPR) and clearing data upon request (required by other laws) that we don't have to worry about since we are using the email list service provided by SourceForge (for almost all of the "data" issues, SF deals with that as the service provider or host). So as long as SF provides the email list service, I think we'll keep using those. Especially for developer discussion. But I get it that some folks prefer a web forum to ask user questions. As Eric pointed out, BTTR's forum is there (although BTTR's forum is for *any* DOS topics, not just FreeDOS - and sometimes the topics there wander quite far from "DOS"). The FreeDOS group on Facebook also has good "user" discussions - this is another venue to ask "how do I do __ on FreeDOS?" questions. https://www.facebook.com/groups/freedosproject/ *As an aside: we aren't the only open source project that "still" uses email lists for developer communication. For example, LKML is where Linux developers discuss Linux kernel development topics. Jim ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Web forum
Hi! Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos? You mean something like https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board.php ? ;-) Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Web forum
Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] dos navigator
On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 8:31 PM Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: > > I found my copy of PTS DOS Source, and was digging through them to see > some of the differences between that and opendos, for which I also have > the sources, and I ran across the dos navigator menuing system (at least > I'm pretty sure it's a menu system, don't currently have a dos machine > setup anywhere, so can't run it). But, interestingly enough, it's > opensource as well, and I was curious if free dos would be willing to > include it, there's a lot of traffic on the list at times looking for a > decent menuing system, dos navigator could be the answer. PTS DOS uses > it, so why not? > > It can be found at: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/ > > just in case anyone is interested in taking a look. > FreeDOS already includes DOS Navigator 2. It gets installed from the Applications group: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/dn2.html _______________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI parlallel port card....
On 5/19/2024 2:25 AM, Frantisek Rysanek via Freedos-user wrote: Are there any PCI cards that live at IO adress 378 so they are compatible with DOS ? I'd argue that the devil's in "subtle detail", and forecast hard cheese for you :-/ In order to decode the IOport window at 0x378 by a PCI card, this has to be supported by the chipset (probably south bridge) and the BIOS of the motherboard where you are trying this. I don't know how the PCI card that was linked to handles this, but if the card itself adds an onboard ROM BIOS which patches into the default calls for the parallel port functions and traps the (otherwise non-existent, hence adding the card) ISA (port) address space, this will work rather transparent. But I can only remember one card, which I used probably +25 years ago, what was doing that fine. And that was a card that I remember was at a rather premium price point, al those cheap "made in Shenzen" PCI cards had the actual ports in PCI (port) address space, maybe patched some BIOS routines, but certainly only worked with some specialty drivers which would have to handle the access to those high PCI port numbers and commonly would NOT just work seamlessly with any old software that was trying to access the parallel (or serial) port... Ralf _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
On 5/18/2024 3:56 PM, tsiegel--- via Freedos-user wrote: Does spinright still have a dos version of their software posted anywhere? I seem to recall, that was a really good utility. I unfortunately never had the money to purchase it, and I gave up on Norton Utilities after paying 50 bucks more for the advanced version of 4.5, then got the same upgrade price as those who didn't, so I considered that bad marketing, poor customer retention, and just bailed on the whole Norton brand, and never dropped another dollar on anything Norton related, and that continues to this day. I know spinright had some upgrades from their dos package into the early windows era, but I lost track after that, so no clue where it is now, or even if it's still around. Nonetheless, it was a good utility for hard disk maintenance when it was out. SpinWite was a useful tool for floppy disks, but it rather sucked when using it with hard drive... Ralf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Version 6.1(?) now boots USFI(?). previous versions booted FreeDOS to run SpinEite.Please see www.grc.comThis clown speaks for himselfOn May 19, 2024, at 8:30 AM, tsiegel--- via Freedos-user wrote: Yep, that's the one. On 5/19/2024 2:54 AM, Omar Yabar via Freedos-user wrote: Do you mean Spinrite? in this link there are 5 versions https://winworldpc.com/product/spinrite/1x Yahoo Mail: busca, organiza, toma el control de tu buzón El sáb., 18 de may. de 2024 a la(s) 9:15 p. m., tsiegel--- via Freedos-user escribió: ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___Freedos-user mailing listFreedos-user@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Yep, that's the one. On 5/19/2024 2:54 AM, Omar Yabar via Freedos-user wrote: Do you mean Spinrite? in this link there are 5 versions https://winworldpc.com/product/spinrite/1x Yahoo Mail: busca, organiza, toma el control de tu buzón <https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=NativePlacement=Global_Acquisition_YMktg_315_EmailSignatureGrowth_YahooMail:Search,Organize,Conquer_sub1=Acquisition_sub2=Global_YMktg_sub3=_sub4=10945_sub5=OrganizeConquer__Static_> El sáb., 18 de may. de 2024 a la(s) 9:15 p. m., tsiegel--- via Freedos-user escribió: ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI parlallel port card....
d side-step into 32bit territory, trap access to that legacy LPT IO window and do a background remap = in software, within the CPU. The driver would potentially tread on the toes of any other piece of software (EMM/HIMEM/DPMI) working with memory protection in 32bit mode. B) Use virtualization. Run your DOS and DOS apps in a guest VM, and let the hypervizor (VM host) do any emulation / remapping for you. Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Do you mean Spinrite? in this link there are 5 versions https://winworldpc.com/product/spinrite/1x Yahoo Mail: busca, organiza, toma el control de tu buzón El sáb., 18 de may. de 2024 a la(s) 9:15 p. m., tsiegel--- via Freedos-user escribió: ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
hmm, let me see if I can find the edition suggested by an engineer friend of mine for the person who built this last machine. Karen On Sat, 18 May 2024, tsiegel--- via Freedos-user wrote: Does spinright still have a dos version of their software posted anywhere? I seem to recall, that was a really good utility.?? I unfortunately never had the money to purchase it, and I gave up on Norton Utilities after paying 50 bucks more for the advanced version of 4.5, then got the same upgrade price as those who didn't, so I considered that bad marketing, poor customer retention, and just bailed on the whole Norton brand, and never dropped another dollar on anything Norton related, and that continues to this day. I know spinright had some upgrades from their dos package into the early windows era, but I lost track after that, so no clue where it is now, or even if it's still around.?? Nonetheless, it was a good utility for hard disk maintenance when it was out. On 5/15/2024 8:45 PM, Rober To via Freedos-user wrote: Hi everybody: Other suggestions: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.partition-saving.com/ En mi??rcoles, 15 de mayo de 2024, 03:46:41 CEST, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user escribi??: Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until?? after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > Hi Karen, > > the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: > > HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI > > ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant > > HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics > > > ?? Do you recall the items in norton utilities? > > There is a wikipedia article about them: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities > > The first version in 1982 included: > > unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool > filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) > disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? > > secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) > filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that > bathide - related to filehide > > timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" > scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that > reverse - sets colors to black on white > > clear - you can use cls for that > filesort - sorts directories on disk > diskopt - tunes floppy access speed > > beep - just beeps the speaker > print - prints files > > Which free and open tools for directory sorting and > disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? > > I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy > sector format, which tools do we have for this style? > > According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind > and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came > with a tool called print itself. > > In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and > directory listings, system information, text search, wiping > of disks and files etc. > > Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size > info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, > which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. > > What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess > the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? > Similar for "wipe". > > Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. > > New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. > The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. > > New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the > ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. > > Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS > in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. > > Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the > system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional > delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. > > Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doub
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Does spinright still have a dos version of their software posted anywhere? I seem to recall, that was a really good utility. I unfortunately never had the money to purchase it, and I gave up on Norton Utilities after paying 50 bucks more for the advanced version of 4.5, then got the same upgrade price as those who didn't, so I considered that bad marketing, poor customer retention, and just bailed on the whole Norton brand, and never dropped another dollar on anything Norton related, and that continues to this day. I know spinright had some upgrades from their dos package into the early windows era, but I lost track after that, so no clue where it is now, or even if it's still around. Nonetheless, it was a good utility for hard disk maintenance when it was out. On 5/15/2024 8:45 PM, Rober To via Freedos-user wrote: Hi everybody: Other suggestions: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.partition-saving.com/ En miércoles, 15 de mayo de 2024, 03:46:41 CEST, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user escribió: Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > Hi Karen, > > the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: > > HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI > > ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant > > HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics > >> Do you recall the items in norton utilities? > > There is a wikipedia article about them: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities > > The first version in 1982 included: > > unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool > filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) > disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? > > secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) > filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that > bathide - related to filehide > > timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" > scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that > reverse - sets colors to black on white > > clear - you can use cls for that > filesort - sorts directories on disk > diskopt - tunes floppy access speed > > beep - just beeps the speaker > print - prints files > > Which free and open tools for directory sorting and > disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? > > I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy > sector format, which tools do we have for this style? > > According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind > and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came > with a tool called print itself. > > In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and > directory listings, system information, text search, wiping > of disks and files etc. > > Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size > info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, > which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. > > What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess > the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? > Similar for "wipe". > > Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. > > New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. > The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. > > New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the > ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. > > Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS > in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. > > Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the > system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional > delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. > > Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, > stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would > be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. > > The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. > Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support > and features specific to Wind
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI parlallel port card....
https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/pci1pm On 5/18/2024 12:54 PM, Roderick Klein via Freedos-user wrote: Hello, Are there any PCI cards that live at IO adress 378 so they are compatible with DOS ? Thanks, Roderick ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] PCI parlallel port card....
Hello, Are there any PCI cards that live at IO adress 378 so they are compatible with DOS ? Thanks, Roderick ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
On Thu, 16 May 2024 at 15:27, Michał Dec via Freedos-user wrote: > > Absolutely. Think of all the yachts and summer homes they're losing by > not donating a scrap of 8086 assembly to the general public. Think of > all those poor shareholders and millionaires. Exactly. This is why I do not accept the claims of my younger and (IMHO) more gullible colleagues that MS is a different company today from how it used to be, and now it is a friend and ally of FOSS. I know for a fact that one of the major Linux vendors is entirely based on Microsoft Office 365 internally and uses it for all communications, scheduling etc. I challenged them on it and they said that they had a contract that said MS would not look at any confidential info! In writing! So it was 100% safe and secure. I told them of the companies whose IP and code MS had stolen: STAC, Central Point, and others. I told them of MS faking Win3.1 crashing on DR-DOS, for which it was found guilty in court: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/archive/aard/index.htm I told them that Bill Gates personally lied to Paul Brainerd of Aldus and got Aldus to cancel its new Windows word processor -- then went back to the office and ordered WinWord as a rush job, which is why WinWord 1.x was junk. I told them of MS stealing Quicktime code for Video for Windows and having to pay Apple damages, which the marketing lizards spun as an "investment" in Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-microsoft-saved-apple/ No no no. That was the _old_ MS. I do not see Microsoft ever releasing Windows NT source code: NT is still in use. Win11 is NT. Ditto MS Office. If ReactOS ever reaches good compatibility with even Windows 2000 or XP, I think MS will stomp it. But it could release all versions of DOS (excluding non-MS code) and all of Windows 2, 3.x and 9x without helping anyone with cloning NT. WINE has already cloned more of the Win32 API than Win9x managed to run. It's over. Then I'd believe it a little tiny bit that MS means it when it says it loves FOSS. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven : (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Absolutely. Think of all the yachts and summer homes they're losing by not donating a scrap of 8086 assembly to the general public. Think of all those poor shareholders and millionaires. Michał W dniu 15.05.2024 o 22:29, Roger via Freedos-user pisze: Microsoft is not willing to go to even the minimal effort of searching its own archives for the other versions to release them, but if someone else finds the code, it will permit the release under a permissive licence. Excuse #1, there's no money being acquired for going over code for releasing as open source. Roger ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
On Thu, 16 May 2024 at 10:07, tom ehlert via Freedos-user wrote: > > there is no need for Microsoft to search its own archives. > MSDOS 6.22 source leaked to the internet some 22 years ago, and a plenty of > people have it. Then MS would need to check this over, check it was correct and without Trojans etc. That at a minimum means finding its own copies and doing a file-by-file compare. That's effort and as we have discussed this is something it's unwilling to spend. > I don't understand how this would permit the "release under a permissive > licence". *If* the code was verified as unmodified MS code and _then_ *if* MS wrent to the extra work of removing all 3rd party code or obtaining clearance, it would then _and only then_ be able to relicence the resulting code. MS cannot relicense code it did not write. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven M: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
On Wed, 15 May 2024 at 21:31, Roger via Freedos-user wrote: > > Excuse #1, there's no money being acquired for going over code for > releasing as open source. Agreed. It is willing to release stuff it happens to find or others happen to find in order to sweeten the FOSS fanatics a bit, but it is not willing to go to any actual work in order to find things to release. Now, true, there is a difference here between DOS 4, 5 and 6. 4 contains only MS and IBM code (AFAIK). 5 is more useful as it contains memory management code to give ~620kB free base memory. 6 contains multiple pieces of code from other companies: * MEMMAKER (Helix Software) https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/31894 * Antivirus/Backup/Defrag (Central Point Software) * DoubleSpace (Vertisoft/STAC Electronics) * DriveSpace (Vertisoft) They'd either need to remove these, or trace the copyright holders and get rights from them. Much too much work! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven oM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
> I think, applying Hanlon's Razor here, that this was a chance > discovery by someone else, and led to the release. Microsoft is not > willing to go to even the minimal effort of searching its own archives > for the other versions to release them, but if someone else finds the > code, it will permit the release under a permissive licence. there is no need for Microsoft to search its own archives. MSDOS 6.22 source leaked to the internet some 22 years ago, and a plenty of people have it. I don't understand how this would permit the "release under a permissive licence". Tom _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi everybody: Other suggestions: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.partition-saving.com/ En miércoles, 15 de mayo de 2024, 03:46:41 CEST, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user escribió: Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > Hi Karen, > > the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: > > HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI > > ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant > > HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics > >> Do you recall the items in norton utilities? > > There is a wikipedia article about them: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities > > The first version in 1982 included: > > unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool > filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) > disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? > > secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) > filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that > bathide - related to filehide > > timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" > scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that > reverse - sets colors to black on white > > clear - you can use cls for that > filesort - sorts directories on disk > diskopt - tunes floppy access speed > > beep - just beeps the speaker > print - prints files > > Which free and open tools for directory sorting and > disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? > > I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy > sector format, which tools do we have for this style? > > According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind > and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came > with a tool called print itself. > > In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and > directory listings, system information, text search, wiping > of disks and files etc. > > Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size > info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, > which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. > > What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess > the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? > Similar for "wipe". > > Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. > > New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. > The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. > > New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the > ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. > > Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS > in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. > > Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the > system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional > delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. > > Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, > stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would > be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. > > The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. > Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support > and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even > a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to > Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. > > The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: > https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm > Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries some > tricks to reconstruct data from almost unreadable sectors, but > only supports 128 GB style CHS, not LBA. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite claims FreeDOS bundled > with SpinRite to trigger some 16-4-8-bit CHS overflow > 128 GB? > > Well-known free/open alternatives are photorec and testdisk. > > The batch enhancer is similar to our v8 power tools, I guess. > It can beep and show messages in color and with text boxe
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
>Microsoft is not willing to go to even the minimal effort of searching >its own archives for the other versions to release them, but if someone >else finds the code, it will permit the release under a permissive > licence. Excuse #1, there's no money being acquired for going over code for releasing as open source. Roger signature.asc Description: PGP signature _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
On Tue, 14 May 2024 at 05:01, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user wrote: > > Those aren’t even the good versions of MS-DOS. Agreed! > I think if they were serious, they would release 3.3, 5.0 and 6.22. It feels > like they are only placating to the open source community. Agreed on all counts. However, DOS 4 is a little more than a token effort. Together with 386Max or something, it could still be useful today, more so than DOS 3.3, perhaps. But only a very little more. I think, applying Hanlon's Razor here, that this was a chance discovery by someone else, and led to the release. Microsoft is not willing to go to even the minimal effort of searching its own archives for the other versions to release them, but if someone else finds the code, it will permit the release under a permissive licence. It's not much but it's better than nothing. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Karen, the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics Do you recall the items in norton utilities? There is a wikipedia article about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities The first version in 1982 included: unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that bathide - related to filehide timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that reverse - sets colors to black on white clear - you can use cls for that filesort - sorts directories on disk diskopt - tunes floppy access speed beep - just beeps the speaker print - prints files Which free and open tools for directory sorting and disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy sector format, which tools do we have for this style? According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came with a tool called print itself. In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and directory listings, system information, text search, wiping of disks and files etc. Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? Similar for "wipe". Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries some tricks to reconstruct data from almost unreadable sectors, but only supports 128 GB style CHS, not LBA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite claims FreeDOS bundled with SpinRite to trigger some 16-4-8-bit CHS overflow > 128 GB? Well-known free/open alternatives are photorec and testdisk. The batch enhancer is similar to our v8 power tools, I guess. It can beep and show messages in color and with text boxes etc. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Karen, the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics Do you recall the items in norton utilities? There is a wikipedia article about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities The first version in 1982 included: unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that bathide - related to filehide timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that reverse - sets colors to black on white clear - you can use cls for that filesort - sorts directories on disk diskopt - tunes floppy access speed beep - just beeps the speaker print - prints files Which free and open tools for directory sorting and disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy sector format, which tools do we have for this style? According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came with a tool called print itself. In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and directory listings, system information, text search, wiping of disks and files etc. Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? Similar for "wipe". Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries some tricks to reconstruct data from almost unreadable sectors, but only supports 128 GB style CHS, not LBA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite claims FreeDOS bundled with SpinRite to trigger some 16-4-8-bit CHS overflow > 128 GB? Well-known free/open alternatives are photorec and testdisk. The batch enhancer is similar to our v8 power tools, I guess. It can beep and show messages in color and with text boxes etc. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Eric, Do you recall the items in norton utilities? If not, I can post a list of the various tools? I am hoping for a collection of options if that resonates. Norton for example lets you create a repair boot disc, which would be a fine start. that disc then had items to check your hard drive stability, to repair problems, manage formatting those sorts of things. Does that help? Will certainly check out the item you referenced here too. Karen On Tue, 14 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi, some ideas: HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility | | | | HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility HDAT2 is program for test or diagnostics of ATA/ATAPI/SATA, SSD, USB and SCSI devices. | | | ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant | | | | | | | | | | | ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant ASTRA performs computer configuration analysis and provides detailed information on your computer hardware and i... | | | HWiNFO - Free System Information, Monitoring and Diagnostics | | | | | | | | | | | HWiNFO - Free System Information, Monitoring and Diagnostics Free Hardware Analysis, Monitoring and Reporting. In-depth Hardware Information, Real-Time System Monitoring, Re... | | | En martes, 14 de mayo de 2024, 20:28:07 CEST, Eric Auer via Freedos-user escribió: Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm > My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care > and diagnostics of that infrastructure? > For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my > larger drives and so forth. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi folks, One stated advantage of freedos shared often is the ability to use more contemporary hardware. My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. Ideas? Thanks, Karen ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Hi, Please consider reporting this to libvirt on GitHub. I'm literally the only user up there who asked for sb16 not to be axed. Speak up, or the devs will speak for you - and usually against your interests. Best regards, Michał W dniu 14.05.2024 o 12:12, Lukáš Kotek via Freedos-user pisze: Hello everyone, I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by specification of audiodev backend driver. Working audio configuration: -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ Problematic audio configuration: -device sb16 \ -device adlib \ I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? Best regards, Lukas 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Good to know! I just upgraded to Fedora 40, and I use QEMU to run FreeDOS. I'll have to update my script that runs QEMU. On Tue, May 14, 2024, 5:35 AM Lukáš Kotek via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its > emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM > always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, > everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info > regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and > relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. > > At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by > specification of audiodev backend driver. > > Working audio configuration: > > -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ > -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ > -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ > -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ > > Problematic audio configuration: > > -device sb16 \ > -device adlib \ > > I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. > Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, > etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. > > I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution > of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also > I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things > I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? > > Best regards, > Lukas > > 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s > 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ > 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ > > > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Hello everyone, I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by specification of audiodev backend driver. Working audio configuration: -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ Problematic audio configuration: -device sb16 \ -device adlib \ I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? Best regards, Lukas 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
That attitude toward the MS-DOS source code seems rather limiting and short-sighted. My recent device driver worked well enough on later versions of DOS (and FreeDOS) but I was having a devil of a time trying to figure out why DOS 2.x would not honor the device driver telling it that the media had been changed. Having the source code available allowed me to find a bug in DOS 2.x, and also cleared up several documentation questions (more like outright problems). Being compatible with all flavors of DOS should matter to anybody writing user code, device drivers, or even FreeDOS developers trying to improve the appeal of FreeDOS. MS has no need to placate the open source community, especially with old versions of DOS. This is somebody's passion project. I look forward to when the source code to DOS 3.3 or DOS 5.0 are released. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
>I have found that the best DosBox for this kind of thing is "DosBox-X". > >It supports applications better than the original DosBox. Relooking over dosbox-x, yup, seems to have everything anybody might need, including all of their wants such as networking. Focused on other things that really matter in life aside from games, similar to FreeDOS. However, only offers RPMs/flatpack; and I find flatpacks a realy hassle. Void Linux unfortunately only offers generic dosbox and dosbox-staging, no dosbox-x. Granted, I could probably easily build dosbox-x from source. Roger signature.asc Description: PGP signature _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Personally, I have zero interest in any on the versions of DOS that Microsoft has open sourced. Versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.0. Really? Those aren’t even the good versions of MS-DOS. I think if they were serious, they would release 3.3, 5.0 and 6.22. It feels like they are only placating to the open source community. But, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they don’t own all the code in those versions. Or, maybe they’ve lost the sources. Even I have programs I wrote from back in that era to which I no longer have the sources. Even when it comes to the “good” versions, I have no interest in how they did things. Sure, I own a copy of MS-DOS 6.22 the last version of MS-DOS. I even own PC-DOS 7.01 (with the upgraded files for 7.10). But, I really only use those for compatibility testing of software. Oh, and maybe a little nostalgia. But as for the actual code they used, I don’t care. The FreeDOS kernel and FreeCOM make for a far more capable Operating System. With the support for more RAM, larger drives and partitions it is a much more useful DOS than either MS or PC. If I were interested in kernel development, I would study the FreeDOS kernel. I would spend my time figuring out how it could be improved. As for FreeCOM, I have my own ideas on what a modern command line shell should be like. But generally, FreeCOM is fine. Any bugs should work themselves out eventually. :-) Jerome ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
..okay. My only surprise was your use of the word *all* where Microsoft is concerned. Speaking personally, their having released say 6.22, would have drawn a bit of a buzz I imagine. On Sun, 12 May 2024, Travis Siegel wrote: Microsoft itself has only released source for dos versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.0. There are some commercial dos systems that released source for their versions of dos, such as opendos which was caldera dos, they released their version of dos 7.0, which I do have, as well as PTS dos, which released their last version of dos in source form as well, which I have as well. I can't find any license stuff on the PTS dos source, so I have no idea whether their source can be used in anything other than strictly personal environments, but I did have the opendos sources when they were released, and they were under a standard opensource license back when they were released, but then that decision was reversed for some reason, and further releases of that particular dos (of which I think there was only 1) were no longer opensource, but that doesn't really matter, since the opensource version is still available. That means, on a good day, folks can see at least three ways of doing things in dos (legally), though there were versions of MS-DOS version 6.0 that escaped into the wild in source form, which I did have a copy of at one point, though that hd died many many years ago, and I no longer have those sources. I do recall answering a question on a mud one time about the time/date field in dos, since there was some argument about how large the integer was representing the time field. Looking at ms-dos and opendos sources (I didn't have PTS dos sources at the time), there was a difference in the size of the variable used for that field, though I don't remember which dos had the larger variable type, though I did find it interesting that they used different integer types. On 5/12/2024 3:48 AM, Karen Lewellen wrote: Hi Travis, Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as well? Sorry you lost your DOS machines in a move. Karen On Sun, 12 May 2024, Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: > Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd > like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory > called v4.0-ozzie > > That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple > of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if > they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), > but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their > session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The > session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess > around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be > something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple > dos programs running. > > I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 > years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. > > > Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source > code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly > interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're > releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating > systems worked. > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
Roger via Freedos-user writes: ... > Anyways, Word Perfect 6.2 is working using Dosbox Staging, albeit > without copy/paste, as I think the copy/paste function likely works for > Dosemu. And, have dosbox auto starting with word perfect, using bash > alias: > > alias wp='dosbox -conf /home/roger/dosbox/wp.conf' > > Anyways, I'm way off-topic... I'm going to say something a little off-topic too on this. Hopefully people won't complain too much. I have found that the best DosBox for this kind of thing is "DosBox-X". It supports applications better than the original DosBox. BR, Rob ___________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Microsoft itself has only released source for dos versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.0. There are some commercial dos systems that released source for their versions of dos, such as opendos which was caldera dos, they released their version of dos 7.0, which I do have, as well as PTS dos, which released their last version of dos in source form as well, which I have as well. I can't find any license stuff on the PTS dos source, so I have no idea whether their source can be used in anything other than strictly personal environments, but I did have the opendos sources when they were released, and they were under a standard opensource license back when they were released, but then that decision was reversed for some reason, and further releases of that particular dos (of which I think there was only 1) were no longer opensource, but that doesn't really matter, since the opensource version is still available. That means, on a good day, folks can see at least three ways of doing things in dos (legally), though there were versions of MS-DOS version 6.0 that escaped into the wild in source form, which I did have a copy of at one point, though that hd died many many years ago, and I no longer have those sources. I do recall answering a question on a mud one time about the time/date field in dos, since there was some argument about how large the integer was representing the time field. Looking at ms-dos and opendos sources (I didn't have PTS dos sources at the time), there was a difference in the size of the variable used for that field, though I don't remember which dos had the larger variable type, though I did find it interesting that they used different integer types. On 5/12/2024 3:48 AM, Karen Lewellen wrote: Hi Travis, Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as well? Sorry you lost your DOS machines in a move. Karen On Sun, 12 May 2024, Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory called v4.0-ozzie That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple dos programs running. I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating systems worked. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] odd news
Hi, On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 5:30 PM Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > the changes to nasm do not seem to affect the dos version either? My announcement on BTTR (since at least ecm heavily uses NASM) said this: Most of the changes came from 2.16.02 (April 4), e.g. "Fix external references to segments in the obj (OMF) and possibly other output formats." _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
I thankfully never had dos 4.00, though I did have pcdos 4.01, which was a big improvement. over the .00 release. Not sure how/why the 4.00 versions were released, but even then, for some reason, the pc versions of dos were considered to be worlds better than the ms versions. Don't know why, because I never used the same versions of dos crossing pc/ms boundaries, I always had one or the other. On 5/12/2024 3:22 AM, Brandon Taylor wrote: It could be interesting (even though MS-DOS 4.0 was complete and utter GARBAGE according to anybody who had the misfortune to use it) to see what it can unlock as far as possibilities for FreeDOS 1.4. On a side note, when will "bare-metal" networking (e.g. for 86Box) be available once again? Get Outlook for Android <https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> *From:* Travis Siegel via Freedos-user *Sent:* Saturday, May 11, 2024 9:30:59 PM *To:* Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. *Cc:* Travis Siegel *Subject:* [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory called v4.0-ozzie That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple dos programs running. I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating systems worked. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user_______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Thanks Jim, Was wondering given Travis said all, in his post smiles. Karen On Sat, 11 May 2024, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: On Sat, May 11, 2024, 10:49???PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: Hi Travis, Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as well? No, Microsoft has only released MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.00 so far. Nothing beyond that. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
On Sat, May 11, 2024, 10:49 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Hi Travis, > Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as > well? > No, Microsoft has only released MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.00 so far. Nothing beyond that. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Hi Travis, Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as well? Sorry you lost your DOS machines in a move. Karen On Sun, 12 May 2024, Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory called v4.0-ozzie That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple dos programs running. I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating systems worked. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
It could be interesting (even though MS-DOS 4.0 was complete and utter GARBAGE according to anybody who had the misfortune to use it) to see what it can unlock as far as possibilities for FreeDOS 1.4. On a side note, when will "bare-metal" networking (e.g. for 86Box) be available once again? Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> From: Travis Siegel via Freedos-user Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 9:30:59 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Cc: Travis Siegel Subject: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory called v4.0-ozzie That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple dos programs running. I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating systems worked. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
Since there was a discussion here recently on multitasking with dos, I'd like to mention that the github versions of ms-dos has a directory called v4.0-ozzie That directory has some interesting stuff in it, one of them is a couple of dissk images (I need to move them to a linux machine and see if they'll mount, I don't have anything on windows that can identify them), but they also have some documentation (in pdf format) about how their session manager works, and how to make dos applications multitask. The session manager program is present as well, so folks could probably mess around with that to see how well (or not) it works. It might be something worth experimenting with for those who actually want multiple dos programs running. I'm highly disappointed I lost my dos machines when we moved about 2.5 years ago, I'd have had a lot of fun playing with this. Also, interestingly enough, just for reference, all of the ms-dos source code has been released under a MIT license. I find that particularly interesting. Apparently, Microsoft was serious when they said they're releasing the code for experimenting, and to see how early operating systems worked. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
> On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 04:43:06PM +0100, Liam Proven via Freedos-user wrote: >On Thu, 9 May 2024 at 22:20, Roger via Freedos-user > wrote: > >> >They also have pre-compiled packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE. >> >No manual compilation is needed for either of the 3 distros. >> >> Already know about these pre-package options for SystemD Linux >> distributions. > >Whoa there. > >Fedora and the Red Hat family, yes: no choice but systemd. Ditto >openSUSE. But dosemu2 also offers `.deb` packages and there are >several non-systemd Debian-family distros, including Devuan, antiX and >MX Linux. I use none of those distribution, although I have tried Devuan and antix, especially just prior to switching from Gentoo to Void Linux several years ago for avoiding wasting time compiling packages. >I also note: > >https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/hqm7z2/xdeb_a_simple_utility_to_convert_debian_packages/ Not a recommended official Void Linux practice, of using a utility (eg. xdeb) for converting one distribution's pre-compiled packages to another distribution's package, due to breaking compile-time dependencies and run-time dependencies. The other problem, most other pre-compiled packages or tarballs improperly will install into /usr, rather than using /usr/local for third party packages not native to the Linux distribution being used. This later is sort of being organized, and most times not easily worked around due to files expecting /usr rather than /usr/local. (eg. libraries) Nature of the beast here. :-/ Anyways, Word Perfect 6.2 is working using Dosbox Staging, albeit without copy/paste, as I think the copy/paste function likely works for Dosemu. And, have dosbox auto starting with word perfect, using bash alias: alias wp='dosbox -conf /home/roger/dosbox/wp.conf' Anyways, I'm way off-topic... signature.asc Description: PGP signature _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
On Thu, 9 May 2024 at 22:20, Roger via Freedos-user wrote: > >They also have pre-compiled packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE. > >No manual compilation is needed for either of the 3 distros. > > Already know about these pre-package options for SystemD Linux > distributions. Whoa there. Fedora and the Red Hat family, yes: no choice but systemd. Ditto openSUSE. But dosemu2 also offers `.deb` packages and there are several non-systemd Debian-family distros, including Devuan, antiX and MX Linux. I also note: https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/hqm7z2/xdeb_a_simple_utility_to_convert_debian_packages/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
On Thu, May 9, 2024, 7:03 PM Roger via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > https://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/Main_Page > > [..] The wiki migration (from sourceforge to the new hosting) was incomplete because the SF server update broke the wiki. I didn't get to copy over the "how to install on virtualbox" pages before then - but once I'm done with the client work I'm working on now, I can copy things over from the database copy and then the wiki will be more complete. As complete as it was from when we were hosted at SF. So yes, these pages are currently missing, but they'll be there soon. _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Future FreeDOS [was documentation update]
Hi > On May 9, 2024, at 6:31 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user > wrote: > > > Hi! > > Turns out I only had some 2020 Bochs and no boot "disk" > for it, so I could not easily test any hotkeys :-o But: > >>> What if the DOS distro installer can be improved, so it no >>> longer matters which emulator or virtualizer people use? ;-) > >> As I’ve mentioned many times before, it already does that. >> And has done that since FreeDOS 1.2. > > I was not referring to "autodetect in which virtual > environment you are and do special things for that" > but to "be flexible enough with real or virtual PC > hardware to just work out of the box with all popular > virtual computers", in combination with "to make it > easy to install DOS on virtual computers, we could > have a disk image with pre-installed DOS, suitable > for all types of virtual PC, one size fits all". > > Of course virtual computers today tend to be tuned > towards Linux or Windows running inside them, but > my hope was that a few hints for options might be > enough, something like "configure your virtual PC > to offer AC97 or HDA sound, SATA without AHCI and > BIOS instead of UEFI boot mode, then this FreeDOS > disk image should be sufficiently happy", leaving > "only" the issue that emulators often isolate DOS > too well. Because you need specific drivers to get > files out of or into the virtual computer, which > is a problem very elegantly avoided by dosemu2 or > dosbox or similar DOS specific environments. > > There are drivers for DOS as client OS for some > virtual PC, but no universal ones. And there are > drivers for a few of the network cards a typical > virtual PC can simulate, but maybe not for those > simulated by default and maybe not at least one > for each popular virtual PC brand? In addition, > it is not very convenient to have to use a FTP > or NFS or SAMBA client or web browser for DOS > to transfer files, which in addition means that > you would have to run the corresponding servers > on the host operating system, on your real PC. I think I see the distinction you are trying to make. Unfortunately, I think that probably won’t happen in the official release. But, there is no reason a third party could not make a bunch of pre-installed tuned images for various virtual environments. > >> However when it comes to virtual environments, it >> only has separate config files for DOSBox at this time. > > In a perfect world, no special config would be needed, > because a generic config would be compatible enough. Yes. But, that leads to much more complex auto/config files. With the recent updates to those files, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. By which I mean, providing much simpler and easier to modify configuration files. Along with different sets of those files based on hardware requirements and capabilities. > > But I agree that exactly because dosbox and similar > are MEANT to be used with DOS, it can be good to > have a special config to activate the special DOS > interaction helpers dosbox and others support :-) > >> ... V8Power Tools program VINFO to detect if and what >> virtual environment it is installing the OS. At present, >> that is Virtual Box, VMware, QEMU, DOSBox and some others > > Good to know :-) > >> As you may recall, the installer now uses this information >> to also determine how to behave when a disk is not partitioned. > >> On real hardware when a drive has no partitions, the installer >> will prompt to overwrite the MBR. Inside known virtual environments, >> it just overwrites it and does not bother the user. > > I remember that I would prefer if the detection checks > whether there is absolutely nothing that could get lost, > not whether the target is virtual. If the disk is REALLY > totally empty, then there is less need to ask. If it is > NOT, then even in a virtual PC I would prefer to be asked. > > It also is conceivable that the detection just THINKS a > disk is empty, due to a read error. So I would prefer > the most cautious approach, even if it means that the > user has to press a few more buttons during install :-) My previous email was a major abbreviation of the differences between real and virtual hardware as related to the MBR. It only installs it automatically when running under a known virtual machine AND the drive has a single DOS partition AND you proceed to installing the OS. And even that can be overridden using the advanced mode of the installer. On real hardware or unknown virtual environments, it just asks. > >> Big and little USB images, live and legacy CD, plus the floppy edi
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
https://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/Main_Page How do I install FreeDOS? FreeDOS for everyone: "We recommend using a PC emulator or virtual machine to install FreeDOS. If you don't want to install, you can boot the LiveCD to try it out." And What do I need to run FreeDOS? "If you are new to DOS, we recommend you use a PC emulator or Virtual machine such as VirtualBox to install and boot FreeDOS. You can find PC emulators for all computer platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac.)" Again, on the FreeDOS wiki page concerning installing FreeDOS, vague instructions, "We recommend using a PC emulator or virtual machine to install FreeDOS.", with the subsequent emulator and virtual machine links leading to blank pages. Based on Jim Hall's FreeDOS book, I suggest adding his apparently preferred virtual machine qemu here, so users are not left hanging researching multiple DOS emulators/virtual machines. I think the respective links for emulators and virtual machines on the FreeDOS Wiki page were likely suppose to contain the data I recently wrote about within the past Emails, concerning DOSEMU/DOSEMU2, Qemu, and Bochs. As well as including Qemu incantations for running on Linux and other O/S. However, obviously documenting all possible incantations for every O/S becomes overwhelming! The FreeDOS wiki oddly negates mentioning Qemu, referencing only VirtualBox instead. Shrugs... no big deal, just probably an area needing clarification for others! Roger signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
itions, one of them as safely to resize D: drive :-) With enough ram, it relocates itself onto a RAM drive... ...which is a bottleneck on old computers, while less old computers can already boot from USB. However, BIOS support for USB "disks" can be very SLOW, so maybe a RAMDISK has advantages even on newer REAL computers? On VIRTUAL ones, however, I would really prefer a virtual PERSISTENT disk. disadvantages are a slightly longer boot time and changes are not persistent. Exactly. But the user could have a virtual HD attached to remedy that. The idea was that SHIPPING FreeDOS pre-installed on virtual harddisk would both remedy that AND completely avoid the very need to perform an installation at all :-) Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
> On Thu, May 09, 2024 at 09:52:39PM +0200, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > >Hi! >> Initially I tried Bochs, but found Bochs either cannot go full screen >> using SDL2, or I just haven't found the magical incantation... > >A quick google says "try alt-enter" (to go full screen). In 2011, this >had the side-effect of risking to switch to a resolution DOS dislikes, >I have not googled further to check whether Bochs in 2024 has issues? For kicks, just tried Bochs and FreeDOS again with host being Linux, and alt-enter/return key combinations do not appear to do anything. Bochs on Linux using SDL2 nowadays and from forum searches, still doesn't allow full screen for easier font/character reading. Think with Windows hosts, they do have an option for using full screen, along with an elegant graphical Boch's package installer with other already configured options. So again, from my research, Bochs emulation is more likely for those learning the inards of an operating system or investigating transfer of data within an application or software. >> More research showed DOSEMU out of date and not available on Void Linux > >I agree regarding the first part, but have never heard of Void Linux. > >> distribution here, and/or requiring other self compiled libraries, as >> well as DOSEMU2 requiring additional self compiled libraries, with only >> DOSBOX (intended for games) available on Void Linux. > >For Ubuntu, you can simply add the PPA to your software manager, > >https://github.com/dosemu2/dosemu2 explains the details. > >They also have pre-compiled packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE. >No manual compilation is needed for either of the 3 distros. Already know about these pre-package options for SystemD Linux distributions. >> After more research, found Jim Hall's book tends to sway towards >> suggesting Qemu, a virtualizer rather than an Emulator. I have and >> currently use Virtualbox here, but wanted to remain to the de facto used >> emulator for DOS environments. Regardless, Qemu readily resizes to full >> screen, so that I can finally see and read the font/characters. > >I doubt that there is a "de facto used emulator for DOS". > >Personally, I prefer dosemu2. Windows users often prefer dosbox. From what I'm seeing DOSEMU2 emulator, if available for your Linux distribution, then Qemu virtualizor is most often used for Linux hosts. Else, Bochs for scientific research of the O/S or applications within the emulated environment. >Various users also like to use software which emulates or >virtualizes a complete PC on which you then install DOS, >but I have no idea why that would be better than dosbox or >dosemu2 which spezicalize on supporting DOS and offer nice >magic like "any Linux DIRECTORY can become your C: DISK". This was another tricky bit, similar to long ago initially learning host/client operating systems, the difference of emulators and virtualizations. Some .edu site(s) recommend DOSEMU/DOSEMU2 for using DOS Word Perfect, due to copy/paste, etc... >> 1) Jim Hall's FreeDOS qemu incantation likely needs some minimal >> updating, for those that desire to get-up and running quickly... >> >> $ qemu-system-x86_64 -name FreeDOS -machine >> pc-i440fx-4.2,accel=kvm,usb=off,dump-guest-core=off >etc. > >That is a very long command line indeed! An incantation :-o Shrugs, being a command line junky, I like it. A good organized hierarchy/pyramid building schematic of software engineering and usage! Granted, Qemu has some really long command line incantations, with some elusive and not well explained options/arguments, or well organized and easily learned. Sound devices/configuration being one series of options/arguments. But if, like Jim Hall's book, already documents for easy copy/pasting, and successfully works, users will not have to muck around editing large text configuration files with many subsequent saving/loading operations. Almost like click and play, but on the command line. Once working, then can likely save arguments/options to either a configuration or sh/bash/batch script. >> 2) Book or documentation should probably lead or advise users, the >> best (as of date) emulator or virtualizer per their intended use. > >What if the DOS distro installer can be improved, so it no >longer matters which emulator or virtualizer people use? ;-) Likely already the target of DOSEMU/DOSEMU2. Only problem is, I do not think either readily compile on Void Linux, due to missing (fdd?) dependency. Then also noticed I need an additional GIT source compiled library. Long story short, likely need either DOSEMU/DOSEMU2 package for Void Linux. But Void Linux users likely opted only for Bochs or Qemu, as DOSEMU2 might be only slightly differing or userbase only
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
Hi, > On May 9, 2024, at 3:53 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user > wrote: > > > Hi! >> Initially I tried Bochs, but found Bochs either cannot go full screen >> using SDL2, or I just haven't found the magical incantation... > > A quick google says "try alt-enter" (to go full screen). In 2011, this > had the side-effect of risking to switch to a resolution DOS dislikes, > I have not googled further to check whether Bochs in 2024 has issues? > >> More research showed DOSEMU out of date and not available on Void Linux > > I agree regarding the first part, but have never heard of Void Linux. > >> distribution here, and/or requiring other self compiled libraries, as >> well as DOSEMU2 requiring additional self compiled libraries, with only >> DOSBOX (intended for games) available on Void Linux. > > For Ubuntu, you can simply add the PPA to your software manager, > > https://github.com/dosemu2/dosemu2 explains the details. > > They also have pre-compiled packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE. > No manual compilation is needed for either of the 3 distros. > >> After more research, found Jim Hall's book tends to sway towards >> suggesting Qemu, a virtualizer rather than an Emulator. I have and >> currently use Virtualbox here, but wanted to remain to the de facto used >> emulator for DOS environments. Regardless, Qemu readily resizes to full >> screen, so that I can finally see and read the font/characters. > > I doubt that there is a "de facto used emulator for DOS". > > Personally, I prefer dosemu2. Windows users often prefer dosbox. > > Various users also like to use software which emulates or > virtualizes a complete PC on which you then install DOS, > but I have no idea why that would be better than dosbox or > dosemu2 which spezicalize on supporting DOS and offer nice > magic like "any Linux DIRECTORY can become your C: DISK". > >> 1) Jim Hall's FreeDOS qemu incantation likely needs some minimal >> updating, for those that desire to get-up and running quickly... >> $ qemu-system-x86_64 -name FreeDOS -machine >> pc-i440fx-4.2,accel=kvm,usb=off,dump-guest-core=off > etc. > > That is a very long command line indeed! An incantation :-o > >> 2) Book or documentation should probably lead or advise users, the >> best (as of date) emulator or virtualizer per their intended use. > > What if the DOS distro installer can be improved, so it no > longer matters which emulator or virtualizer people use? ;-) As I’ve mentioned many times before, it already does that. And has done that since FreeDOS 1.2. However when it comes to virtual environments, it only has separate config files for DOSBox at this time. It relies on V8Power Tools program VINFO to detect if and what virtual environment it is installing the OS. At present, that is Virtual Box, VMware, QEMU, DOSBox and some others as simply Generic. As you may recall, the installer now uses this information to also determine how to behave when a disk is not partitioned. On real hardware when a drive has no partitions, the installer will prompt to overwrite the MBR. Inside known virtual environments, it just overwrites it and does not bother the user. > >> As they say, the more we keep something simple, the easier >> and more readily we get things done. > > We could provide a disk image with pre-installed DOS. I don’t think we need more types of release media. We already have 5. Big and little USB images, live and legacy CD, plus the floppy edition. > > This would be convenient for users of virtual computers, > because they do not need to worry about installing to > actual disks when their disks are imaginary anyway :-) Sounds similar to what the LiveCD provides. Without the worry of having too small or too large of a disk image for the user’s needs. With enough ram, it relocates itself onto a RAM drive, you can even install and remove packages. Swap the CD out and install other software. The only disadvantages are a slightly longer boot time and changes are not persistent. But the user could have a virtual HD attached to remedy that. > > Regards, Eric > > Jerome > > > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update
Hi! Initially I tried Bochs, but found Bochs either cannot go full screen using SDL2, or I just haven't found the magical incantation... A quick google says "try alt-enter" (to go full screen). In 2011, this had the side-effect of risking to switch to a resolution DOS dislikes, I have not googled further to check whether Bochs in 2024 has issues? More research showed DOSEMU out of date and not available on Void Linux I agree regarding the first part, but have never heard of Void Linux. distribution here, and/or requiring other self compiled libraries, as well as DOSEMU2 requiring additional self compiled libraries, with only DOSBOX (intended for games) available on Void Linux. For Ubuntu, you can simply add the PPA to your software manager, https://github.com/dosemu2/dosemu2 explains the details. They also have pre-compiled packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE. No manual compilation is needed for either of the 3 distros. After more research, found Jim Hall's book tends to sway towards suggesting Qemu, a virtualizer rather than an Emulator. I have and currently use Virtualbox here, but wanted to remain to the de facto used emulator for DOS environments. Regardless, Qemu readily resizes to full screen, so that I can finally see and read the font/characters. I doubt that there is a "de facto used emulator for DOS". Personally, I prefer dosemu2. Windows users often prefer dosbox. Various users also like to use software which emulates or virtualizes a complete PC on which you then install DOS, but I have no idea why that would be better than dosbox or dosemu2 which spezicalize on supporting DOS and offer nice magic like "any Linux DIRECTORY can become your C: DISK". 1) Jim Hall's FreeDOS qemu incantation likely needs some minimal updating, for those that desire to get-up and running quickly... $ qemu-system-x86_64 -name FreeDOS -machine pc-i440fx-4.2,accel=kvm,usb=off,dump-guest-core=off etc. That is a very long command line indeed! An incantation :-o 2) Book or documentation should probably lead or advise users, the best (as of date) emulator or virtualizer per their intended use. What if the DOS distro installer can be improved, so it no longer matters which emulator or virtualizer people use? ;-) As they say, the more we keep something simple, the easier and more readily we get things done. We could provide a disk image with pre-installed DOS. This would be convenient for users of virtual computers, because they do not need to worry about installing to actual disks when their disks are imaginary anyway :-) Regards, Eric ___________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] documentation update
MY EXPERIENCE INSTALLING FREEDOS Took a week or so trying to install a DOS enviroment along with an install of Word Perfect, quickly reading/scanning through all available Internet documentation as of 2024/05 date. Some key bits of information were from Jim Hall's FreeDOS book, detailing an install of FreeDOS using Qemu. With the book very quickly and vaguely stating to use an emulator, of the many available emulators available. Nowdays, there's several types emulators/virtualizers, with varying abilities and intend usage scenarios. Initially I tried Bochs, but found Bochs either cannot go full screen using SDL2, or I just haven't found the magical incantation. (I could not read the characters/font!) Later finding Bochs is moreso respected as a de facto or standard scientific or reverse/understanding coding tool. More research showed DOSEMU out of date and not available on Void Linux distribution here, and/or requiring other self compiled libraries, as well as DOSEMU2 requiring additional self compiled libraries, with only DOSBOX (intended for games) available on Void Linux. After more research, found Jim Hall's book tends to sway towards suggesting Qemu, a virtualizer rather than an Emulator. I have and currently use Virtualbox here, but wanted to remain to the de facto used emulator for DOS environments. Regardless, Qemu readily resizes to full screen, so that I can finally see and read the font/characters. LIKELY CHANGES/CLARIFICATIONS How to install FreeDOS without the installer https://www.freedos.org/books/get-started/14-manual-install/ 1) Jim Hall's FreeDOS qemu incantation likely needs some minimal updating, for those that desire to get-up and running quickly within a DOS environment: $ qemu-system-x86_64 -name FreeDOS -machine pc-i440fx-4.2,accel=kvm,usb=off,dump-guest-core=off -enable-kvm -cpu host -m 8 -overcommit mem-lock=off -no-user-config -nodefaults -rtc base=utc,driftfix=slew -machine hpet=off -boot menu=on,strict=on -sandbox on,obsolete=deny,elevateprivileges=deny,spawn=deny,resourcecontrol=deny -msg timestamp=on -drive format=raw,file=freedos-mine.img -drive format=raw,file=FD13FULL/FD13FULL.img -vga cirrus -usbdevice mouse -device sb16 -device adlib -audio driver=alsa,id=snd0,out.dev=default -audiodev alsa,id=snd0 -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd0 Hpet option needed updating, using -drive was necessary for averting warning during start concerning raw format, sound options/arguments have been renamed/reorganized with sound not known if working using ALSA, but annoying PC speaker beep works! Another note, likely using the USB full image, rather than multiple floppies is far easier and more simplified. I'm not sure if the other non-explained options/arguments are still needed, or if additional options/arguments are required with the updated Qemu environment, but so far FreeDOS boots and seems to work. 2) Book or documentation should probably lead or advise users, the best (as of date) emulator or virtualizer per their intended use. (eg. under-the-hood operations, likely use Bochs, while most others should likely use Qemu?) As they say, the more we keep something simple, the easier and more readily we get things done. Roger signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] odd news
> Date: Thu, 9 May 2024 00:29:44 +0200 > From: Eric Auer > > and a dos port of gnupg where important features cannot be used > because dos has no /dev/random (see bttr thread) be newsworthy? The DOS port of gnupg should be fully functional now, both on FreeDOS and MS-DOS. When generating keys, it depends on the same /dev/random$ that is included in the FreeDOS lynx package (the NOISE driver). _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] dos navigator
On Wed, 8 May 2024, Daniel Essin via Freedos-user wrote: Try it in a VM Yeah, I would, but that's not really an option for me. On 5/8/24 6:21 PM, Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: I found my copy of PTS DOS Source, and was digging through them to see some of the differences between that and opendos, for which I also have the sources, and I ran across the dos navigator menuing system (at least I'm pretty sure it's a menu system, don't currently have a dos machine setup anywhere, so can't run it). But, interestingly enough, it's opensource as well, and I was curious if free dos would be willing to include it, there's a lot of traffic on the list at times looking for a decent menuing system, dos navigator could be the answer. PTS DOS uses it, so why not? It can be found at: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/ just in case anyone is interested in taking a look. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] dos navigator
Try it in a VM On 5/8/24 6:21 PM, Travis Siegel via Freedos-user wrote: I found my copy of PTS DOS Source, and was digging through them to see some of the differences between that and opendos, for which I also have the sources, and I ran across the dos navigator menuing system (at least I'm pretty sure it's a menu system, don't currently have a dos machine setup anywhere, so can't run it). But, interestingly enough, it's opensource as well, and I was curious if free dos would be willing to include it, there's a lot of traffic on the list at times looking for a decent menuing system, dos navigator could be the answer. PTS DOS uses it, so why not? It can be found at: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/ just in case anyone is interested in taking a look. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] dos navigator
I found my copy of PTS DOS Source, and was digging through them to see some of the differences between that and opendos, for which I also have the sources, and I ran across the dos navigator menuing system (at least I'm pretty sure it's a menu system, don't currently have a dos machine setup anywhere, so can't run it). But, interestingly enough, it's opensource as well, and I was curious if free dos would be willing to include it, there's a lot of traffic on the list at times looking for a decent menuing system, dos navigator could be the answer. PTS DOS uses it, so why not? It can be found at: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/ just in case anyone is interested in taking a look. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] odd news
[..] > 1. I keep an eye on the "DOS Ain't Dead" forums via their RSS feed, > and I thought the httpDOS announcement on "DOS Ain't Dead" was > interesting. And we sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) get > people who ask what cool network stuff they can do with FreeDOS. And > this was something that SuperIlu had made, and SuperIlu has done some > other DOS stuff (like dojs, the javascript programming canvas for DOS) > so it wasn't just some random person posting about it. So I posted it > as a news item on the website in case anyone else was interested. But > I also posted it "first" so it wouldn't be the first item in the news > feed. > And to add: the news item points out that httpDOS isn't fully functional. It says this: > SuperIlu has created a simple TLS-capable HTTP server for DOS. As > SuperIlu explains, "It is not in real working condition" but > it's an interesting demonstration of what you can do with DOS > in 2024. httpDOS is distributed under the BSD license, with > components under other open source licenses. You can find it > on the httpDOS GitHub project. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] odd news
On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 5:30 PM Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > > hi! as jim prefers all dos related things to be discussed on-list: > > why would a https server which is "not in real working condition" > and a dos port of gnupg where important features cannot be used > because dos has no /dev/random (see bttr thread) be newsworthy? > the changes to nasm do not seem to affect the dos version either? > i hope it is not necessary to start 3 separate list threads now ;-) > > https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/ > FYI to others: news items from the "FreeDOS @ SourceForge" feed automatically show up on https://www.freedos.org/ so these items are also on the FreeDOS website. I'll answer them, since I posted these news items: 1. I keep an eye on the "DOS Ain't Dead" forums via their RSS feed, and I thought the httpDOS announcement on "DOS Ain't Dead" was interesting. And we sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) get people who ask what cool network stuff they can do with FreeDOS. And this was something that SuperIlu had made, and SuperIlu has done some other DOS stuff (like dojs, the javascript programming canvas for DOS) so it wasn't just some random person posting about it. So I posted it as a news item on the website in case anyone else was interested. But I also posted it "first" so it wouldn't be the first item in the news feed. 2. Again, I thought it was interesting that someone had ported GNU's GPG to DOS, and the announcement was from someone who had ported Unix/Linux/GNU programs like this before. So I posted an item about it on the website. I didn't see the rest of the thread <https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?id=21759> that there's a reproducible bug in generating the keypair. [The RSS feed doesn't always make it easy to see everything in a thread, at least with the RSS reader I use.] But not every version of every open source program will be perfect - "release early, release often." 3. I think programmers would want to know what's going on with the tools they like to use, and this was an update to a popular assembler that folks use on DOS. The changes didn't affect functionality, but that's noted in the news item: > Netwide Assembler - abbreviated [NASM] - is an assembler > for the x86 CPU architecture portable to nearly every modern > platform, and with code generation for many platforms including > DOS. NASM 2.16.03 was recently released, but is a source build > machinery and documentation update only. [Changes] include: > Fix building from git in a separate directory from the source, > and remove some irrelevant files from the source. There are > no functionality changes. Download the latest version at [NASM > 2.16.03] - including the [DOS version]. For anyone who's curious, the FreeDOS website displays 6 news items, then there's a "More news" link to see the rest of the feed. [This is a placeholder link .. I'd like to make a change over the summer where a "View more" button expands to show more news items without leaving the FreeDOS website.] The news items are: NASM 2.16.03 2024-05-08 9:16am GnuPG 1.4.23 for DOS 2024-05-08 9:09am httpDOS web server for DOS 2024-05-08 9:06am Microsoft and IBM release MS-DOS 4.00 as open source software 2024-04-27 2:52pm USBDDOS 2024-04-20 4:34pm MicroWeb ver 2.0 2024-04-20 4:27pm And the next few items under "More news" are: VSBHDA version 1.4 4/20 Public domain libm math library 0.7 4/13 FreeDOS videos on YouTube 4/10 Angband 4.2.5 for DOS 3/20 I didn't think people would mind seeing "news about open source DOS stuff" on the FreeDOS website. :-) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] odd news
hi! as jim prefers all dos related things to be discussed on-list: why would a https server which is "not in real working condition" and a dos port of gnupg where important features cannot be used because dos has no /dev/random (see bttr thread) be newsworthy? the changes to nasm do not seem to affect the dos version either? i hope it is not necessary to start 3 separate list threads now ;-) https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/ regards, eric _______ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on a USB Key
HI thanks for this great list! I was actually tinkering with 512 MB USB Sticks because I thought that there might be a difference when it comes to use TWO USB-Sticks at the same time. (like C: and D: ) I don’t know why this strategy SOMETIMES works - and sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe it has got to do with other reasons than the size of the sticks? (My thinking was - is? - : "small is better«) Any ideas? Thomas > On 06.05.2024, at 03:55, Robert Thorpe via Freedos-user > wrote: > > There are advantages to installing FreeDOS natively - it is faster. On > the other hand, I don't think there are many advantages to giving > FreeDOS gigabytes of space. DOS programs just don't need it. > > So, I installed FreeDOS on an 8GB USB pendrive. (I don't think that even > 2GB is really needed.) > > On the internet there are guides on doing this. I think I found a way > that's simpler than all of them and requires no proprietary tools. > > * Download the FreeDOS USB installer. > * Copy the img to a small (1GB) USB key. I used "dd" for this but > there are many options. > * Take another larger USB key and format it to FAT32. You can use > Windows or use mkfs.fat on Linux. > * Put a small file with a memorable name on this one. > * Setup your PC's BIOS to boot into DOS. > ** Enable Legacy boot. > ** Enable legacy option ROMs. > * Plug in both USB keys. > * Boot into the FreeDOS installer. > * Drop out of the installer and do FDISK /STATUS. > ** This should show you that the larger USB key is present. > ** This will give you a drive letter for the larger USB key. > * Change to that drive letter by typing D:, E:, or whatever. > * Check that the "small file with a memorable name" is there. > * Go back into the FreeDOS installer/package manager by typing FDIMPLES. > * Choose to install everything to the drive letter found earlier. > ** Note that if you get the drive letter wrong you could wipe over your > something you want to keep on another internal drive. > * Take out the first USB key (you can reformat it and reuse it). > * Reboot with the second USB key in place. > > I expect that some people around here know that you can do this. I'm > just archiving it for posterity so someone searching the web can find it. > > BR, > Robert Thorpe > > > _______ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
