[Freedos-devel] BIOS function support is going away for good
whitepaper from AMI on the BIOS-to-UEFI transition (very informative). http://www.ami.com/support/downloadwp.cfm?DLFile=AMI_UEFI_Transition_Whitepaper_PUB.pdf&FileID=1387 how long will be be before BIOS function support is totally gone? I don't know. UEFI is taking over and slowly(?)/fastly(?) transitioning out BIOS functionality. This could either mean a transition period for freedos, or the end of freedos. I like freedos. I would like to be able to still write for freedos, but I am beginning to think it's going to have to become some "other kind" of OS (at least at the core?) to survive the 21st century. there will probably need to be a UEFI freedos and a BIOS freedos, since they are entirely different in the way they boot. I am getting the impression that somebody will do something only when everything falls apart. I hope I am wrong. I am beginning to feel like I should be developing some of my disk apps in linux from now on, and linux development is not my strong suit. I dunno, maybe DOS just can't be DOS anymore UNLESS it can supply BIOS INT13H, INT10H, and INT21H functionality even on top of UEFI. now there's an option - a BIOS function emulator/thunk layer on top of the UEFI functionality. this would ensure that DOS programs would have some semblance of still working (although some would get a modification, such as fdisk and chkdsk maybe). If you want freeDOS to continue this may be your only recourse. hey - I am a forward thinker. I see problems down the road and I like to solve them up front. - Jim Michaels jmich...@yahoo.com j...@jimscomputerrepairandwebdesign.com http://JimsComputerRepairandWebDesign.com http://JesusnJim.com (my personal site, has software) --- Computer memory/disk size measurements: [KB KiB] [MB MiB] [GB GiB] [TB TiB] [10^3B=1,000B=1KB][2^10B=1,024B=1KiB] [10^6B=1,000,000B=1MB][2^20B=1,048,576B=1MiB] [10^9B=1,000,000,000B=1GB][2^30B=1,073,741,824B=1GiB] [10^12B=1,000,000,000,000B=1TB][2^40B=1,099,511,627,776B=1TiB] Note: disk size is measured in MB, GB, or TB, not in MiB, GiB, or TiB. computer memory (RAM) is measured in MiB and GiB.-- 10 Tips for Better Web Security Learn 10 ways to better secure your business today. Topics covered include: Web security, SSL, hacker attacks & Denial of Service (DoS), private keys, security Microsoft Exchange, secure Instant Messaging, and much more. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426210/___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] .BAT tricks (%RANDOM%, ANSI escapes in %PROMPT%)
Hi again,
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
>
> A better way could definitely be done in a variety of languages
> (BWBASIC? DEBUG?).
Well, I took a look at doing it with BWBASIC. There are two or three
problems with that approach.
First, for some reason the binary (despite claiming to use "TTY")
doesn't redirect to file, so I can't use "set /e" directly there. (It
must be doing direct-screen writes as even DJGPP's "redir -eo" doesn't
help.) It does let you do 'environ$ "RANDOM" = str$(int(rnd * 4) +
1)', but (no surprise) that environment is gone once you exit BWBASIC,
so it isn't saved. (I know there are tricks to modify the master
environment, but most people don't do that.) So you have to basically
"randomize timer", open a file for output, write the random number,
then close. Then after generating the file, "set /e random=type
rand4.txt". It's kinda kludgy, but it works.
randomize timer
num = int(rnd * 4) + 1
open "rand4.txt" for output as #myfile
print #myfile, mid$(str$(num),2,len(str$(num))-1)
close #myfile
print "With FreeCOM 0.84-pre2, run this, then 'set /e random=type rand4.txt' "
print "Manual output redirction to file fails with BWBASIC, sadly. :-("
print "'environ$ " + CHR$(&H22) + "RANDOM" + CHR$(&H22) ;
print " = ...' loses its value at program exit. :-("
system
Who knows, perhaps a recompile would fix this to be more friendly to
redirection, but it's not crucial anyways. As is, I just decided to
figure it out, with pre-existing binary, for my own amusement. ;-)
Actually, it would probably be easier to generate MYPROMPT.BAT
directly from BWBASIC instead of doing two separate (kludgy) steps. Oh
well.
P.S. Keep in mind a few things about BWBASIC: it's not the same as
QBASIC (lacks some built-ins, e.g. LTRIM), it ignores precision
suffixes (everything is the same size), and everything *except*
variables is case insensitive, so "print" and "PRINT" are the same,
but a$ and A$ are distinct. Oh, and it hates "?" and "'" shortcuts for
PRINT and REM, respectively. Oh, and if you're having trouble finding
your syntax error: "DO NUM", "RUN", "LIST". That should help.
Just FYI.
--
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Web security, SSL, hacker attacks & Denial of Service (DoS), private keys,
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Bootsplash?
Hi again,:-))
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 3:21 AM, Jim Hall wrote:
>
> Does anyone know the origin of Bootsplash that was included in FreeDOS
> 1.0? I'm going through the software list, making sure everything is in
> order before Bernd makes the next 1.1-test release, and realized that
> Bootsplash was included in 1.0 without source code.
>
> There aren't any doc files with bsplashx.zip (included in FreeDOS 1.0)
> so I can't find the original web site with source code. If I cannot
> locate the source code for this program, I will remove it from the
> software list, and delete it from the 1.0 "pkgs" directory on ibiblio.
I think you already asked about this, and a quick search of my old
e-mails proves me right! But it was one and a half years ago, long
enough to forget! ;-)
=
Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:06 AM
subject Re: Updated FreeDOS software list
I seem to remember a similar thing being open-sourced for FreeDOS, but
I can't remember if this was it or not. And of course I can't find the
link (bah, Google is overrated, Bing didn't help either). :-/
If you look inside bsplashx.zip, its DEPENDS.TXT file says "blckout",
which is blckoutx.zip and blckouts.zip, respectively. However, only
two of the three utils in that are open sourced (although I'd imagine
gif2raw is fairly trivial to write anyways).
Seems the only page for Blackout is here:
http://homepages.ipact.nl/~lokhorst/dos.html
But "banner" is by J.P. Morris (and presumably gif2raw also). However,
his Tripod page is long gone, and even WayBack doesn't have it (the
three links they do have don't work, so ...).
Actually, I don't think bsplashx.zip *ever had* source code (call it
"N/A", I suppose):
==
Archive: bsplashx.zip
Length DateTimeName
- -- -
0 05/19/2006 22:09 bin/
888 07/19/2005 03:06 bin/banner1.com
887 07/19/2005 03:07 bin/banner2.com
2390 09/04/2006 13:16 bsplash.bat
0 05/19/2006 20:14 packages/
0 07/05/2006 01:59 packages/bsplashx/
8 05/19/2006 22:10 packages/bsplashx/depends.txt
38 06/03/2006 11:12 packages/bsplashx/install.bat
50 05/19/2006 22:10 packages/bsplashx/remove.bat
0 05/19/2006 22:01 splashes/
64768 07/20/2005 13:07 splashes/device.raw
64768 07/20/2005 13:07 splashes/device2.raw
64768 07/20/2005 13:08 splashes/device3.raw
64768 07/28/2005 14:16 splashes/device4.raw
64768 07/20/2005 13:08 splashes/shell.raw
64768 07/20/2005 13:09 splashes/shell2.raw
64768 07/20/2005 13:09 splashes/shell3.raw
64768 07/28/2005 14:16 splashes/shell4.raw
- ---
522405 18 files
==
It's basically some .BATs, a .TXT, some .RAW images (of what?), and
two (barely modified) "banner" versions from Blackout. (I assume J.P.
Morris is the "author" here.)
It seems that banner.com has a hardcoded filename "c:\openinit.raw"
where banner1.com has "c:\device.raw" and banner2.com has
"c:\shell.raw". They look (almost) identical otherwise, so he probably
just used a different assembler on the latter two than the first one
(e.g. TASM instead of MASM or whatever). And just to look even closer
to satisfy your purist mind, Jim, I used ndisasm. Okay, seems that the
only difference is due to a "jmp" that was "short" in the original but
not in the offspring banner[12].com files (which slightly adjusted
some offsets by one byte).
So bsplashx.zip is fine, I suppose. It's only blckout[xs].zip that
lacks sources for Gif2Raw. If we could find J.P. Morris (unlikely)
Though it might be easier just to have someone (Eric? heh) whip
up a quick replacement version (although there are probably some image
editors, even for DOS, that do it for you, I just can't think of any
offhand since I don't do lots of image stuff).
EDIT: Okay, I grabbed Iguana's old GFV20.ARJ to view the raw files.
Seems they are as follows:
device.raw - "FreeDOS ... cool and fresh ... loading devices" (bunch
of Blinky fish)
device2.raw - "FreeDOS C:\ ... loading devices" (raindrops)
device3.raw - Tux and Blinky sitting at table with computer next to
them ("loading devices")
device4.raw - big fish outline "FreeDOS ... loading devices" (on
mandelbrot background??)
shell.raw - same image as device.raw ("cool and fresh") except says
"Loading the shell"
shell2.raw - same as device2.raw (raindrops) except "Loading Shell"
shell3.raw - same as device3.raw (Tux + Blinky) except "Loading the Shell"
shell4.raw - same as device4.raw (fish outline) except "Loading the Shell"
openinit.raw - says "Caldera OpenDOS" (which Blackout was originally
written for, apparently)
I think all of those (except last, obviously) are standard FreeDOS
logo / banners / images. So they should be kosher.
--
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Re: [Freedos-devel] suggestion - add fdshell to freedos 1.1
> > Long story short: Doszip is pretty perfect unless you need 8086 support. > > http://sf.net/projects/doszip > > (Anyways, a decent file manager isn't "essential" by any means, and > surely there are dozens of other file managers, I'm probably > forgetting a few. Maybe they're open source, who knows, I can't > remember them all ! You can check the mirrors of Short.Stop pages, > perhaps, to find a good one.) > Doszip is already listed in our Util section on the software list, anyway. So that's good. -jh -- 5 Ways to Improve & Secure Unified Communications Unified Communications promises greater efficiencies for business. UC can improve internal communications as well as offer faster, more efficient ways to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426253/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] [Freedos-user] Can't Install; FreeDOS 1.1 test release #2
>> Writing entire installation procedures in 4DOS should be possible as
>> well, just takes lots more research.
>
> For sure 4DOS is more useful, but it might be overkill here. I don't
> know if Jim would prefer FreeCOM exclusively instead or not (though I
> probably would).
>
Yes, I prefer using the standard FreeDOS Command.com ("FreeCOM") for
the 1.1 distribution. But I think this should change as we go into the
"2.0" release cycle.
-jh
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to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more!
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Bootsplash?
Le jeudi 21 juillet 2011 à 14:36 -0500, Jim Hall a écrit : > Blackout has a gif2raw that's available as binary-only. The > documentation indicates that source code is NOT available for gif2raw, > so I separated this out of the zip file, and left the sources and > other source-provided binaries. (Ok per the license, which is > literally "do what you want".) gif2raw is only needed to create a RAW > format image from a GIF image. There are other tools to do that, so > I'm not worried about taking gif2raw out of the distribution. In case you need some splash routines to rewrite the thing, you can probably snoop on Haiku's bootloader splash code: http://dev.haiku-os.org/browser/haiku/trunk/src/system/boot/platform/generic The x86 code uses VESA to set the video mode: http://dev.haiku-os.org/browser/haiku/trunk/src/system/boot/platform/bios_ia32/video.cpp And we have some tools to generate splash data as source code from PNG files. All should be MIT-licences. FWIW. François. -- 5 Ways to Improve & Secure Unified Communications Unified Communications promises greater efficiencies for business. UC can improve internal communications as well as offer faster, more efficient ways to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426253/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Bootsplash?
Blackout has a gif2raw that's available as binary-only. The documentation indicates that source code is NOT available for gif2raw, so I separated this out of the zip file, and left the sources and other source-provided binaries. (Ok per the license, which is literally "do what you want".) gif2raw is only needed to create a RAW format image from a GIF image. There are other tools to do that, so I'm not worried about taking gif2raw out of the distribution. I'll remove Bootsplash from the software list & ibiblio this weekend if no one can point me to sources. On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Bernd Blaauw wrote: > Op 21-7-2011 21:21, Jim Hall schreef: >> Does anyone know the origin of Bootsplash that was included in FreeDOS >> 1.0? I'm going through the software list, making sure everything is in >> order before Bernd makes the next 1.1-test release, and realized that >> Bootsplash was included in 1.0 without source code. >> >> There aren't any doc files with bsplashx.zip (included in FreeDOS 1.0) >> so I can't find the original web site with source code. If I cannot >> locate the source code for this program, I will remove it from the >> software list, and delete it from the 1.0 "pkgs" directory on ibiblio. > > No idea about sources, might be freeware licensed, and functioning as > shell over BLACKOUT program? Not even sure if BLACKOUT works with > FreeDOS, I recall something about it FreeDOS kernel being incompatible > with this driver/program so far. > > BLACKOUT / Bootsplash were intended as a kind of Windows bootup logo > while processing startup files, if I remember correctly. > -- 5 Ways to Improve & Secure Unified Communications Unified Communications promises greater efficiencies for business. UC can improve internal communications as well as offer faster, more efficient ways to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426253/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Bootsplash?
Op 21-7-2011 21:21, Jim Hall schreef: > Does anyone know the origin of Bootsplash that was included in FreeDOS > 1.0? I'm going through the software list, making sure everything is in > order before Bernd makes the next 1.1-test release, and realized that > Bootsplash was included in 1.0 without source code. > > There aren't any doc files with bsplashx.zip (included in FreeDOS 1.0) > so I can't find the original web site with source code. If I cannot > locate the source code for this program, I will remove it from the > software list, and delete it from the 1.0 "pkgs" directory on ibiblio. No idea about sources, might be freeware licensed, and functioning as shell over BLACKOUT program? Not even sure if BLACKOUT works with FreeDOS, I recall something about it FreeDOS kernel being incompatible with this driver/program so far. BLACKOUT / Bootsplash were intended as a kind of Windows bootup logo while processing startup files, if I remember correctly. -- 5 Ways to Improve & Secure Unified Communications Unified Communications promises greater efficiencies for business. UC can improve internal communications as well as offer faster, more efficient ways to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426253/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Bootsplash?
Does anyone know the origin of Bootsplash that was included in FreeDOS 1.0? I'm going through the software list, making sure everything is in order before Bernd makes the next 1.1-test release, and realized that Bootsplash was included in 1.0 without source code. There aren't any doc files with bsplashx.zip (included in FreeDOS 1.0) so I can't find the original web site with source code. If I cannot locate the source code for this program, I will remove it from the software list, and delete it from the 1.0 "pkgs" directory on ibiblio. -jh -- 5 Ways to Improve & Secure Unified Communications Unified Communications promises greater efficiencies for business. UC can improve internal communications as well as offer faster, more efficient ways to interact with customers and streamline customer service. Learn more! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426253/ ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
