Re: [Freedos-devel] MAD compiler for DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Jim Hall wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 8:07 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
> >> I am working on an academic project that requires understanding the
> >> MAD programming language so I can pick apart (and faithfully recreate)
> >> an old MAD program. That's the Michigan Algorithm Decoder, from 1959
> >> and the early 1960s.
> >> [..]
> >> Does anyone know of a MAD compiler for DOS?


Ralf Quint wrote:
> Up to your email, I haven't even heard of a MAD compiler. Only the
> magazine... 
> (and interesting seeing that mentioned in the Wikipedia article LOL)


Yes, I hadn't heard of it either until a few months ago when I started
researching the RUNOFF source code. It's written about half in MAD and
about half in FAP (FORTRAN Assembly Programming). The RUNOFF program
is written in MAD with some support functions in FAP.

I'm thinking about writing a book about the early history of document
preparation systems, and RUNOFF seemed a good place to start. I want
to faithfully recreate the MAD code in another programming language -
not an automated translation like ESR's translator would do, but an
understandable recreation by a human who understands what the original
code is doing and recreates it in a sensible way in another
programming language. Might do it in C or BASIC. BASIC might be
easier, since I'm seeing some similarities between MAD and BASIC. But
I'd prefer to do it in C.

But step #1 is to understand what's going on in the code. MAD is
mostly readable, but the for-next loop equivalent is a little weird to
me. For example, to loop from 1 to 10 (inclusive) in C, you'd do this:

for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
...
}


Just to compare: in FORTRAN77, it's like "DO label var = start, stop, step":

   DO 10 I = 1, 10, 1
 ...
10 CONTINUE


But in MAD, I *think* it's like "THROUGH label, FOR var = start, step,
failcondition":

   THROUGH LOOP, FOR I = 1, 1, I .GT. 10
 ...
LOOP   CONTINUE


And from what I can see, I think "failcondition" gets tested at the
end of each iteration, so it's more like this weird 'while'
construction in C:

  i = 1;
  do {
...
i++;
  } while ( !(i>10) );



That's why I wanted to write some sample code in a real MAD compiler,
to see if I'm correctly understanding that (and a few other odd things
in the language).


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS on Book8088

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

[resending without photo attached]


On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 2:06 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Very helpful. I thought it might be something like this. I'll update the bug 
> with your info.
>
> Mind if I copy your photo into the bug report to show that it's working?
>
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:44 PM Louis Santillan  wrote:
>>
>> I have a Book8088 v2.  I did some testing.  I imaged the FD13BOOT.IMG from 
>> FD 1.3 Floppy Edition[0] to my a slot on my Gotek formatted USB stick.  I 
>> then used a Dell 316SX (a 386) with a Gotek FDD emulator & XT-IDE r625 to 
>> boot FD v1.3 over floppy.  Next, I FDISK'd a 256MB CF card as FAT16 (CHS 
>> 984/16/32).  Rebooted again to floppy and then ran `format C:/q/s`.  I then 
>> copied a few binaries from the FD floppy to the CF card.  Rebooted to verify 
>> the 256MB CF card would boot and it worked.
>>
>> Finally, popped out the CF card of the 316SX and placed it in the slot on 
>> the Book8088.  Booted & it worked.  See the pic below for reference.
>>
>> No magic other than I've been working to restore the Dell 316SX so it now 
>> has a NIC with the XT-IDE r625 BIOS in it's ROM slot.  The original 3.5" & 
>> 5.25" drives aren't spinning and I need to refurb those next.
>>
>> The user on SF could try imaging a small (<2GB) USB stick with FD13BOOT.IMG 
>> and try booting off that as well.  It might take a reflash of the BIOS [1]. 
>> They'll need to hit 'A' quickly to redirect XT-IDE to boot off floppy 
>> instead of the CF.  I might test that as well.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [0] 
>> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/FD13-FloppyEdition.zip
>> [1] 
>> https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/book-8088-discovery-and-modification-thread.1245155/post-1343495
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 8:23 AM Jim Hall via Freedos-devel 
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> A user entered a bug that FreeDOS won't boot on the Book8088.
>>> https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/bugs/391/
>>>
>>> > Hi. I got myself a Book8088 2.0 recently. It's a Chinese retro computer
>>> > with a NEC V20 processor, 640 kb ram and a CF card as a storage. It uses
>>> > Sergei Kiselev's BIOS_8088 with XTIDE extensions (which enable straight
>>> > up boot from CF card(.
>>> >
>>> > I tried multiple versions of 16-bit FreeDOS kernels (2039-2043) on it,
>>> > but they all get stuck at InitDisk function. It will actually print out
>>> > the partition and detect CHS parameters but will get confused by it and
>>> > try to "correct" it. That will cause it to get stuck.
>>> >
>>> > This little laptop came preinstalled with MS-DOS 6.22 and that works ok.
>>> >
>>> > Btw, It doesn't have an alternative IDE interface, so the CF card is
>>> > only means of storage.
>>> >
>>> > Also, the error still appears even if CF card is formatted as either
>>> > FAT16 or FAT32.
>>>
>>> Does anyone have one of these devices, or have more details about the
>>> internals? I know about this only from what I've seen on Facebook:
>>> it's a mini-laptop made from retro hardware with a CF card for
>>> storage, but no floppy.
>>>
>>> The bug report indicates that FreeDOS is stopping at the InitDisk function.
>>>
>>> The user reports that the device uses a CF card in a CF-to-IDE adapter
>>> to act as storage ("hard drive"). At my first guess, that's probably
>>> the issue. I know others have had mixed results with CF-to-IDE,
>>> usually because the CF-to-IDE isn't correctly emulating IDE or because
>>> the BIOS doesn't recognize the CF-to-IDE correctly. (Seems like
>>> neither is the case here, since the user reports the Book8088 came
>>> with a working copy of pre-installed MS-DOS.)
>>>
>>> I think other issues folks have had with CF storage is that the CF
>>> isn't set up right, so it has an incorrect partition table boundary,
>>> or something like that.
>>>
>>> My first guess is to ask the user to try a different CF card than the
>>> one they are using now, to see if it's an issue with the CF card
>>> itself.
>>>
>>> Suggestions?
>>>
>>>
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>>> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel


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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS on Book8088

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

A user entered a bug that FreeDOS won't boot on the Book8088.
https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/bugs/391/

> Hi. I got myself a Book8088 2.0 recently. It's a Chinese retro computer
> with a NEC V20 processor, 640 kb ram and a CF card as a storage. It uses
> Sergei Kiselev's BIOS_8088 with XTIDE extensions (which enable straight
> up boot from CF card(.
>
> I tried multiple versions of 16-bit FreeDOS kernels (2039-2043) on it,
> but they all get stuck at InitDisk function. It will actually print out
> the partition and detect CHS parameters but will get confused by it and
> try to "correct" it. That will cause it to get stuck.
>
> This little laptop came preinstalled with MS-DOS 6.22 and that works ok.
>
> Btw, It doesn't have an alternative IDE interface, so the CF card is
> only means of storage.
>
> Also, the error still appears even if CF card is formatted as either
> FAT16 or FAT32.

Does anyone have one of these devices, or have more details about the
internals? I know about this only from what I've seen on Facebook:
it's a mini-laptop made from retro hardware with a CF card for
storage, but no floppy.

The bug report indicates that FreeDOS is stopping at the InitDisk function.

The user reports that the device uses a CF card in a CF-to-IDE adapter
to act as storage ("hard drive"). At my first guess, that's probably
the issue. I know others have had mixed results with CF-to-IDE,
usually because the CF-to-IDE isn't correctly emulating IDE or because
the BIOS doesn't recognize the CF-to-IDE correctly. (Seems like
neither is the case here, since the user reports the Book8088 came
with a working copy of pre-installed MS-DOS.)

I think other issues folks have had with CF storage is that the CF
isn't set up right, so it has an incorrect partition table boundary,
or something like that.

My first guess is to ask the user to try a different CF card than the
one they are using now, to see if it's an issue with the CF card
itself.

Suggestions?


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Re: [Freedos-devel] MAD compiler for DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 8:07 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I am working on an academic project that requires understanding the
> MAD programming language so I can pick apart (and faithfully recreate)
> an old MAD program. That's the Michigan Algorithm Decoder, from 1959
> and the early 1960s.
>[..]
> Does anyone know of a MAD compiler for DOS?

It's not (specifically) for DOS, but someone pointed me to Raymond's
MAD implementation. It translates MAD code to C, and you can compile
from there:
https://gitlab.com/esr/mad

I think that will do what I need. But if anyone knows of a full-on MAD
compiler for DOS, please let me know.


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[Freedos-devel] MAD compiler for DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I am working on an academic project that requires understanding the MAD
programming language so I can pick apart (and faithfully recreate) an old
MAD program. That's the Michigan Algorithm Decoder, from 1959 and the early
1960s.

MAD is similar to original FORTRAN, but there are some things that are just
weird. So I thought if I had a MAD compiler, I could try writing a few
simple programs to make sure I understand what is going on.

This seems like something that might have been ported to DOS at some point
in the 1980s. At least, I thought that might be a good place to look.

Does anyone know of a MAD compiler for DOS?
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Is there an open source fmt clone for DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 6:29 PM tauro via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> This seems to be exactly what you're looking for.
>
> https://www.bttr-software.de/freesoft/unix.htm
>
> Under "GNU Textutils", you will find fmt.
>
> Here's a direct link for a 16 bit version:
>
> ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/gnuish/dos_only/tut111ax.zip

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 7:16 PM Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> Gnuish?
>
> Otherwise I could try to bring it over from BSD?
>


I should have mentioned that I looked through GNUish (we mirrored
GNUish on our FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio ages ago) but I didn't
see fmt or the Text Utils in there. I guess I missed it. Thanks to
tauro for the direct link!


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] [OT] Text-mode Windows 11

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 3:20 PM Aitor Santamaría via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Off-topic (as it is WinNT), but in this video, the author claims to
> have built a text-mode 100MB small Windows 11.  It is shockingly slow,
> but it is still fun to see a text mode OS stripping the GUI.
>
> «text-only Windows 11 - possibly the smallest Windows image ever! - YouTube»


Interesting. As the person notes at around 3:45 in the video (and as
you highlighted) it is shockingly slow and there's not much you can
really do with it (because there aren't really any "console" programs
to run on Windows like this). But it's an impressive thing to do
anyway, just to do.


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[Freedos-devel] Is there an open source fmt clone for DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I'm looking for a way to keep my text files (like README.TXT) tidy and
easy to read. One problem is that if I modify a plain text file in a
regular text editor, and change the line length in the middle of a
paragraph, now I have to fix all the lines around it so the lines are
all about 77 characters wide.

On Linux, I'd use the BSD 'fmt' command to do it. This is a trivial
program to write (and I just did) if you don't want cool features like
preserving indents. But there are probably lots of similar existing
programs to do the same thing - so I wondered if anyone knows of an
open source DOS version of 'fmt' (or something like it)?


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Question about edlin

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 11:24 AM Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> FD edlin ignores a leading space. If you want the leading space to be
> searched for, put the string in quotes; e.g.
>
> 1r"written"," written"
>
> The reason why I didn't stick a ^Z there is because I wanted to get
> away from control characters in the commands, and a comma just looks
> better, IMHO.
>

Ah - very helpful! That solves my problem. Thanks!

Also can use the same trick to change a comma to something else.
Here's another 1-line demo:

*1p
1:*period,
*1r",","."
1: period.


If you can't see it well, that's a 'comma inside double quotes' then a
comma, then a 'period inside double quotes.'

But really it just needs the quotes about the comma, and only if it's
the first comma. Here's an example to change it back again:

*1r.,","
1: period,
*1r",",.
1: period.
*1r.,,
1: period,


That last one changes the period to a comma, and you don't need the
double quotes around the second comma in this case.


Jim


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[Freedos-devel] Question about edlin

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I actually do use edlin sometimes. But I have a question that might
actually be a bug report:

When I try to search and replace text, and I want to add a space in
front of my replaced text, I can't get it to work. Am I doing this
wrong?

Here's an example: In this 1-line file, I want to edit the line from
"..file,written.." to "..file, written.." (I want to add a space
before the word "written")

D:\DOCS>edlin t.txt
edlin 2.23, copyright (c) 2003 Gregory Pietsch
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
It is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License -- either
version 2 of the license, or, at your option, any later
version.

t.txt: New file.
*i
 : This is a plain text file,written in edlin.
 : .
*1rwritten, written
*l
1:*This is a plain text file,written in edlin.
*


I'm using the "r" (replace) instruction correctly: 1rfrom,to will
start at line 1 and replace "from" with "to".

But it looks like a leading space is ignored, so edlin treats my
"1rwritten, written" as just "1rwritten,written" and seems to ignore
it because the "from" and "to" strings are the same.

FYI: I can add a space in the middle of a replaced word, such as:

*1rtext,te xt
1: This is a plain te xt file,written in edlin.


Is "ignore leading spaces after the comma in the 'r' command" the
expected behavior from MS-DOS edlin?


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[Freedos-devel] Next FreeDOS virtual get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

I promised to propose the next virtual get-together after the holiday
break, so here it is. :-)

How about Sunday, February 4 for the next get-together? That's three
Sundays from now.

Time is 11am to noon US/Central, same time as always. And we'll
probably go over that, because we always do. :-)


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2401

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 7:46 AM Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> The FreeDOS Interim Test Build T2401 for January is now available for
> download at:
>
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/
>
> Although this update consists of only a few simple changes, it is an
> important update from T2312.
>
> There were several packages that erroneously included a ‘.DATESTAMP’
[..]
> Unlike the large number of updates in T2312, there were no other
> significant or package updates in T2401.


Yay, thanks! I've grabbed the new version and am installing it now. I
don't usually do a 'full install' - usually just 'plain DOS' plus a
few packages that I use all the time - so I haven't encountered the
.DATESTAMP issue before. But I'll reply here if I see anything amiss.



Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Learning DOS assembly programming

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their advice on learning assembly
programming. I've started exploring how to write assembly programs in
NASM. I'm not looking to write anything "big" in NASM, just learn
enough about it so I can write a few programs here and there.

Thanks also to Danilo for pointing me to root42's YouTube channel. The
videos are helpful, but I find he skips over steps for what he's
doing, so it's sometimes hard to follow. Not a problem, I just google
what he's doing and figure it out from there, which works well for me.
(But it does highlight the old saying that it takes some skill to
explain something, but much more skill to explain something *simply*.)

I'm also discovering that the Toy CPU emulator that I wrote last year
was already a good primer for learning assembly language. The Toy
emulated a simple fetch/decode/execute for a *very* simplified CPU
(very reduced instruction set). And while the Toy's opcodes aren't
anything like Intel's opcodes, thinking "like a computer" to program
the Toy in machine code is good practice for writing assembly
programs. :-)
https://github.com/freedosproject/toycpu

Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FYI: Website update happening this week

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I added the OpenWatcom compilers and NASM links to the
https://www.freedos.org/about/devel/ page earlier today. So now we
have three "info boxes" that call out the open source compilers
(OpenWatcom and NASM) that we recommend for working on FreeDOS. The
other tools are listed below that in the list of links.

I also found actual *working* links on Embarcadero's "CodeCentral"
website for the old Turbo C 2.01, Turbo C++ 1.01, and Turbo Pascal 5.5
with free downloads. These require a free login to their site, but
that login lets you download these programs for free/gratis. I know
the list of links is getting a bit long, but I also know lots of folks
really like the Borland compilers, so I added them to the list on
https://www.freedos.org/about/devel/

I also added GCC IA16 to the list. I wasn't sure which GitLab site to
link to; I linked to the source at https://gitlab.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16
(this has a link to the build tools [precompiled GCC IA16] at
https://gitlab.com/tkchia/build-ia16 ). Is the source the preferred
link, or the "build-ia16" site?''


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FYI: Website update happening this week

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 12:42 PM Bernd Böckmann via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Well done,
>
> one suggestion I oversaw the first time I looked at the new site: On
> https://freedos.org/about/devel/ I would change the order of the
> compilers, otherwise people could get the impression that DDS Micro-C,
> DeSmet C and the Digital Mars compilers are the ones which are commonly
> used.
>
> I would ban them to the bullet list below and instead put OpenWatcom and
> DJGPP inside the Boxes. I think Borland, OpenWatcom and DJGPP are still
> the most commonly used (and capable) compilers for DOS programming.
>


Good suggestions! (I also can't believe I didn't have a link to DJGPP in there.)


I'll update the list to show OpenWatcom v1.9 and v2 (fork) in the
"callout" boxes, and leave the others in the bullet list. (I'll put
DJGPP and Borland at the start of the list.) That should guide folks
to the preferred compilers.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FYI: Website update happening this week

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

And the website is fixed! It was an https config on their end.

That's everything for the www.freedos.org website. If you find any
typos or missing pages, let me know. :-)


Jim


*Next on my list:

(1) 2024 calendar [available this weekend]
(2) move the wiki and update it

On Fri, Dec 29, 2023 at 1:39 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> FYI: I'm in the middle of the website move, and something got stuck.
>
> Right now, you can visit http://www.freedos.org/ and see the new
> website, but https://www.freedos.org/ (note the "https" instead of
> "http") is showing "No input file specified." So something didn't get
> updated for https when the move happened.
>
> I have a support ticket open for the site hosting folks to fix this.
>
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2023 at 11:02 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> > I wanted to let everyone know that I'm planning to (finally!) put the
> > new website "live" in the next few days. This is the updated version
> > of the website that I've shared via email several times over the last
> > year or so. The "test" version of the new site is here, if you want to
> > preview it:
> > https://test.freedos.org/
> >
> >
> > The upgrade might cause the https://www.freedos.org/ website to be
> > down briefly, because I'm also changing several things on the "back
> > end" about how the website is hosted/managed. So it's more than just
> > an HTML update, a bunch of things are changing behind the scenes.
> >
> > I'll post a message on the website when I push the new site live. But
> > in case things take longer than expected and the
> > https://www.freedos.org/ website appears to be "down" or "empty" at
> > some point in the next week, that's just me making the move.
> >
> >
> > *Between now and then, I'm comparing the current site to the new site
> > to make sure that everything gets moved over. And that any archived
> > content gets saved.
> >
> > Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FYI: Website update happening this week

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

FYI: I'm in the middle of the website move, and something got stuck.

Right now, you can visit http://www.freedos.org/ and see the new
website, but https://www.freedos.org/ (note the "https" instead of
"http") is showing "No input file specified." So something didn't get
updated for https when the move happened.

I have a support ticket open for the site hosting folks to fix this.

On Wed, Dec 27, 2023 at 11:02 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I wanted to let everyone know that I'm planning to (finally!) put the
> new website "live" in the next few days. This is the updated version
> of the website that I've shared via email several times over the last
> year or so. The "test" version of the new site is here, if you want to
> preview it:
> https://test.freedos.org/
>
>
> The upgrade might cause the https://www.freedos.org/ website to be
> down briefly, because I'm also changing several things on the "back
> end" about how the website is hosted/managed. So it's more than just
> an HTML update, a bunch of things are changing behind the scenes.
>
> I'll post a message on the website when I push the new site live. But
> in case things take longer than expected and the
> https://www.freedos.org/ website appears to be "down" or "empty" at
> some point in the next week, that's just me making the move.
>
>
> *Between now and then, I'm comparing the current site to the new site
> to make sure that everything gets moved over. And that any archived
> content gets saved.
>
> Jim


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[Freedos-devel] FYI: Website update happening this week

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm planning to (finally!) put the
new website "live" in the next few days. This is the updated version
of the website that I've shared via email several times over the last
year or so. The "test" version of the new site is here, if you want to
preview it:
https://test.freedos.org/


The upgrade might cause the https://www.freedos.org/ website to be
down briefly, because I'm also changing several things on the "back
end" about how the website is hosted/managed. So it's more than just
an HTML update, a bunch of things are changing behind the scenes.

I'll post a message on the website when I push the new site live. But
in case things take longer than expected and the
https://www.freedos.org/ website appears to be "down" or "empty" at
some point in the next week, that's just me making the move.


*Between now and then, I'm comparing the current site to the new site
to make sure that everything gets moved over. And that any archived
content gets saved.

Jim


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[Freedos-devel] Learning DOS assembly programming

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I actually never learned DOS assembly programming, but decided I'd
like to start.

What assembler do you recommend, and where is a good place to start
learning about DOS assembly programming? Start with a "Hello world"
program and eventually move up to writing an assembly version of TYPE
and CHOICE, things like that.

I was thinking about NASM, since it's open source and we include it in
the distribution. Looking around, I found a bunch of tutorials on
https://asmtutor.com/ that look easy enough to follow, although it's
for Linux. Any similar tutorials to learn DOS assembly programming?

Or would you recommend a different DOS assembler (and how-to guide) as
a place to start?


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[Freedos-devel] Merry Christmas to everyone

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate!

Also looking forward to 2024!
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[Freedos-devel] Streamlining the next FreeDOS Test distribution

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

(I'm re-sharing this note from my get-together "followup" email so
more people will see it)


We talked again about the test release, and focusing the LiveCD to
something you can boot and run FreeDOS without installing it to a hard
disk, but also having all the "core" packages on it so you can install
a working not-minimal FreeDOS from it if you want to install to a
system. The BonusCD should be all the developer packages, "power
tools," etc.

So I wanted to jump-start that conversation again on the email list.

More detail from me:

I'd like to "lean into" the LiveCD concept, and have a FreeDOS CD that
I can just boot and not have to install anything. I've actually been
doing that more recently for some one-off demos (like the YouTube
videos). There's no point in doing a full install if I can just boot
the LiveCD and connect it to a hard drive image where I have some demo
apps.

In my mind, I'd love for the LiveCD to have a bootable version of
FreeDOS with a few apps that folks can run. For those who want to
install FreeDOS, the LiveCD should have all of the packages from the
"live" instance, plus any other useful apps (apps that wouldn't
otherwise make sense to include in the "live" instance).

The BonusCD should have all the developer tools and power tools. No
"live" version there, just packages to install.

We've talked before about free space on the LiveCD and BonusCD, but
there are also some packages duplicated between the LiveCD and BonusCD
(you can install from either CD).  You can find them in the report:
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html


I wonder if we can do this for a future monthly Test distribution. I
think with the holidays, this is probably something for the "2402"
Test distribution.


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[Freedos-devel] Working on the new website

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

(I'm re-sharing this update from the virtual get-together "followup"
email so others will see it)


We experimented with a few things on the new "test" website at
https://test.freedos.org/

The test website currently shows the classic logo (we were
experimenting with it) but I'll change it back to the regular logo we
have been using. Based on the discussion, I'll also update a few links
on the website - biggest changes are to remove the "info box" for the
Slack site and add info boxes for our Facebook group and Mastodon
channel. But overall, this is looking like a pretty solid website.
I'll plan to put it live in the next few weeks.

After the website, I'll put up the new wiki website and transfer the
content. My goal is to move some of the content from the website into
the wiki (any "how-tos" or "technical notes" and the free ebooks).


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[Freedos-devel] Online get-together follow-up

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Thanks to everyone for joining the FreeDOS virtual get-together today!

We had a small group (probably because of the holidays) but we had a
great conversation about the new website, asking about kernel updates,
updates to the distribution, and our upcoming 30th anniversary on June
29 2024.

Let's wait until after the holidays to figure out when to have our
next virtual get-together. I think we might look at either late
January or early February, and that one should be another "technical"
discussion. I'll ask about it here on the email list after the first
week of January (probably around Jan 7?) so folks will have time to
return from vacations.


A few follow-up items:

1. We experimented with a few things on the new "test" website at
https://test.freedos.org/

The test website currently shows the classic logo (we were
experimenting with it) but I'll change it back to the regular logo we
have been using. Based on the discussion, I'll also update a few links
on the website - biggest changes are to remove the "info box" for the
Slack site and add info boxes for our Facebook group and Mastodon
channel. But overall, this is looking like a pretty solid website.
I'll plan to put it live in the next few weeks.

After the website, I'll put up the new wiki website and transfer the
content. My goal is to move some of the content from the website into
the wiki (any "how-tos" or "technical notes" and the free ebooks).

2. We discussed some changes folks have been making to the kernel, and
asked that those off-list conversations be moved back to the email
list so everyone can see them. So we should see those conversations
popping up again.

3. We talked again about the test release, and focusing the LiveCD to
something you can boot and run FreeDOS without installing it to a hard
disk, but also having all the "core" packages on it so you can install
a working not-minimal FreeDOS from it if you want to install to a
system. The BonusCD should be all the developer packages, "power
tools," etc.

4. The anniversary is coming up in June 2024. I'm trying to finish a
2024 calendar that you can buy (at low cost, if you want it in print)
or download (if you just want the images). I'm trying to finish
grading a bunch of university classes that I teach, so I haven't had
time to finish the calendar - but grades are due soon and the calendar
will follow shortly after.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Next FreeDOS virtual get-together (December 17)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone! Here's the Google Meet URL for today's get-together. I'll
start the meeting in 5 minutes from now:

FreeDOS virtual get-together
Sunday, December 17 · 11:00am – 12:30pm
Time zone: America/Chicago
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/spq-kkvy-bgn
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 484-424-4824‬ PIN: ‪279 172 798‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/spq-kkvy-bgn?pin=6012394617441


See you then!

On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 6:03 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> Just a reminder about tomorrow's virtual get-together. See you online
> at 11am US/Central! I'll share the meeting URL shortly before we start
> the meeting; we're using Google Meet, so you don't need to install any
> software to join. Meet should work with any modern browser - their
> Meet Help website says Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari:
> https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473?hl=en#meet_browsers
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 7:02 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > Thanks to Jerome for reminding me to schedule the next FreeDOS virtual
> > get-together. Let's do the get-together on Sunday, December 17 at 11am
> > US/Central (use your favorite timezone converter to find your local
> > time).
> >
> > We are no longer using BlueJeans. They are shutting down that service,
> > and I have already terminated my account. Our next get-together will
> > use Google Meet. (I did a test with a family video call and my account
> > will support calls at least for 1hr 20min, which is how long that call
> > went. So we should be okay for our virtual get-together.)
> >
> > As always, I'll share the meeting URL when the meeting starts.
> >
> > We alternate topics every month (social and technical). I think that
> > makes the December one "technical." But we usually spend some time
> > with social stuff anyway. :-)
> >
> >
> >
> > See you then!
> >
> >
> > Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Next FreeDOS virtual get-together (December 17)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

Just a reminder about tomorrow's virtual get-together. See you online
at 11am US/Central! I'll share the meeting URL shortly before we start
the meeting; we're using Google Meet, so you don't need to install any
software to join. Meet should work with any modern browser - their
Meet Help website says Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari:
https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473?hl=en#meet_browsers



On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 7:02 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> Thanks to Jerome for reminding me to schedule the next FreeDOS virtual
> get-together. Let's do the get-together on Sunday, December 17 at 11am
> US/Central (use your favorite timezone converter to find your local
> time).
>
> We are no longer using BlueJeans. They are shutting down that service,
> and I have already terminated my account. Our next get-together will
> use Google Meet. (I did a test with a family video call and my account
> will support calls at least for 1hr 20min, which is how long that call
> went. So we should be okay for our virtual get-together.)
>
> As always, I'll share the meeting URL when the meeting starts.
>
> We alternate topics every month (social and technical). I think that
> makes the December one "technical." But we usually spend some time
> with social stuff anyway. :-)
>
>
>
> See you then!
>
>
> Jim


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[Freedos-devel] Updating the FreeDOS website

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

The last time we made a major update to the FreeDOS website was maybe
ten years or so. Things are definitely feeling a bit dated, such as
certain design elements. And over time, we've added content where it
seemed to "fit" so the usability has degraded since the last update.

I have been "backburner" planning a website upgrade for the last two
years, and sponsored several rounds of usability tests against
different website designs. And I think I'm finally ready with the new
FreeDOS website:

https://test.freedos.org/

This is a preview to the new website on our "test.freedos.org"
website. I'll move this to the "freedos.org" primary website soon.

What do you think?

I think new website is more streamlined and more modern. I've tried to
improve the navigation, and place the most important information right
up front where it's easy to find. For example, the new website has a
very obvious "Download FreeDOS 1.3" button that takes you to the
Downloads page. We know from user surveys that most people use FreeDOS
to 1. play classic DOS games, 2. run their favorite DOS applications,
and 3. create new FreeDOS programs. So now we have "info boxes" on the
front page that let you explore these different ways to use FreeDOS;
they each link to a separate page with more details, information, and
links. For example, the "Games" page has links to different archives
of DOS games, and links to drivers that you might need to support DOS
games on new hardware (like SBEMU) - and the "Developer" page has
links to developer tools and technical information, as well as links
to the source code and the "how to contribute" page.

The header and footer have the links that we know most people are
looking for right away: read the wiki for more information, links to
the email lists and forums where they can ask questions, and links to
the bug tracker to report a bug.

I may tweak the website over time, but I think this is a good design
that's ready to go live. But I'm looking for comments - if anything
seems broken or lost (didn't make it to the new website) let me know
so I can fix it or add it back.


I haven't moved over everything yet. For example, the "History" page
is quite old and needs updating. Same for the "FreeDOS in the news"
page. So while I've copied over that content to the new website, I
haven't linked to them. I don't plan to link to them until I have more
time to update them. Or maybe that historical info should go into the
wiki.

I also haven't moved the "Books" pages. These really should be moved
to the wiki, and I plan to do that instead of just migrating the
pages.


*Speaking of the wiki: Now that the website is pretty much ready to
go, my next project is to update the wiki. The wiki effectively
"degraded" when SourceForge updated the PHP version on their hosting
website. The wiki content is all there, but the wiki pages are not
styled. I don't know why. I could spend time fixing things on
SourceForge - but I'd been planning to move the wiki to a new hosting
website for a while, anyway. I'll do that next.



Jim


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[Freedos-devel] Question about USBDOS license

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Someone else asked me about the USBDOS license. This person
highlighted a note in the USBDOS license that suggested "if your
website collects money, then you can't distribute USBDOS" - and the
person asked about the Patreon link on the www.freedos.org website.

So I thought I'd share my reply here, and see if anyone else had
thoughts on this. Overall: I don't think the Patreon link is an issue
for the USBDOS license. Let me know if you disagree.

I don't know if Bret still subscribes to the freedos-devel list, but
maybe he is and can answer more definitely. :-)


I downloaded a copy of the USBDOS files from https://bretjohnson.us/
and evaluated that. In USBINTRO.DOC, I found the "COPYRIGHTED
FREEWARE" section which said this: (entire copy)

> The accompanying programs are authored by Bret Johnson with suggestions,
> programming, documentation, and testing help from Richard Bonner
> (http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ak621).
>
> This section contains the license for all of the enclosed programs.  I'm
> not going to inject a bunch of legal language in here that a smart
> lawyer can find a loophole in.  I'm writing down the intent of how I
> want the programs to be distributed and used in my own words, and hope
> that the intent is clear, no matter how the literal words can be twisted
> to mean different things (remember when President Bill Clinton, a
> lawyer, claimed he didn't understand the meaning of "is" during the
> Lewinsky hearings?).
>
> All of these programs, as well as their documentation and source code,
> are freely available to anyone who wants them.  You can use the programs
> without restriction, but you cannot directly or indirectly use the
> executable programs, documentation, or source code to create or
> distribute new programs that are not also freely available.  You also
> cannot distribute the programs, documentation, or source code and charge
> (even indirectly) for their distribution.  You can charge someone enough
> to cover your actual, direct costs for distribution (disks, shipping
> materials, postage, etc.), but cannot charge for "handling".  This also
> means that you cannot distribute the programs, documentation, or source
> code directly from a web site that charges a "registration fee" in an
> attempt to make a profit or to recover direct or indirect costs for
> maintaining the web site.
>
> If you distribute related or derivative programs, you must use
> essentially the same license.  You must provide and distribute the
> programs and documentation for free, and you must include the
> documentation with the program.  You must give credit where it is due,
> and must make the source code freely available to anyone who wants it.
>
>
> Perhaps a good test of whether your program is adhering to the license
> or not would be if you are willing to let me post the program,
> documentation, and source code on my web site, to be downloaded by
> anyone who wants it.  In fact, if you create any new related or
> ancillary DOS USB programs, I would like the opportunity to distribute
> them from my web site.  I won't guarantee that I will necessarily do it,
> but would like the opportunity.  Distribution from my web site
> (http://bretjohnson.us) is not required by the license.

I see several terms in this license: (some of these are reworded,
numbers added by me for reference)

(1) All of these programs, as well as their documentation
and source code, are freely available to anyone who
wants them.

(2) You can use the programs without restriction, with
this exception: you cannot directly or indirectly use
the executable programs, documentation, or source code
to create or distribute new programs that are not also
freely available.

(3) You cannot charge (even indirectly) to distribute the
programs, documentation, or source code

(4) You can charge someone enough to cover your actual,
direct costs for distribution but cannot charge for
"handling".

(5) You cannot distribute the programs, documentation,
or source code directly from a web site that charges a
"registration fee" in an attempt to (5a) make a profit or
(5b) to recover direct or indirect costs for maintaining
the web site.

(6) If you distribute related or derivative programs,
you must use essentially the same license.

(7) You must provide and distribute the programs
and documentation for free, and you must include the
documentation with the program.

(8) You must give credit where it is due, and must make
the source code freely available to anyone who wants it.

I don't see an issue with what I've numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, or 8.

I see the point with item 5. However, the mention of a "..directly
from a web site that charges a 'registration fee'.." seems (to me) to
be specific to sites that charge a mandatory fee to access files.

And yes, I have a Patreon on the www.freedos.org website, but
supporting me (or any FreeDOS developer) on Patreon is entirely
optional.

While neither the www.freedos.org/patreon page or

[Freedos-devel] Question about JEMM license

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

A user emailed me to ask about the license for JEMM. We list this as
"Artistic License" on the website, but JEMM includes a few public
domain components.
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/jemm.html

I wanted to share my reply to this person on the email list. Please
reply if you have comments.

Overall: I think "Artistic License" is an okay designation for this
(see note at end). I looked at JEMM and the Readme.txt file says this:

>  8. License
>
>  - JEMM386/JEMMEX: partly Artistic License (see ARTISTIC.TXT for details)
>  - UMBM: Public Domain
>  - JEMFBHLP: Public Domain
>  - CPUID:Public Domain
>  - CPUSTAT:  Public Domain
>  - EMSSTAT:  Public Domain
>  - XMSSTAT:  Public Domain
>  - MEMSTAT:  Public Domain
>  - MOVEXBDA: Public Domain
>  - VCPI: Public Domain


And it's okay for a project to include public domain code. When
someone releases a program as "public domain" they give up all claims
to it. (I understand there is some nuance to "public domain" - but
that's the general view.)

Looking at individual components from JEMM's list:

UMBM.ASM
* No source code comment about public domain, but line 728 is a
message that declares public domain

JEMFBHLP.ASM
* No source code comments about any license, no printed statement that
I could see

CPUID.ASM
;--- CPUID displays status of CPU.
;--- Public Domain.
;--- Masm syntax. To be assembled with JWasm or Masm.
;--- uses 16-bit printf

CPUSTAT.ASM
;--- CPUSTAT displays status of CPU.
;--- Public Domain.
;--- Masm syntax. To be assembled with JWasm or Masm.
;--- uses 16-bit printf

EMSSTAT.ASM
;--- EMSSTAT: display EMS status.
;--- Public Domain.
;--- tools: JWasm/Masm v6 and WLink.

XMSSTAT.ASM
;--- XMSSTAT: display xms status.
;--- Public Domain.
;--- to be assembled with JWasm or Masm v6.

MEMSTAT.ASM
* No source code comments about any license, no printed statement that
I could see

MOVEXBDA.ASM
;--- MOVEXBDA moves XBDA to low memory. If the XBDA is already moved
;--- or if it is too large, nothing is done.
;--- MOVEXBDA hooks interrupt 19h and will restore the XBDA to its
;--- previous location if this interrupt is called.
;--- MOVEXBDA is Public Domain.

VCPI.ASM
* No source code comments about any license, no printed statement that
I could see


^^ Those are all in the "Tools" directory, and they all seem to be
public domain as advertised. No problems so far. :-)


The source to JEMM386/JEMMEX is in the "src" directory. Several of the
*.ASM files indicate public domain. Here are the exceptions that I
found:

src/DMA.ASM
;--- DMA port trapping code
;--- originally written by Harald Albrecht
;--- modified for Jemm by Japheth
;--- copyright (c) 1990 c't/Harald Albrecht

src/EMS.ASM
;--- EMS implementation
;--- EMS 4.0 is Public Domain, originally written by Michael Devore,
;--- extended and modified for Jemm by Japheth
;--- the EMS 3.2 part is copyrighted and has therefore
;--- been moved into a separate include file (EMS32.INC)

src/EMU.ASM
;--- privileged opcode emulation
;--- copyright Tom Ehlert

src/INIT16.ASM
*No source comments, but found this oin line 152:
szCopyRight DB NAMEMOD, '. Parts (c) tom ehlert 2001-2006 c''t/H.
Albrecht 1990', LF, 0

src/JEMM32.ASM
;*
;** This is the main 32bit ASM part of JEMM.
;**
;** JEMM contains code of FreeDOS Emm386, which in turn used the source of
;** an EMM made public in c't (a german IT magazine) in 08/90, page 214,
;** written by Harald Albrecht.
;**
;** some parts the code which is based on FD Emm386 is copyright protected and
;** licensed under the Artistic License version (see LICENSE.TXT for details).
;**
;** 1. EMS 3.2 functions (file EMS32.INC)
;**   (c) 1990   c't/Harald Albrecht
;**   (c) 2001-2004  tom ehlert
;** 2. DMA support (file DMA.ASM)
;**   (c) 1990   c't/Harald Albrecht
;** 3. privileged opcode emulation (file EMU.ASM)
;**   (c) 2001-2004  tom ehlert
;**
;** The rest of the 32bit source is Public Domain.
;**
;*


Those are the only *.ASM files that don't seem to be public domain.
These seem to originate from an article written by Harald Albrecht in
C't magazine, but I searched their website and couldn't find the
article. I may have found something in the archives, but it requires
purchasing the backissue to find out, and I didn't do that.

I don't know what license C't uses for code published in their
magazines. From other magazines I've written articles for (about
programming) the source code is usually released into the public
domain, or at least some very broad permissive license, because
readers are encouraged to reuse it to learn more about the topic.


The person who emailed me about this was basically asking if "Artistic
License" is descriptive enough, or if it should be "Artistic plus
public domain" or something like that.

My two cents: I think "Artistic 

[Freedos-devel] Next FreeDOS virtual get-together (December 17)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

Thanks to Jerome for reminding me to schedule the next FreeDOS virtual
get-together. Let's do the get-together on Sunday, December 17 at 11am
US/Central (use your favorite timezone converter to find your local
time).

We are no longer using BlueJeans. They are shutting down that service,
and I have already terminated my account. Our next get-together will
use Google Meet. (I did a test with a family video call and my account
will support calls at least for 1hr 20min, which is how long that call
went. So we should be okay for our virtual get-together.)

As always, I'll share the meeting URL when the meeting starts.

We alternate topics every month (social and technical). I think that
makes the December one "technical." But we usually spend some time
with social stuff anyway. :-)



See you then!


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Monthly Get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

We didn't set a date after the last one. I recall I also commented that I
have a conference coming up and some other things that would have made a
November video get-together difficult for me. (I need all the time I can
get this week, and the next few weeks.)

How about we try for December? Like Sunday, December 17?



On Sun, Nov 26, 2023, 5:43 AM Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel <
freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Is there a FreeDOS online get-together today (Sunday 11/26/2023)?
>
> Jerome
>
>
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[Freedos-devel] FOSDEM '24 Emulator Development Room - call for presentations

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

*Is anyone planning to attend FOSDEM? It would be great to have someone
talk about FreeDOS, I think a lot of folks would be interested.*

*Here's the invite for their call for presentations:*

--
Small update, moved the CFP URL to here:
https://fosdem-emudev-room.github.io/fosdem24-emulator-devroom-cfp/


__

Dear friends,

We are pleased to announce that the FOSDEM 24 CFP is up!

«URL»



Feel free to submit, and/or spread the word.

Thanks, and stay safe.


Kind regards,

Christophe, Niels & Mahmoud
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Re: [Freedos-devel] New FreeDOS Edlin 2.23 is out on Sourceforge!

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

And re-mirrored to the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio. :-)

Thanks!

On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 10:24 AM Gregory Pietsch  wrote:
>
> Oops! I keep forgetting to change the version numbers in the config.h and 
> batch files.  Fixed and re-uploaded the files to SourceForge.
> -- Gregory
>
> > On 11/12/2023 11:07 AM EST Jim Hall via Freedos-devel 
> >  wrote:
> >
> >
> > Thanks! I always love a new Edlin release. :-)
> >
> > I've mirrored it on the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio. Here's the link:
> > https://ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/edlin/2.23/
> >
> >
> > For anyone interested, the video Gregory mentioned is here:
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yapAepxbaT4
> >
> > The compile warning is at 2:47 (yes, this is confirmed fixed in Edlin
> > 2.23 using OpenWatcom C)
> >
> >
> > FYI that if you compile this on FreeDOS, Edlin 2.23 will actually
> > advertise itself as "2.22". To fix, you'll need to edit config-h.bc or
> > config-h.ow (depending on your compiler .. I used config-h.ow to
> > compile with OpenWatcom C) and change all occurrences of "2.22" to
> > "2.23" (3 occurrences in each file).
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 9:50 AM Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > When Jim compiled Edlin 2.22 for the video, I noticed that the
> > > OpenWatcom compiler emitted a warning. Of course, this caused a
> > > disturbance in the Force. The new version 2.23 cleans up that warning,
> > > and therefore FreeDOS Edlin can now be thrown into the gladiatorial
> > > arena and slay the software demons called Fear, Doubt, Uncertainty,
> > > and Proprietary.
> > >
> > > Gregory
> >


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Re: [Freedos-devel] New FreeDOS Edlin 2.23 is out on Sourceforge!

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Thanks! I always love a new Edlin release. :-)

I've mirrored it on the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio. Here's the link:
https://ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/edlin/2.23/


For anyone interested, the video Gregory mentioned is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yapAepxbaT4

The compile warning is at 2:47 (yes, this is confirmed fixed in Edlin
2.23 using OpenWatcom C)


FYI that if you compile this on FreeDOS, Edlin 2.23 will actually
advertise itself as "2.22". To fix, you'll need to edit config-h.bc or
config-h.ow (depending on your compiler .. I used config-h.ow to
compile with OpenWatcom C) and change all occurrences of "2.22" to
"2.23" (3 occurrences in each file).


On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 9:50 AM Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> When Jim compiled Edlin 2.22 for the video, I noticed that the
> OpenWatcom compiler emitted a warning. Of course, this caused a
> disturbance in the Force. The new version 2.23 cleans up that warning,
> and therefore FreeDOS Edlin can now be thrown into the gladiatorial
> arena and slay the software demons called Fear, Doubt, Uncertainty,
> and Proprietary.
>
> Gregory


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Re: [Freedos-devel] libm-0.6 and libmpi-0.2

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

For anyone who needs more info: libmpi is a Multiple Precision Integer
library, and libm is a C math library. Both are public domain. You can
find both on the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, under
/files/devel/libs/libm and /files/devel/libs/libmpi. Thanks Gregory!


Here are the direct links:

https://ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/libm/0.6/

https://ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/libmpi/0.2/


On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 9:33 AM Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> In a world where mathematicians are the lowest of the low, I have sent Jim 
> the latest versions of these low-level libraries. These versions contain 
> mostly bug fixes. I am still wondering if someone out there can check the 
> math. -- Gregory
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[Freedos-devel] abcmidi and abcm2ps

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Ben Collver emailed me about these music players, and I wanted to re-share here:


>> from https://archive.org/details/abcmidi-20231101-for-dos
abcMIDI is a package of programs written in C for handling ABC music
notation files. The software was created by James Allwright in the
early 1990 and presently maintained by Seymour Shlien. It initially
included the following programs:

1. abc2midi for converting an abc file to a midi file,
2. abc2abc for transposing abc notation to another key signature,
3. midi2abc for creating an abc file from a midi file,
4. yaps for producing a PostScript file displaying the abc file in
common music notation and,
5. mftext for creating a text representation of a midi file.



>> from https://archive.org/details/abcm2ps-8.14.2-for-dos
abcm2ps is a C program which converts music tunes from the ABC music notation
to PostScript or SVG.

Based on the abc2ps version 1.2.5 from Michael Methfessel, it was
first developped to print barock organ scores that have independant
voices played on one or many keyboards and a pedal-board (the 'm' of
abcm2ps stands for many or multi staves/voices). Since this time, it
has evolved so it can render many more music kinds.  The features of
abcm2ps are closer to the ABC draft 2.2 (February 2013).


See Ben's email, below:


Ben Collver wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> I built abcmidi and abcm2ps for DOS using DJGPP.  Below are links to the
> executables and source code, plus the abc directory on ibiblio.
>
> https://archive.org/details/abcmidi-20231101-for-dos
> https://ifdo.ca/~seymour/runabc/abcMIDI-2023.11.01.zip
>
> https://archive.org/details/abcm2ps-8.14.2-for-dos
> https://github.com/leesavide/abcm2ps/archive/v8.14.2/abcm2ps-8.14.2.tar.gz
>


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Phishing attack - warning!

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

So now phishers are pretending to be FreeDOS emails. That's pretty targeted
phishing (aka "spear phishing" where attackers customize the email to be
very specific to the recipient).

Thanks for sharing. I haven't seen this, but I'll watch for it now.


On Thu, Nov 2, 2023, 4:39 AM Wilhelm Spiegl via Freedos-devel <
freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
> I only wanted to tell you that I had a "FreeDOS" phishing attack yesterday.
>
> The mail I got arrived at my n...@mnet-online.de account, with subject:
>
> *Re: [Freedos-devel] mode.com *
> sender:* m...@planet.com.pk *
> Text:
>
> *Hi There,*
> *Please see the documentation contained in the url followed below.*
>
> *Hyperlink: ONE WAY LINK*
>
> *Enjoy a great daytime!*
>
> *__*
> *Freedos-devel mailing list*
> *Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net *
>
>
>
>
> The ONE WAY LINK leads to:
> h ttps://theorganicgardeners.co ./...  (rest not written for security
> reasons)
>
> *Please do not click on this link!*
>
> *After clicking on the link nothing seemed to happen, but I assume that a
> download started.*
>
>
>
> Just for info.
> As I still work on the latest help I was not really astonished about this
> mail although mode.com is already done.
> I hope I could stop the download early enough on my Android phone.
> The virus scanner on phone found nothing. Lets see...
>
>
> Would be nice to hear if somebody else got this mail too.
> Interesting thing is that I usually get mails from the USERS forum and
> some other FD programmers and people that I know on this account only.
> In case that you get strange mails from me, please inform me via this mail
> account.
>
> Thanks
>
> W. Spiegl / Fritz Mueller
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Help Development with djgpp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 5:58 AM Walter Oesch via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> From Code:
>
>   if(_setvideomode(_SRES16COLOR) == 0) /* Switch to 800*600 mode with 16 
> colors */
>   {
>  printf("\n\nVideo mode not supported!!!\n");
>  printf("Maybe the VESA driver has not been loaded!\n");
>
>
> There must be used VESA driver.
>



If it helps to have a quick test program to try on your board, you can
find GRAFTEST.EXE here:

https://personal.freedos.org/temp/GRAFTEST.EXE


This just puts the display into graphics mode then draws a square,
circle, and diagonal line. The EXE is compiled with OpenWatcom C using
the defaults (using "WCL -q GRAFTEST.C") so it's without optimization
- it's just a demo program. Source code is in GRAFTEST.C (at same
location, also copied below)


#include 
#include  /* getch */
#include  /* graphics mode */

int main()
{
if (_setvideomode(_VRES16COLOR) == 0) {
puts("cannot set video mode");
return 1;
}

/* draw shapes */

_setcolor(1); /* blue */
_rectangle(_GFILLINTERIOR, 50,75, 350,375); /* from 50,75 to 350,375 */

_setcolor(2); /* green */
_ellipse(_GFILLINTERIOR, 300,200, 500,400); /* from 300,200 to 500,400 */

_setcolor(15); /* br white */
_moveto(10,10);
_lineto(600,400); /* line from 1,1 to 600,400 */

if (getch() == 0) {
/* if getch is zero, then extended key. call getch again to clear
   it and get a new extended code */
getch(); /* but we don't really need it anyway :-) */
}

/* done */

_setvideomode(_DEFAULTMODE);
return 0;
}



(my code formatting may be messed up when copied/pasted into an email)

I'll delete the https://personal.freedos.org/temp/ URL around November 1.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Help Development with djgpp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 9:31 AM Walter Oesch via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Dear Eric
>
> Hear some facts of my project:
>
> I work for embedded software on the board Vortex86DX 800MHz.
> I need at least SVGA graphic (800X600).
> I prefer to work on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux (no Windows)
> The target operating System is FreeDOS. May be later a Linux variant, but not 
> at the moment.
> The editor is an old version of Qt Creator or any other.
> At the moment I compile with MSC70 (old Microsoft compiler) on DOSBox.
> If possible i'd like to go with DOSBox or with a cross compiler.
> The reason for change of the compiler: to overcome the memory limit of 640KB.
>
> So I'm looking to get a starter  c program to have a quick start on djgpp. 
> The must is graphic for SVGA and may be library for RS232.
>
> I pay for the example program.
>


If you don't need DJGPP specifically, I wrote several demo programs
about graphics programming using the OpenWatcom C compiler, for the
FreeDOS YouTube channel. Here are a few videos: (most recent videos
are listed first)


Video resolutions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wf-KqsOfnE

Calculate pi by counting pixels (area method)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHC1iLHtUP8

How to get the color of a pixel (getcolor)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH45OOSvQTk

Using _getimage and _putimage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--YP8yuRP-g

Simple banana trajectory game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoDY0WEQkxs

Making a board game in graphics mode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70CrhfELIjM

Graphics mode programming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxKXdZKCeM


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Calculator for DOS with GUI

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 3:12 PM Pedro Luis Carballosa Mass via
Freedos-devel  wrote:
>
> Hi.
>
> The software is a basic calculator for DOS programmed in QBasic, the
> calculator is not complete because he lacks some icons and it only
> works with mouse, but this is due to that is part of a tutorial about
> how to make a GUI.
>
> The code of this program is available and it is possible to use
> it freely.
>
[..]



Thanks for sharing your calculator program. However, I cannot run it
on FreeDOS. This is the error I get when trying to run CALC16.EXE on
FreeDOS:

> Cargando fuente del sistema, por favor, espere...
>
> Illegal function call in line 0 of module CALC at address 078D:02C0
>
> Hit any key to return to system


Perhaps this was compiled to require the BASIC runtime?

I get the error when I'm booting FreeDOS T2310, even if I boot without
drivers. I'm running this under QEMU, if that matters (though it
shouldn't).


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2310 - no free space on CD

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Steve said:
> I can't see what would need to be on base to make it more than about 20
> MB?  And even that's pushing it hard.
>
> Maybe because I'm measuring by PC DOS 2000, which came on 6 floppies.
>

The FreeDOS distribution has a "LiveCD" component that allows users to
boot the CD. This includes a minimum FreeDOS environment that you can
use to run FreeDOS commands - and the environment also has the
installer, so you can install FreeDOS.

I just installed T2310 with "Base" only (no sources) and it installed
in about 17MB. Let's assume that as the "base minimum" FreeDOS
environment on the LiveCD (I think we also include a few simple games
.. but let's go with this assumption to keep the math simple). On top
of that, all of the zipped packages for "Base" are about 13MB. And
there's some overhead to boot the LiveCD - I think that's about 12MB.
So if you *only* have the LiveCD + minimal FreeDOS environment +
zipped "Base" packages, that's just over 42MB.

But from our survey, and based on the questions we see on the email
list and on the Facebook group, a lot of people who discover FreeDOS
and want to try it out also expect to have some applications to go
with it. There are a lot of people out there who want to try FreeDOS
but haven't used DOS before, and they don't know how to download a DOS
program and unzip it. I think the "Base" should make it easy for these
users:

1. Want to try FreeDOS without installing it? Boot the LiveCD (in a VM
or on real hardware) and run the minimal FreeDOS environment (same as
"Base," about 17MB) with %TEMP% set to a small ramdisk (so I can pipe
commands to one another). I can see this being *very* useful if I want
to boot FreeDOS without installing it, like to run some program (like
a BIOS update) from a floppy, USB flash drive, second hard drive (or
hd image), etc. Or if I just want to see what this "FreeDOS" thing is
about. No point in installing FreeDOS just to try it out.

2. Install "Base" and you get everything from the "Base" group (about
17MB + a few other things like FDIMPLES) - if you want to install
other stuff later, then you need to use FDIMPLES with the "LiveCD" to
install those other packages.

3. Install "Everything" and you get every package from the "Live" CD

In either 2 or 3, if you want to install other cool stuff (like
editors, compilers, etc) then you would need to get the BonusCD and
run FDIMPLES to install packages from that.


I updated my "sorting exercise" based on comments here. I agree that
most general users won't care about the extra editors (vi, FED, ..) so
let's move the "Edit" group to the "Bonus" CD. At the same time, I
think it's important to have zip and unzip available on the first CD,
so I moved the "Archivers" group to the "Live" CD. With those changes,
and adding the "Live environment" stuff (Base), "boot overhead" stuff
(Base) and "Floppy installer" stuff (Bonus) I think we can do this:

LiveCD:
- Apps
- Archivers
- Base
- Drivers
- Games
- GUI
- Net
- Sound
+ Boot overhead
+ Live environment
(total: 294,663 kB)

BonusCD:
- Boot
- Devel
- Edit
- Unix
- Util
+ Floppy-only installer
(total: 374,848 kB)


If anyone wants to check my numbers or do the exercise for yourself, I
ran my numbers in a Google Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SyP_Q3zC877WNdWp1ptwFr5fm0S3XhCh0gW5npYQ-PA/edit?usp=sharing

(That's a view-only link. I'll "un-share" the spreadsheet in a few weeks.)

The "package list" tab was a comparison of the packages from 1.3 and
T2310. The "sort exercise" tab was the first experiment I tried
(earlier email). The "sort ex 2" tab is the one I described above.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2310 - no free space on CD

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I did a quick comparison of the packages on the FreeDOS 1.3
distribution (both Live and Bonus) and the FreeDOS T2310 distribution
(Live and Bonus). And the differences in packages (added and dropped)
were as expected, so that's good. :-)

Then I added up the package size on T2310, both Live and Bonus. And
I'm a little confused about the packages on each ISO. There's a lot of
overlap, and I don't remember why that is. Can someone remind me why
we have some of the same packages on both "Live" and "Bonus" images?
Was it for the convenience of the user? FreeDOS 1.3 has the same
overlap.

I started with the simple assumption that "Live" and "Bonus" would not
have any package overlap. Then I used a spreadsheet to "assign" the
T2310 packages into either "Live" or "Bonus" like this:

Live:
- Apps
- Base
- Drivers
- Edit
- Games
- GUI
- Net
- Sound
(total: 284,587 kB)

Bonus:
- Archiver
- Boot
- Devel
- Unix
- Util
(total: 347,659 kB)

My idea for that sorting exercise was "general users who just want to
download FreeDOS and try it out" can get by with just the LiveCD. But
developers and other "advanced" FreeDOS users can install extra stuff
from BonusCD. And if packages appear on only one of those images, then
it's easier to find what you need.

These numbers are just the "packages" directories, not any other
runtime. For example, the LiveCD has the installer and "minimally
bootable FreeDOS" on it. The Bonus CD has what appears to be the
FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition, ready to be written to floppies. (The
Live CD also has the FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition on it, so that's
another duplication.)


For comparison, the T2310 distribution has 371,122 kB of packages on
the "Live" CD, and 607,575 kB on the "Bonus" CD. So splitting up
package groups so they are on only one CD image is quite a "savings."


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2310

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Jim wrote:
> I want to compile some things using IA-16 GCC in the new Interim Build
> T2310, but neither the LiveCD or BonusCD have the DJGPP Environment
> package on it. We had this on previous FreeDOS installs; to compile
> with IA-16 GCC, you need to set the DJGPP environment variable to a
> DJGPP.ENV file.
>
> Or is the DJGPP Environment package on one of the ISOs, and I've
> missed it somehow?


Jerome wrote:
> The DJGPP are massive. There is not enough room on the CDs for
> everything else when DJGPP is included. Off-hand I think those packages
> require something like 350Mb.
>
> Plus… there have been “complaints” that the DJGPP needed updating
> and some other tools/packages should also get included.
>
> I’m not a DJGPP user and don’t want to break those packages. So,
> I’m not updating them.
[..]

Yes I saw the discussion about DJGPP being out of date and really big.
No problems there. I know the distro is getting really big (see also
below) and we should try to trim some things. I just wanted to compile
something with IA-16 GCC (not DJGPP) and found I couldn't because
something was missing in T2310 that IA-16 GCC needed.

I wonder what the mininum extra stuff is needed from DJGPP to get
IA-16 GCC to work. I haven't tried, but I guess that's a project I'll
try to tackle soon. If it's a matter of crafting an ENV file, then
that's one thing. If IA-16 GCC really needs a bunch of stuff from
DJGPP, that may preclude IA-16 GCC if we don't have DJGPP.


> I don’t know what the minimum required packages would be. Or, how
> much space they would require.  It might be possible to just include
> a few of them on either the install or bonus media.
>
> Possibly leave out some other packages to make room for some of the
> DJGPP packages. But in general, users tend to become very unhappy when
> something the use gets removed.
>
> Maybe it would be best to move nearly all Development packages to a
> DevelCD. Leaving only a couple very common tools (like NASM, UPX and
> a C compiler) on the main install/bonus media. With large packages
> (like Perl, FPC, DJGPP, etc) only on a DevelCD.
>
> The community needs to decide how we are going to handle the lack of
> sufficient storage capacity on the release media.
[..]

We've had off-and-on conversations on this list about what packages
really need to be in the distribution and which do not. But I think
this needs its own thread so we can better track the discussion. I'll
take another look at the packages and sizes, based on T2310, and start
a new thread to make some suggestions.


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2310

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I want to compile some things using IA-16 GCC in the new Interim Build
T2310, but neither the LiveCD or BonusCD have the DJGPP Environment
package on it. We had this on previous FreeDOS installs; to compile
with IA-16 GCC, you need to set the DJGPP environment variable to a
DJGPP.ENV file.

Or is the DJGPP Environment package on one of the ISOs, and I've
missed it somehow?

This is the package from FD13:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/djgpp.html


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Interim Build T2310

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Downloaded and installed it. Looking good so far. Thanks!

Jim

On Sun, Oct 1, 2023 at 10:22 AM Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> The FreeDOS Interim Test Build T2310 for October is now available for 
> download at:
>
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/
>
> Summary of changes since T2308.
>
> 2023-09-29 05:10:13 wcd (shidel): updated to v6.0.5
> 2023-09-28 16:03:00 project_FDI-x86 [unstable] (shidel): Merge branch 
> 'unstable' of github.com:shidel/FDI-x86 into unstable
> 2023-09-28 16:02:49 project_FDI-x86 [unstable] (shidel): added FDISK NLS to 
> x86 floppy exculsion
> 2023-09-28 14:55:46 project_RBE (shidel): improved floppy file cleanup
> 2023-09-28 07:55:16 project_FDI [unstable] (shidel): Adjust file cleanup list
> 2023-09-26 06:00:59 project_FD-NLS (shidel): Merge pull request #174 from 
> cardpuncher/master
> 2023-09-12 17:35:47 project_FD-NLS (cardpuncher): Add files via upload
> 2023-09-01 09:00:33 project_FDI [unstable] (shidel): remove FDISK.LNG from 
> install media
> 2023-09-01 06:06:15 doslfn (shidel): updated FR Help
> 2023-09-01 06:03:32 project_FD-NLS (shidel): Merge pull request #173 from 
> cardpuncher/master
> 2023-09-01 05:54:12 project_FDI [unstable] (shidel): exclude FDISK.LNG from 
> setup disks, not enough space on 720k floppy
> 2023-08-31 23:45:14 project_FD-NLS (cardpuncher): Add files via upload
> 2023-08-27 14:27:59 fdisk [unstable] (Bernd Boeckmann): version 1.3.9
> 2023-08-12 14:40:00 upx (shidel): updated to v4.1.0
> 2023-08-12 14:02:46 spool (shidel): added compiled version of BUFFERP.COM
>
> :-)
>
> Jerome
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday (reminder)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

We had a great time on the FreeDOS virtual get-together this morning!
A lot of great conversation on several topics. I loved hearing about
Bernd's math/CS class that he's teaching; we shared a lot of ideas for
a DOS-based student project. I always lose track of time - I
"advertise" that the meeting will be an hour, but I plan for an hour
and a half .. but we went for almost two hours today. :-)

I really do like getting together on video with folks. We're more than
just an email address. Would be great to have more FreeDOS developers
on the next video get-together (the next one will be "technical").

As I mentioned in my earlier email, this was the last get-together
that will use BlueJeans. They are shutting down the service. I used
BlueJeans to provide online/remote training and workshops for my
consulting business, but I haven't had a client ask for an online
program in quite a while. So I'm not in a rush to buy into a new
meeting platform. I'm looking into options (not looking for advice) so
that means the next video call will use something new. Might not be
the final platform that I choose, maybe just something to try out.

Since I need time to find a new video meeting platform, I don't think
we'll have a meeting in October. I'm thinking about mid-November, to
avoid the US Thanksgiving weekend. I'll send a "save the date" email
well in advance so we can plan ahead.


Jim


> On Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 2:35 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > I wanted to share a reminder that the next FreeDOS virtual
> > get-together is THIS SUNDAY, 11am US/Central. (Use your favorite time
> > zone converter to find your local time, but it's the same time we've
> > been doing it.)
> >
> > I'll share the meeting URL here shortly before the meeting starts.
> > I'll also share it on the website and on Facebook and Mastodon.
> >
> > We alternate topics every month, and this month's focus is Social
> > Time. It's a great opportunity to get to know each other as more than
> > just an email address. (We may talk about tech topics too - we always
> > do - but the focus is meant to be Social Time.)
> >
> >
> > Jim
> >
> >
> > *Also: We've always done these virtual meetings using BlueJeans.
> > However, you may have heard that Verizon/BlueJeans is retiring the
> > service. Initially, they said the end date was "sometime in the first
> > half of 2024" but more recently, they sent an email that they plan to
> > close it down sooner than that.
> >
> > So this will be our last get-together using BlueJeans. We'll see what
> > we use for future get-togethers (but we will still have them).


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday (reminder)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

Here's the URL for today's virtual get-together:
https://bluejeans.com/286798924/2517


See you in about 15 minutes!


Jim

On Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 2:35 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> I wanted to share a reminder that the next FreeDOS virtual
> get-together is THIS SUNDAY, 11am US/Central. (Use your favorite time
> zone converter to find your local time, but it's the same time we've
> been doing it.)
>
> I'll share the meeting URL here shortly before the meeting starts.
> I'll also share it on the website and on Facebook and Mastodon.
>
> We alternate topics every month, and this month's focus is Social
> Time. It's a great opportunity to get to know each other as more than
> just an email address. (We may talk about tech topics too - we always
> do - but the focus is meant to be Social Time.)
>
>
> Jim
>
>
> *Also: We've always done these virtual meetings using BlueJeans.
> However, you may have heard that Verizon/BlueJeans is retiring the
> service. Initially, they said the end date was "sometime in the first
> half of 2024" but more recently, they sent an email that they plan to
> close it down sooner than that.
>
> So this will be our last get-together using BlueJeans. We'll see what
> we use for future get-togethers (but we will still have them).


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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday (reminder)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share a reminder that the next FreeDOS virtual
get-together is THIS SUNDAY, 11am US/Central. (Use your favorite time
zone converter to find your local time, but it's the same time we've
been doing it.)

I'll share the meeting URL here shortly before the meeting starts.
I'll also share it on the website and on Facebook and Mastodon.

We alternate topics every month, and this month's focus is Social
Time. It's a great opportunity to get to know each other as more than
just an email address. (We may talk about tech topics too - we always
do - but the focus is meant to be Social Time.)


Jim


*Also: We've always done these virtual meetings using BlueJeans.
However, you may have heard that Verizon/BlueJeans is retiring the
service. Initially, they said the end date was "sometime in the first
half of 2024" but more recently, they sent an email that they plan to
close it down sooner than that.

So this will be our last get-together using BlueJeans. We'll see what
we use for future get-togethers (but we will still have them).


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Updating/moving the wiki

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Bernd wrote:
[..]
> If the project is in need of web space or something else, I think I
> could help out. So let me know...
>

For the www.freedos.org and wiki.freedos.org websites, I'm comfortable
taking care of the hosting costs on my own. We aren't set up as a
Foundation, but the YouTube channel generates *just* enough income to
cover the monthly website hosting costs, so there's really nothing
"out of pocket" for me. Thanks for the offer, though. :-)


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Updating/moving the wiki

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Jim wrote:
> > (This is a long email. Feel free to skip ahead to the "MY PROPOSAL"
> > section at the end.)
> >
[..]
> > MY PROPOSAL:
> >
> > I did some analysis, and the FreeDOS Wiki has 290 pages in it. That's
> > more than a few, but it's not a ton.
> >
> > My current thinking is to set up a new wiki.freedos.org website
> > (re-point the "wiki.freedos.org" name to the new website) and do a
> > manual copy/paste of all 290 pages. It would be a pain to do all that
> > by hand, but I would like to use that opportunity to do some wiki
> > cleanup at the same time.
> >
> > When the new wiki.freedos.org is ready, I would change the "wiki"
> > links on www.freedos.org to point to the new wiki.freedos.org website.
> > I can add new wiki editors at that time, and probably set up a "self
> > service" feature so folks can create their own wiki accounts (would
> > need to look at how to prevent spamming).
[..]

Jerome wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> Just a thought…
>
> GitLab has Wiki support for the projects.
>
> Would require manually glueing an index together of the projects with
> Wikis under a main “landing page” which could be a project like
> issue-reporting. Then point wiki.Freedos.org to that page.


Sounds interesting, and probably less work - and that's always good.
:-) But I'm concerned about walking into another situation down the
road where we need to relocate the wiki once again. When we used the
shared wiki at SF, that was a good idea at the time .. until they
stopped offering it. Could the same happen with a GitLab-hosted wiki?

If the wiki is hosted on a website we control, I think we'll be less
likely to run into these problems down the road. And we'll have better
control over branding, for example.


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[Freedos-devel] Updating/moving the wiki

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

(This is a long email. Feel free to skip ahead to the "MY PROPOSAL"
section at the end.)


I mentioned in an earlier email that SourceForge upgraded the PHP on
the server that runs the FreeDOS Wiki. I don't know why, but the PHP
upgrade has caused the wiki to not load a stylesheet. It doesn't
appear to be a *missing* stylesheet - the wiki doesn't seem to be able
to detect and load at least one stylesheet. So the wiki is currently
showing unstyled web pages.

For a while, I've wanted to move the FreeDOS Wiki to a new server, not
hosted by SF. The SF folks have been great, but the web hosting is
slw and websites there are much more difficult to
maintain. The not-quite-broken wiki is my motivation to finally move
the wiki.

I can set up a new website on the same service that currently hosts
the www.freedos.org website. Since we aren't using the
wiki.freedos.org hostname right now, I can set up a new
wiki.freedos.org site.

>From my other email: the SF upgrade means the new-PHP site is hosted
at freedos.sourceforge.io - so I had to change all the "wiki" links to
point to freedos.sourceforge.io. The older-PHP vhost.sourceforge.net
that "wiki.freedos.org" points to will go away soon. I could repoint
the "wiki.freedos.org" alias to the new-PHP site .. but I think it's
easier to just go ahead with the new hosting.

However, we have a "legacy" problem in the wiki database:

A little background:
Years ago, SF set up a shared "all-projects" MediaWiki. All SF-hosted
projects could use that, and SF had some front-end that carved out a
space for each project. (I don't remember the details anymore.) Later,
SF retired the shared wiki, and gave each project an export of their
data, plus a user list. Because of how MediaWiki tracks edits, the
"user list" was every user on SF. The user list is 99% non-FreeDOS
users.

We set up our own MediaWiki on vhost.sourceforge.net
("wiki.freedos.org") and imported the data. We've added some wiki
editors since then; a few of those are still active.

But if I migrate the current MediaWiki database to new web hosting,
we'd have to import the legacy user list too. It doesn't seem like a
good idea to have that many non-FreeDOS users defined in the wiki's
user list.


MY PROPOSAL:

I did some analysis, and the FreeDOS Wiki has 290 pages in it. That's
more than a few, but it's not a ton.

My current thinking is to set up a new wiki.freedos.org website
(re-point the "wiki.freedos.org" name to the new website) and do a
manual copy/paste of all 290 pages. It would be a pain to do all that
by hand, but I would like to use that opportunity to do some wiki
cleanup at the same time.

When the new wiki.freedos.org is ready, I would change the "wiki"
links on www.freedos.org to point to the new wiki.freedos.org website.
I can add new wiki editors at that time, and probably set up a "self
service" feature so folks can create their own wiki accounts (would
need to look at how to prevent spamming).


PROs:

+ The new user list would be just FreeDOS folks

+ Wiki cleanup (consistent naming of pages, consistent formatting of pages, etc)

+ The new hosting service would be faster, so the new wiki.freedos.org
would be faster, more responsive

+ Easier to maintain on the new web hosting


CONs:

- Manually copying/pasting 290 wiki pages would be a pain, but doable

- I think I can pace myself to copy all 290 wiki pages in one month
(by around Oct 1) but delays could push that date out - in the
meantime, we would continue to use the SF hosting we have now, with
unstyled pages


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Website maintenance

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 12:36 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> When SourceForge upgraded their website hosting to PHP 7.4, I didn't
> read closely enough that the final website address will change. So I'm
> in the process of updating things on the wiki.freedos.org site to
> accommodate that.
>[..]

After changing the wiki theme (aka "stylesheet") the front page isn't
loading properly. The page content is there, but it's unstyled
content. That may be due to website caching at SF (I know SF has a
front-end web request cache, and nothing else changed on the website).

I'll wait a while for the web cache to "clear" and test it again. In
the meantime, I'm changing any wiki.freedos.org references on the
website to freedos.sourceforge.io

* The "freedos.sourceforge.io" name is short-term. I will move this
back when things are working and have some confidence that it's not
name-based.


** Also: Looks like I'll have to add "move the FreeDOS Wiki" to my
to-do list. :-P


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[Freedos-devel] Website maintenance

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

When SourceForge upgraded their website hosting to PHP 7.4, I didn't
read closely enough that the final website address will change. So I'm
in the process of updating things on the wiki.freedos.org site to
accommodate that.

We had a few things hosted there that really should be on the
www.freedos.org site instead. I've moved or deleted these things as
part of the cleanup:

1. The "visual install guide" (used to be a series of step-by-step
screenshots for FreeDOS 1.2,  then an embedded YouTube video for
FreeDOS 1.3) has moved from http://wiki.freedos.org/install to
https://www.freedos.org/download/

2. The link to the FreeDOS email list rules (remind.txt) has been
updated on https://www.freedos.org/forums/ (we kept the remind.txt
file on the old SF-hosted site because the monthly reminder was coded
to use that - we aren't using the monthly reminder anymore, so I don't
think anything else should link to the old remind.txt location)

3. The very ancient (hasn't been used in *years*) "software_db" page
has been deleted. This used to be a database-driven version of the
FreeDOS software list, and dates back to when we used to host the
FreeDOS website at SF (and when we moved to independent hosting, we
kept a few SF-specific things at freedos.sf.net). This data is now on
the "What's included" link on https://www.freedos.org/download/

(No one should even know about the "software_db" page, much less
linking to it. I'm mentioning it for transparency.)


Jim


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[Freedos-devel] FYI: wiki.freedos.org will be upgraded tomorrow

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone

I wanted to share that SourceForge is upgrading the PHP to version 7.4
on the wiki.freedos.org server - sometime tomorrow, Aug 21. (This is
part of a two-step upgrade; SourceForge will upgrade to PHP 8 later
this year.)

SF gave me a test link, so I tested the site on the new PHP and things
look like they will be fine. I can't test it fully because of how the
wiki crosslinks to the hard-coded "wiki.freedos.org" name for some
things, but I think it's okay. Just wanted to let folks know in case
the wiki does something weird after the upgrade.


Also: I've been planning to move the wiki to the same web hosting
service that I use for www.freedos.org. I guess I'll have to move that
up my "to-do" list before SF does the upgrade to PHP 8. (I think the
work to move the site will be the same as to prep for PHP 8.)


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] ANSI for DOS

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

FYI: Your post was 104 lines and 618 words. How-to articles on
websites are between 500 and 800 words, so this email was a bit long.
:-/

The point is you have released a new microemacs?

:: Anyway, long story short - I have banged microemacs 3.6 into
:: shape so that it is C90 compliant with the addition of ANSI
:: escapes for both keyboard and screen, allowing it to run on
:: both PDOS/386 and z/PDOS (mainframes) with the only
:: difference being in handling EBCDIC vs ASCII. ie other than
:: that, all the C source code (when doing the ANSI + C90
:: target) is completely identical. PDOS/86 was added with
:: the simple addition of a makefile.
::
:: And thanks to assistance already received here, I got the
:: exact same DOS executable to run under Freedos.
::
:: It does require this to be installed:
::
:: http://www.sweger.com/ansiplus/AnsiPlus.html

and:

:: If you would like to get hold of this, I have uploaded a new
:: UC8086 to http://pdos.org
::
:: There is an me.exe and c:\devel\memacs

However, I can't find a download link for "UC8086" or microemacs on
the http://pdos.org website. (Almost all links on that page are
labeled "here" so that makes it hard to find things. One paragraph has
two mentions of "emacs" and also includes two "here" links, but
neither link seems to point to UC8086 or microemacs.)

Would you mind sharing a direct link?


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Interesting behavior with PC Tools

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

> On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 3:38 PM Bret Johnson  wrote:
> >
> > Those extra "spaces" may not really be spaces at all -- they may
> > actually be ASCII 0 or ASCII 255, which look like a regular space (ASCII
> > 32) on the screen even though they aren't.  I've ran into similar
> > issues at various times that have caused me all kinds of grief.  There
> > are also some DOS Code Pages where other characters (besides 0, 32, and
> > 255) also are blank (they look like a normal space when they aren't).
[..]

On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 3:55 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Possibly. I'll add that the AMB directory I tested *already existed*
> on the filesystem before I ran PC Tools. All I did in PC Tools was
> navigate to my AMB directory, view the AMB.TXT file that was already
> there, then exit back to DOS. That was all I needed to reproduce the
> problem.


I just booted FreeDOS in QEMU using the '-display curses' option, so
QEMU runs in plain text mode in my terminal. That lets me copy/paste
the prompt from Linux into another file. And it looks like spaces when
I investigate the file:

$ hexdump -b /tmp/f
000 103 072 134 124 105 115 120 134 101 115 102 040 040 040 040 040
010 076 012
012


The prompt really is AMB followed by 5 spaces (\040)


C:\TEMP\AMB >


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Interesting behavior with PC Tools

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 3:38 PM Bret Johnson  wrote:
>
> Those extra "spaces" may not really be spaces at all -- they may
> actually be ASCII 0 or ASCII 255, which look like a regular space (ASCII
> 32) on the screen even though they aren't.  I've ran into similar
> issues at various times that have caused me all kinds of grief.  There
> are also some DOS Code Pages where other characters (besides 0, 32, and
> 255) also are blank (they look like a normal space when they aren't).
>
> I've even tried to take advantage of this fact in the past when trying
> to make directories and files formatted for easier reading or keeping
> users from easily entering a directory I didn't want them to be in
> for some reason.

Possibly. I'll add that the AMB directory I tested *already existed*
on the filesystem before I ran PC Tools. All I did in PC Tools was
navigate to my AMB directory, view the AMB.TXT file that was already
there, then exit back to DOS. That was all I needed to reproduce the
problem.


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[Freedos-devel] Interesting behavior with PC Tools

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

A user emailed me with what they thought was a bug, but to me it looks
like everything is okay. Ironically, I think it's QBASIC that has the
issue.

Here's the "bug" as described to me:

The user ran PC Tools on FreeDOS and navigated around. They exited PC
Tools into a directory (BAS_DAT) that contained their QBASIC source
files. When you exit PC Tools, it sets the working directory to
whatever location you were in last (in this case, the "BAS_DAT"
directory).

That's when they discovered that
"BAS_DAT"
was showing in the DOS prompt as
"BAS_DAT "

(that's "BAS_DAT" with an extra space after it)

Running QBASIC from that directory fails (immediately brings up an
error dialog saying "Bad file name" even though QBASIC was run without
arguments).


*Aside: I thought QBASIC would only run on MS-DOS, but I checked the
screenshot the user sent me; it's really MS-DOS QBASIC, not QuickBASIC
or something else. And the series of screenshots they sent indicated
QBASIC was running on FreeDOS. So I guess QBASIC doesn't mind running
on non-MS DOS?


That is an interesting bug, to be sure. I downloaded and installed PC
Tools Pro 9 (10-9-1993) (3.5-1.44mb) [English-International]
(3.5-1.44mb) from https://winworldpc.com/ on FreeDOS (with QEMU) and
was able to reproduce the symptom. But the issue appears to be
inherent to PC Tools - and then a problem with QBASIC not recognizing
a space-padded path like it should (interesting to find a bug in
MS-DOS QBASIC, though).

I think what is happening is, upon exit, PC Tools "fills out" the DOS
working directory path to 8.3 with spaces. So the "BAS_DAT" directory
is actually "BAS_DAT" plus one space (plus an unused extension).
That's where the mystery space is coming from. But the filesystem
hasn't been modified, it's just how PC Tools sets the working
directory when it exits.

In my case, I was able to reproduce the problem using a directory
called "AMB". After I exited PC Tools, it showed on the prompt's path
as "AMB" plus 5 spaces. But I could still (successfully) launch
FreeDOS EDIT from there, and use EDIT to open a file in that directory
(both as a command line arg to EDIT, and by starting EDIT then loading
the file).

Backing up one directory, I can see the directory entry in the
filesystem hasn't actually changed; it's still "AMB" without the
spaces (using DIR/W will put directory names in brackets, making any
spaces easy to see).

So ultimately, this isn't a FreeDOS bug. PC Tools is exiting to a
directory and padding the working directory path with spaces. And then
QBASIC is panicking because the working directory is space padded now.
But the path isn't actually space padded, as you can see if you go
back one directory.


Curious if anyone else has tested PC Tools on FreeDOS (or MS-DOS) and
if you see similar behavior.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Virtual get-together?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

> On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 11:03 AM Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel
>  wrote:
> >
> > Wasn't a virtual get-together supposed to happen about now? -- Gregory

On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 11:06 AM Rugxulo via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Maybe Jim is still under the weather?
>

I'm so sorry I missed the get-together today! Yes, I'm still feeling
under the weather. I slept in, did some email, and drifted off to work
on other things. Completely forgot about the virtual get-together. :-(

Let's try again next month.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Free FDISK 1.3.8 released

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 10:56 AM Bernd Böckmann via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Today I released FDISK 1.3.8 into the wild:
>
> https://github.com/FDOS/fdisk/tree/v1.3.8
>
[..]

Thanks Bernd!

I mirrored this release to ibiblio, and posted a news item about it on
the website.


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] dir issues

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 1:07 PM Ralf Quint via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>[..]
> Well, there is/was a PC version of GEOS, which for a while now is Open
> Source and available as PC/GEOS
[..]
>
> https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
>
> PS: I don't think that GEM would be useless for use with FreeDOS, but
> just as with PC/GEOS, it needs people to actually do some work on it

I'm also not clear on the use case of a DOS GUI these days. If you're
going to use a GUI on DOS, then you need apps to run in it. Otherwise,
it's a beautiful file manager and DOS app launcher that uses a bunch
of memory.

Years ago, I thought DOS GUIs were interesting. I liked that folks
were writing GUIs like SEAL and oZone, and continuing to work on
OpenGEM. But of those, only OpenGEM really has much application
support. Even so, there aren't many GEM apps to run in it. But there
are a ton of regular DOS apps.

PC/GEOS is another case, but similar. I understand more apps were
written for PC/GEOS (like an early "Web browser" or something like it,
an email client, etc) and I believe the PC/GEOS folks include those in
their project. But it's still a smaller ecosystem than just DOS apps
that you can run without the graphical desktop taking up memory.


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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together (moved to next week)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Resending with a new Subject line so it doesn't get hidden/missed by
some email clients:


On Sat, Jul 22, 2023 at 10:19 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone
>
> I was traveling for a conference this week, and now I am sick. (My
> COVID test was negative, though.) I cannot host the get-together
> tomorrow.
>
> Let's move the virtual get-together to NEXT WEEK at the same time:
> Sunday July 30, 11am-noon (US/Central)
>


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: next FreeDOS virtual get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone

I was traveling for a conference this week, and now I am sick. (My
COVID test was negative, though.) I cannot host the get-together
tomorrow.

Let's move the virtual get-together to NEXT WEEK at the same time:
Sunday July 30, 11am-noon (US/Central)



On Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 11:34 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> I just wanted to send a reminder that our next FreeDOS
> virtual get-together is coming up on Sunday, 11:00
> a.m. to noon, US/Central Time. Use your favorite time
> zone converter to find your local time.
>
> As usual, we will do the meeting using Bluejeans. Folks
> have said that you get best performance if you download
> and use the desktop client, but you can also use the
> web client with any recent web browser version such as
> Chrome. However, some people have commented that using
> the web client gives a little bit of audio lag.
>
> We like to alternate topics from month to month. This
> month is Technical. This is a great opportunity to talk
> about programming topics, bugs, debugging, and any other
> technical questions or topics that you might have.
>


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[Freedos-devel] Reminder: next FreeDOS virtual get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to send a reminder that our next FreeDOS virtual get-together
is coming up on Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to noon, US/Central Time. Use your
favorite time zone converter to find your local time.

As usual, we will do the meeting using Bluejeans. Folks have said that you
get best performance if you download and use the desktop client, but you
can also use the web client with any recent web browser version such as
Chrome. However, some people have commented that using the web client gives
a little bit of audio lag.

We like to alternate topics from month to month. This month is Technical.
This is a great opportunity to talk about programming topics, bugs,
debugging, and any other technical questions or topics that you might have.

See you then!

Jim
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Blocek 1.74

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Thanks! I've mirrored this at the FreeDOS Files Archive on Ibilbio.
I've also posted a news item on the website about it.


Jim

On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 3:07 AM Ladislav Lacina via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Hello!
> New version of test editor Blocek is out. Now in version 1.74.
> Project page is here: http://laaca.borec.cz/blocek/
>
> What is new:
> + bookmarks (accessible by right mouse button click or from main menu)
> - deleting a text block sometimes crashed the program
> - key "delete" sometimes incorrectly changed the scope of the text block
> - the non-resident part of the keyboard handler is more compatible with WinXP
> - also the resident part of the keyboard handler is improved (see 
> TECHNOTE.TXT)
> - mouse wheel works again (with DOS driver CTMouse or with DOSBOX-X)
> + optimalizations in the program messages management
> * the hotkey for text block delete changed from CTRL-Space to Shift-Del
> (to be consistent with one line input dialogs)
> - fixed several bugs in command line processing
> - other small bugfixes
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Second call for htmlhelp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I am also an editor for Technically We Write (a website about
technical writing) and yesterday I wrote an article about how to write
"ebooks" in AMB format. If anyone would like a walkthrough that shows
how to write documentation in AMB format, here's the preview* article:

https://technicallywewrite.com/2023/07/11/amb


__
* "preview" because the article will go live on the site tomorrow
(7/11 .. but as I write this, it is 7/10)


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Second call for htmlhelp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Sun, Jul 9, 2023 at 6:46 AM Wilhelm Spiegl via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Till now amb files were created by Mateusz Viste. If I remember right,
> e.g. Hyperlinks within the text look absolutely different.
>

They were created by Mateusz because AMB was new at the time, so only
Mateusz really understood it well. Mateusz possibly had another tool
to convert HTML files into AMA format, I don't know. But AMB (or
rather, AMA source files) are not that hard to figure out. Here's a
quick primer:

AMB files are "packed" versions of one or more AMA source files. I'll
give an example with a few AMA source files since that is more similar
to HELP.

An AMA source file is just a plain text with some special commands of
the format "%x" - that is, a "%" character followed by a single
letter. These are defined in the AMA spec:
https://amb.osdn.io/phpamb.php?fname=archiwum/format-20201216.amb=ama.ama

Every line starts as plain text (%t) by default, so you don't need to
specify %t unless you have changed it otherwise in a line (such as a
link with %l)

Links to other files are done like this:
%lmore.ama:more info

That creates a link to a separate AMA file called MORE.AMA, using the
link text "more info"

If you want to make columns of text, you need to change back to
regular text yourself, like this 2-column example:
%lmore.ama:more info%t   %about.ama:about this file

Note that %l will continue until the end of the line by default, or
you can "end" it by switching to another style like %t

Text is not "collected" and lines are not "filled" like in HTML or
nroff or LaTeX. Instead, you need to format the AMA source text how it
should appear on the screen. Assume an 80 column screen, and the AMB
reader reserves 1 column width on the left for a border line, and 1
column width on the right for the scroll bar. So you shouldn't have
displayed lines longer than 78 columns.

Put your AMA files in a directory. The first file should be called
INDEX.AMA. The other files can be named whatever you like. You also
need a file in that directory called TITLE that contains a single line
description of the "book" - the line should be no longer than 64
characters long.


I wrote a few test files and made an AMB out of it. Here are my files:

C:\TEMP\AMBPACK>dir /b T
2.AMA
INDEX.AMA
MORE.AMA
TITLE

To create an AMB book from this directory, you use "AMBPACK c {dir}
{file.amb}" where "c" means "create." You can get the usage if you run
AMBPACK without options.

C:\TEMP\AMBPACK>ambpack c T TEST.AMB
Computing the list of files...
Packing files...
  index.ama --> TEST.AMB
  more.ama --> TEST.AMB
  title --> TEST.AMB
  2.ama --> TEST.AMB
OK

And now I have a TEST.AMB file that works with the AMB viewer. (I
can't include a screenshot on the list, but if I run AMB TEST.AMB, I
can view the file, including navigating to the links).


Here are the files: (displayed using the DOS TYPE command,
copied/pasted here as a single DOS session)

C:\TEMP\AMBPACK>type T\INDEX.AMA
%hTHIS IS THE INDEX FILE

This is a test of writing an AMA file. Note that text is not "collected"
and "filled" like html or nroff or latex. Intead, the AMA source files
should have text filled and arranged the way you want them displayed.

This is a new paragraph after a blank line.

MORE HELP:

%lmore.ama:link to new file%t   %l2.ama:another help file
C:\TEMP\AMBPACK>type T\MORE.AMA
%hMORE HELP

This file contains more help.
%hA SECOND HELP FILE

This is another help file called 2.ama
C:\TEMP\AMBPACK>type T\TITLE
A test of creating AMB files from AMA source files


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Second call for htmlhelp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Sun, Jul 9, 2023 at 10:06 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
> I recall that Mateusz had a tool that could convert HTML files into
> AMA format, but I can't find it [..]


I found it:
https://osdn.net/projects/amb/scm/svn/tree/head/samples/fdhelp2amb/

(note: the OSDN website is very slooow for me)


The html2ama.c program will convert FreeDOS HTML Help files into AMA
format, so they can be bundled into an AMB file. The source code
starts with this warning that the code is basically a quick and dirty
conversion tool, so it may not work with other HTML files:

/*
 * html2ama has been primarily designed to mass-convert the html FreeDOS help
 * files into a set of AMA articles. It may or may not work with other
 * contents.
 *
 * Do not expect anything fancy, html2ama is dirty code.




I think Mateusz's suggestion was that FreeDOS Help adopt AMB format,
and to do a one-time conversion from HTML to AMA format, then continue
to work on the Help files as AMA files.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Second call for htmlhelp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I sent a separate email to Willi that included screenshots (the list
doesn't like screenshots) but I wanted to repeat this thought with the
list:


>>
BTW, I created my own index.htm file and ran a few tests. HTML Help
supports HTML coding structures - this is awesome! I honestly don't
remember if HTML Help supported that previously, so maybe this isn't
new. But it makes me wonder: Do we need to use  to format
everything "manually"?

I tried with tables, and tables don't work .. and that's okay, tables
are hard in plain text. So I guess we'd need to use  to format
lists of links in columns. But I think most use cases could use
standard HTML tags for headings, paragraphs, lists, bold, italics,
links, .. I think using standard HTML would make the pages easier to
maintain, and easier for others to contribute.

I teach a university class called Tech Writing with Digital
Technologies where the students learn to code in HTML (and other
tools). Students are always looking for projects [for example, to add
to their resume] and I'm confident we could get a few students to help
update/clean up the HTML Help documentation. One project could be to
adapt it to standard HTML for us - we could define the rules to make
things more reliable for rendering, such as "only use  and 
[two levels of headings],  [paragraphs],  [links],  and 
[unordered lists only],  and  [italics and bold], 
[preformatted, like for lists or sample program output] and 
[inline code, such as program names that aren't links]."


On Sat, Jul 8, 2023 at 11:24 AM Wilhelm Spiegl via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Hi,
> meanwhile FDT2307 is published with Bernds new htmlhelp.exe.
> It includes the actual unfinished english version 1.1.0 of help, other 
> languages are in version 1.0.8.
> With mail at:
> https://www.mail-archive.com/freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg14794.html
> I asked you to help me at the following questions:
>
>
> Help 1.1.0 is coming into a stadium where I have to ask you all
>
> Please have a look at: 
> https://www.bootablecd.de/FreeDOS-Internet-version/help110/en/index.htm
> or execute htmlhelp on a HD installed with FDT2307 live CD.
> My questions:
> a) Do I have to add a file?
> b) Do I have to remove a file (e.g. xdvd2 - no GPL... etc...)? Are the 
> commands in [square brackets] necessary or can I remove some of them?
> c) Are there problems with the sort order of the commands? I did not put them 
> exactly in the main folders as it listed at gitlab.
> d) Can somebody proofread the different commands? As I am no programmer I 
> have to use the manuals or ask the programmers
> or this forum - and I often get no response. This is frustrating.
> e) I mixed utils, drivers, unix tools etc. because otherwise people will have 
> to search in different alphabetical lists and reduces the chance to
> find it in a short time.
> f) I added usbdos, but examples are still bad and there is a comment from 
> Berki that it may be not legal to distribute it.
> Nobody gave a response to him. What to do?
> g) Other ideas?
>
> Please keep in mind that this is a WYSIWYG project, means: If you do not 
> correct things where you think they are wrong NOW they will
> stay wrong for a long time!
>
> Then it's not my disgrace, it's yours!
>
>
> Thanks for feedback!
>
>
> Willi
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Second call for htmlhelp

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Sat, Jul 8, 2023 at 6:25 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I sent a separate email to Willi that included screenshots (the list
> doesn't like screenshots) but I wanted to repeat this thought with the
> list:
>
>
> >>
> BTW, I created my own index.htm file and ran a few tests. HTML Help
> supports HTML coding structures - this is awesome! I honestly don't
> remember if HTML Help supported that previously, so maybe this isn't
> new. But it makes me wonder: Do we need to use  to format
> everything "manually"?
>
> I tried with tables, and tables don't work .. and that's okay, tables
> are hard in plain text. So I guess we'd need to use  to format
> lists of links in columns. But I think most use cases could use
> standard HTML tags for headings, paragraphs, lists, bold, italics,
> links, .. I think using standard HTML would make the pages easier to
> maintain, and easier for others to contribute.
>
[..]


If anyone is curious, here is the test HTML file I used. If you render
this in a desktop browser like Firefox, the only difference is 
will be a numbered list on Firefox (not on HTML Help):




This is a test


Here is the title
This is a paragraph.
This is another paragraph.
I've added a lot of text to this paragraph so that it will wrap lines.
Some text in italics, emphasis, bold, and
strong.
Here is some inline code.
Here is some more text.
Lists:
This is a bullet list:

item 1
item 2
item 3

This is a numbered list:

item 1
item 2
item 3

Sample code:
This is a sample F77 program:

  PROGRAMHELLO
  PRINT*,5HHELLO
  END

The end






*Apologies for frightening anyone with the unexpected F77 code. :-P


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[Freedos-devel] Doszip Commander 2.65 fixes two bugs

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

Fritz emailed this announcement to me off-list, and I wanted to fwd it here:


> From: "nidud"
> Subject: Re: [nidud/doszip] Problems with adding diskettes and HDs without 
> label / ".." (doubledot) (Issue #12)
>
>
> The code is somewhat sensitive as it needs to test if the
> drive exist for the missing floppy/CD/device loop.
>
> The way this is done is an attempt to read *.* from the
> disk which usually succeeds if a file or a volume-id is
> present. There are many other ways of testing if a disk
> is ready but it becomes rather complicated as it depends
> on too many things (OS type/version) so the most portable
> way seems to be the read options. It is however not very
> reliable with regards to error code, so it will return
> the same for an empty disk as for a missing CD.
>
> One thing that may (or may not) work is an attempt
> to read NUL if the above fails. I added this to the
> zip below so maybe you could test if that works.
> https://github.com/nidud/doszip/files/11937540/doszip-2.65Dos16.zip


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Happy 29th anniversary to FreeDOS!

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 6:11 PM Bernd Böckmann via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> Jim, do you still have the original announcement? Would be an interesting 
> read I guess.
>


Here it is:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.msdos.apps/c/oQmT4ETcSzU/m/O1HR8PE2u-EJ


The original name from the announcement was PD-DOS. That's because I
thought "public domain" (PD) was what we were going for - a DOS that
everyone could use - a DOS In the "public domain" (aka "for
everyone"). But others pointed out that we were really creating a
"free DOS" - and anyway, we were using the GNU GPL for pretty much
everything. So we changed the name to "Free-DOS" in about two or three
weeks.

Later, around the time that Pat published his book, we'd changed the
name to "FreeDOS" (no hyphen). But I don't know exactly when we
dropped the hyphen. Does anyone else know when that happened?

I do know that M. "Hannibal" Toal was our first webmaster, and he
created the first website logo (the one on the oval .. very 1990s).
https://freedos.org/images/logos/freedos-logo.gif

I think it was in the late 1990s (maybe around 2000) that we changed
to the second version of our logo, the blue one with the "free" in a
sort of block next to "DOS"
https://freedos.org/images/logos/freedos-logo2-lg.png

I don't remember the exact dates anymore, but I think it was the early
to mid 00's that we changed to fish logo. I think Bas Snabilie had
donated the fish mascot (named Blinky, because of his big eye) and I
thought it was cute. We adopted him as a mascot, including the new
logo that incorporated him.
https://freedos.org/images/logos/freedos-logo3.png

And I think it was the early "twenty-teens" that we updated the logo
once again to the "shadow" logo that we have now. It's a minor
variation on the original fish logo.
https://freedos.org/images/logos/freedos-logo4.svg


I've been experimenting with an updated website, and I'm considering
going back to the original 1990s logo. We can use Blinky elsewhere on
the website, but maybe a "throwback" logo would be cool?

Jim


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[Freedos-devel] Happy 29th anniversary to FreeDOS!

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

In 1994, several of us got together around a pretty neat idea.

We liked DOS, but Microsoft was clearly moving completely to Windows. "The
next version of Windows," they said, "would do away with DOS."

We wanted to keep DOS around, so we decided to write our own. That project,
announced 29 years ago TODAY on June 29 1994, was the FreeDOS Project.

Thanks to EVERYONE who is (or has been) part of FreeDOS! 29 years is a long
time for any open source project, and I'm looking forward to more years to
come.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Annoying bounce messages (list admin stuff)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

I think the options are:

1. annoying bounce messages from SPF checks
2. "From" address shows up as the list address

If anyone knows of a third option using Mailman (what SourceForge uses for
the listserv) then please let me know.



On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 8:21 PM Ralf Quint via Freedos-devel <
freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> On 6/27/2023 2:28 PM, Jim Hall via Freedos-devel wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 3:38 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
> >> Thanks to Mateusz for pointing out a mail list setting that we think
> >> will stop the annoying bounce messages.
> >>
> >> When you send an email to the email list, you might get a bounce
> >> message. This is because of a change at Gmail where they are now more
> >> strict about SPF.
> >>
> >> I made the change on freedos-user. If it seems to solve the problem
> >> there, I'll make the same change on freedos-devel.
> >
> > FYI that I've made the same change on freedos-devel. Let me know if
> > there are problems.
> >
> > The solution was the "Munge the From email address" setting. Without
> > it, the list server fails on strict SPF checking.
>
> Well, now it seems all messages in here also just show up as coming from
> "Technical discussions..." instead of showing the sender in my email
> client (latest version of Thunderbird, on both Windows and Linux)... :(
>
>
> Ralf
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Annoying bounce messages (list admin stuff)

[Jim Hall via Freedos-devel]

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 3:38 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Thanks to Mateusz for pointing out a mail list setting that we think
> will stop the annoying bounce messages.
>
> When you send an email to the email list, you might get a bounce
> message. This is because of a change at Gmail where they are now more
> strict about SPF.
>
> I made the change on freedos-user. If it seems to solve the problem
> there, I'll make the same change on freedos-devel.


FYI that I've made the same change on freedos-devel. Let me know if
there are problems.

The solution was the "Munge the From email address" setting. Without
it, the list server fails on strict SPF checking.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] libm-0.5

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone

I've uploaded Gregory's new libm library to the FreeDOS Files Archive
at Ibiblio:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/libm/


I've also posted a news item on the website.

On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 8:56 PM Gregory Pietsch  wrote:
>
> This is the latest version. I believe I have all the functions in libm 
> implemented here, so please check my code and prove I do not suck. -- Gregory
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[Freedos-devel] Next FreeDOS virtual get-together

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone

We had a lot of folks on today's virtual get-together! I love seeing
people "in person."

The next FreeDOS virtual get-together will be on Sunday, July 23 at
11am US/Central. We alternate topics every month, and July's focus
will be "technical." This is a great time to do live debugging or
discuss programming topics.

I'll share the video meeting URL on July 23 when the meeting starts!


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on June 18

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone! The virtual get-together is just 10 minutes away. Here's
the URL we will use for the meeting:
https://bluejeans.com/622720727/1803

This uses BlueJeans, which I use for my consulting business. You can
use a browser to connect, but most people say the desktop client gives
better performance (using BlueJeans on the web has a little audio
lag).

See you in 10 minutes!


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on June 18

[Jim Hall]

Yes, 11am Central Time is just under two hours from now. :⁠-⁠)

On Sun, Jun 18, 2023, 8:56 AM  wrote:

> Hmmm, that will be a little later today. :-)
>
> > On Jun 4, 2023, at 4:15 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > I wanted to share a reminder that our next FreeDOS virtual
> > get-together is coming up on Sunday, June 18, 2023 at 11am US/Central.
> > That's two weeks from today.
> >
> > We alternate topics every time. This month's focus is "social time."
> > We'll probably cover technical topics too, but this is mostly a time
> > for folks to get to know each other as more than just an email
> > address.
> >
> > As always, we'll do the meeting via BlueJeans (I use this for remote
> > meetings in my consulting practice). I'll share the meeting URL
> > shortly before the meeting starts. I'll also share it on the website,
> > on Facebook, and on Mastodon.
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Logger

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:50 AM  wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Logger is now out of BETA.
>
> Version 1.00 is now available.
>
> https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/logger.html


I'm a month late on this, but THANKS for this very useful program!
I've just posted a note about it on the website.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS & LOGGER

[Jim Hall]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 9:31 AM Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-devel
 wrote:
>
> > Logger version 1.00 was released several weeks ago. That
> > should have been sufficient time those who are interested
> > in it to have a chance to try it out. I feel it is now
> > time to pose a few questions and get your opinions on
> > a couple things.
> >
> > Should a package for LOGGER be included on the FreeDOS
> > release media?
>
> Yes.

+1

I agree with Mercury that it's small and useful enough to be included.

> > If so, should LOGGER be installed with FULL or BASE? Or,
> > possibly just available as an EXTRA? (However, I
> > assume it should not automatically be started on an
> > installed system. Possibly, having a REM’ed line in
> > the FDCONFIG.SYS file.)
>
> Both. It's small (and useful!) enough to warrant the extra tiny bit
> of space used.

We've always defined "Base" to mean "the programs and commands that
replicate classic MS-DOS." So that means LOGGER should not go into
"Base" because LOGGER was not an original MS-DOS program. But putting
this in "Full" is fine.

> > Should LOGGER be included and possibly started
> > automatically when booting the FreeDOS USB or CD release
> > media?
>
> I could see developers opting to install it while most "average"
> users would likely forgo this, so I would say no to auto-start. Or,
> even better, let the installer leave the choice up to the user.

I agree; don't load LOGGER at boot time. This should be something
developers or other interested folks can do.

Since one use case for LOGGER is to help people debug their systems, I
think LOGGER should be something a user can uncomment to activate it.
So have it as a REM'd comment.


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] EXIST NUL

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Jun 12, 2023 at 4:05 PM Bret Johnson  wrote:
>
> Rather than merely trying to copy the way MS did/does things regarding
> IF EXIST X:NUL, I think we can discuss what the "right" way to handle
> things should be.

We should still fix the FreeDOS behavior to match the MS-DOS behavior.
But if we're going to talk about the "right" way to do things, what
about a new, separate "test" command to evaluate things?

I'm using Unix and Linux as a model, but not suggesting we emulate
completely the features of Unix. But the Unix 'test' tool does some
neat things. My suggestions for a "test" like command:

TEST /F file
Returns errorlevel zero if the file exists, nonzero if not. This is like doing:
IF EXIST d:\path\file [..]
..but it puts the test on a separate line in the batch file, and you
use the errorlevel afterwards to do your condition.

TEST /D dir
Returns errorlevel zero if the dir exists, nonzero if not. This is like doing:
IF EXIST d:\path\NUL [..]
..but it can be made more reliable.


I think string tests are also useful:


TEST /Z str
Returns zero if the str is empty, nonzero if not. This is like doing:
IF z%VAR%==z [..]
..but it makes the test more obvious.

TEST /S str
Returns zero if the str is not empty, nonzero if empty. This is the
opposite of "TEST /z str"


Number value comparisons can also be a handy thing for some batch files:


TEST /n n1 comp n2
Test various comparisons on numbers. My nature is to use Fortran-like
comparisons here, like:

TEST /n a LT b
TEST /n a LE b
Returns errorlevel zero if "a" is less than "b" (for LE, "less than or
equal") nonzero if not

TEST /n a GT b
TEST /n a GE b
Returns errorlevel zero if "a" is greater than "b" (for GE, "greater
than or equal") nonzero if not

TEST /n a EQ b
Returns errorlevel zero if "a" is equal to "b", nonzero if not

TEST /n a NE b
Returns errorlevel zero if "a" is not equal to "b", nonzero if not


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[Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on June 18

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share a reminder that our next FreeDOS virtual
get-together is coming up on Sunday, June 18, 2023 at 11am US/Central.
That's two weeks from today.

We alternate topics every time. This month's focus is "social time."
We'll probably cover technical topics too, but this is mostly a time
for folks to get to know each other as more than just an email
address.

As always, we'll do the meeting via BlueJeans (I use this for remote
meetings in my consulting practice). I'll share the meeting URL
shortly before the meeting starts. I'll also share it on the website,
on Facebook, and on Mastodon.


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[Freedos-devel] DOS windowing library, and DOS dir/file find utility

[Jim Hall]

I posted this as a news item on the website, but I wanted to share it on
the email list too:


Richard Hulse emailed me about releasing his DOS programs as open source:

> I recently released a couple of things I wrote back in 1991, for use in
> DOS, which may be of interest to your community.
>
> The first is a windowing library written in ASM, and the second is a
> utility that looks for files and directories.
>
> I used both for years, and thought I had lost the code, but recently
> found them on a disc so I have released them under an MIT license.

You can find them here:

1. Windowing library
https://github.com/rhulse/dos-asm-windowing-library

2. dir/file find utility
https://github.com/rhulse/go
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Bloček 1.73

[Jim Hall]

On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 10:03 AM Ladislav Lacina  wrote:
>
> Today I released a new version of my text editor and image viewer Bloček.
> The project page with download links is: http://www.laaca.borec.cz/blocek/
>[..]


Thanks! I'll mirror this to ibiblio and post a news item on the website.


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday!

[Jim Hall]

See you in about half an hour!
https://bluejeans.com/358432980/6741


FYI that I can only be online for about an hour today. I'll need to
wrap up a little after noon (US/Central).


On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 11:27 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I wanted to remind everyone that our next FreeDOS virtual get-together is 
> coming up soon - Sunday, April 16 at 11am US/Central. Use your favorite 
> timezone converter to find your local time.
>
> As always, we'll do the meeting via Bluejeans. I'll share the meeting URL 
> here shortly before the meeting. Also on the website, Facebook, and Mastodon.
>
> We alternate topics every month. Last month was social time, that means this 
> month is technical. This is a good time to ask technical questions or do live 
> debugging so you can bring it back to the list.
>
> See you then!


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[Freedos-devel] Toy CPU 3.1 (announce)

[Jim Hall]

I teach university courses part-time, including a class about general
computing topics, open to all majors. This is not a computer science
class - it's an introductory course that teaches students about how
technology works, to remove the mystery around computing.

To help teach the unit on "how programming works" I wanted a visual
aid to demonstrate programming in machine code using "switches and
lights." When we walked through a history of computing, and I showed a
slide of 1950s computers, students struggled to know how you could
program a computer without a keyboard. So I wanted to show them how
this works using a *very* simple model (an Altair emulator would have
been too much overhead).

So I wrote the Toy CPU. This is a DOS program that runs in graphics
mode to emulate an old Altair-like computer with LEDs and switches.

I updated the Toy to version 3.1 today, fixing a bug where the
Accumulator might carry values beyond 255, but display a zero value.

https://github.com/freedosproject/toycpu

This version also includes major changes to the Readme.


Jim


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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday!

[Jim Hall]

I wanted to remind everyone that our next FreeDOS virtual get-together is
coming up soon - Sunday, April 16 at 11am US/Central. Use your favorite
timezone converter to find your local time.

As always, we'll do the meeting via Bluejeans. I'll share the meeting URL
here shortly before the meeting. Also on the website, Facebook, and
Mastodon.

We alternate topics every month. Last month was social time, that means
this month is technical. This is a good time to ask technical questions or
do live debugging so you can bring it back to the list.

See you then!
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[Freedos-devel] FreePascal bug [off-list]

[Jim Hall]

A user emailed me (late last year) with a bug/issue report on
FreePascal in FreeDOS 1.3. I was going to (finally) reply to say they
really should ask the FreePascal people about this, but I realized I
couldn't really make out what they were saying. This is the part of
their email that relates to the FreePascal problem:

> I believe this is a Free Pascal issue because the short
> hello world test works, but if you decide to use any
> objects, the Video unit is completely missing.  There is
> reference to consolidation of the video functions but no
> references to where the the functions in that unit went.
> Actually as good as Free Pascal are, they are getting
> pretty sloppy with keeping their work updates current in
> their wiki.  There are a lot of circular references that
> are dead ends when it comes to useful information for
> experienced users.


Not sure what this is talking about, but I'm not a Pascal programmer.
And their email kept going off onto tangents, so it was hard to
follow. Does this "bug report" make sense to anyone?


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together tomorrow (Sunday)

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone!

Here's the URL for the FreeDOS virtual get-together, starting in ten minutes:

https://bluejeans.com/683879830/9370

See you there!

On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 6:35 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone! I wanted to remind you that our next FreeDOS virtual
> get-together is tomorrow (Sunday) at 11am US/Central for about an
> hour. Use your favorite timezone converter to find your local time.
> For example:
> https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
>
> We alternate topics every month, and this month the focus is "social
> time." We might discuss some technical topics, but mostly this is an
> opportunity to chat and get to know each other better.
>
> As always, the get-together will be via BlueJeans - that's what I use
> for my consulting practice. I'll share the URL shortly before the
> meeting starts. While you can connect using the web version from any
> modern browser (BlueJeans recommends Chrome) we've found that you get
> the best performance if you download the desktop client from
> bluejeans.com
>
> See you tomorrow!


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[Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together tomorrow (Sunday)

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone! I wanted to remind you that our next FreeDOS virtual
get-together is tomorrow (Sunday) at 11am US/Central for about an
hour. Use your favorite timezone converter to find your local time.
For example:
https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

We alternate topics every month, and this month the focus is "social
time." We might discuss some technical topics, but mostly this is an
opportunity to chat and get to know each other better.

As always, the get-together will be via BlueJeans - that's what I use
for my consulting practice. I'll share the URL shortly before the
meeting starts. While you can connect using the web version from any
modern browser (BlueJeans recommends Chrome) we've found that you get
the best performance if you download the desktop client from
bluejeans.com

See you tomorrow!


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 released!

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 4:27 PM Gregory Pietsch  wrote:
>
> Twenty years in the making, FreeDOS Edlin 2.22 is now released unto
> an unsuspecting world. The latest bug report/feature request that I
> have tried to tackle is one that backup files aren't created if the
> backup file already exists and is read-only. This is consistent with
> historical (hysterical) behavior.
>


FYI: folks can download it from Edlin at Sourceforge, at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos-edlin/

I've also mirrored it at the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, at
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/edlin/2.22/


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Re: [Freedos-devel] MS-DOG (was Re: [Freedos-user] FSF)

[Jim Hall]

Tom wrote:
> > I also dislike Richard. we can leave it at that.

Ralf wrote:
> That makes two of us.. He had a basically good idea decades ago and then

+1


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[Freedos-devel] Needs testing: SJGPlay

[Jim Hall]

I wanted to start a new thread for this request. Based on the
discussion from the "FreeDOS package issues" thread, Jerome identified
that the CDP package didn't include source code. Robert suggested
SJGPlay as a replacement.

Could anyone with a CD player and a sound card on their computer
please test SJGPlay with actual music CDs and comment here if SJGPlay
works well. (I don't have a CD drive on any of my computers, so I
can't test this myself.)


Jerome wrote:
> > > 4) CDP, This is not open source software. It is Freeware without
> > > sources. Should this be removed. Is there an decent open source
> > > alternative?

Robert wrote:
> > Maybe someone wants to ask Steve J. Gray
> > to release source code (QuickBASIC 4.5) for his SJGPlay TUI player:
> > http://www.6502.org/users/sjgray/software/sjgplay/sjgplay_dos.html

Jim wrote:
> > I liked Robert's suggestion to ask Steve J. Gray about SJGPlay. I've
> > emailed Steve to ask if he will release the source code under an open
> > source license so we can include it in FreeDOS. If yes, I think we
> > should replace CDP with SJGPlay.

Jim wrote:
> I emailed Steve and he was very gracious and decided to release the
> source code to SJGPlay under the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license.
> This effectively puts the code into the public domain.
>
> You can find it at:
> http://www.6502.org/users/sjgray/software/sjgplay/sjgplay_dos.html


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS package issues

[Jim Hall]

> On Wed, 15 Feb 2023, E. Auer wrote:
>
> > Well, you can tell a CD drive to play track X using my
> > minimalist cdrom2ui, but I think that would be sort of
> > an INdecent open source alternative because it is too
> > minimal :-D On the other hand, a QuickBasic solution
> > sounds like something needing FreeBASIC in QB mode, or
> > something which compiles into a large binary? That is
> > probably too non-minimal?

On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 4:30 PM Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> Would it be something not too hard to bang out with a decent C compiler?
>
> I've never written a CD player interface per se, but if all the
> information can be retrieved, and all the commands can be executed, why
> not?

I haven't written a CD Player either, but I would think it's not too
hard. If you can read the waveform from the CD track file, and send
that to the sound card - that seems like that's all you need to do,
no?

Steve has released SJGPlay as CC0. It's a different programming
language, but maybe you can look at his code to implement a similar
player in C.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS package issues

[Jim Hall]

Jerome wrote:
> > 4) CDP, This is not open source software. It is Freeware without
> > sources. Should this be removed. Is there an decent open source
> > alternative?

Robert wrote:
> Maybe someone wants to ask Steve J. Gray
> to release source code (QuickBASIC 4.5) for his SJGPlay TUI player:
> http://www.6502.org/users/sjgray/software/sjgplay/sjgplay_dos.html

Jim wrote:
> I liked Robert's suggestion to ask Steve J. Gray about SJGPlay. I've
> emailed Steve to ask if he will release the source code under an open
> source license so we can include it in FreeDOS. If yes, I think we
> should replace CDP with SJGPlay.

I emailed Steve and he was very gracious and decided to release the
source code to SJGPlay under the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license.
This effectively puts the code into the public domain.

You can find it at:
http://www.6502.org/users/sjgray/software/sjgplay/sjgplay_dos.html


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday

[Jim Hall]

Thanks to everyone for joining the FreeDOS virtual get-together this
morning! We had a great discussion about various technical topics,
including packages, looking at Jerome's V8Turbo command shell,
discussing patches, and other tech topics.

We usually do the get-together every month, so watch the calendar for
the next one. We alternate topics, so the next get-together will focus
on "social time."


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Proposal: remove Graphical Desktops from next FreeDOS

[Jim Hall]

It's been a few days since the last comment on this thread, so I think
those who have an opinion on this have voiced it.

The consensus appears to be "Keep OpenGEM but drop oZone and SEAL" so
let's remove oZone and SEAL in the next monthly test release. (These
will not be removed from Ibiblio, so people can always download from
there.)


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Re: [Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone!

The FreeDOS virtual get-together is happening in 20 minutes. See you there!

This month's focus is technical. But as always, we have some social
time at the start anyway. :)

Here's the URL for the meeting:
https://bluejeans.com/438758366/8332


On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 11:38 PM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> I wanted to send a reminder that on Sunday, Feb 19, we have the next
> FreeDOS virtual get-together. It's at 11:00am US/Central Time, use
> your favorite timezone converter to find your local time.
>
> We alternate topics every time. This time, the focus is technical. (And
> probably some social time at the start, anyway.)
>
> As always, we'll do the get-together via Bluejeans (that's the online
> meeting service I use for my training/consulting practice). While you
> can connect to Bluejeans using the Chrome browser, you might get some
> lag. Folks get better performance by downloading the free Bluejeans
> meeting client.
>
> I'll share the meeting URL shortly before the meeting starts.


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[Freedos-devel] Reminder: FreeDOS virtual get-together on Sunday

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to send a reminder that on *Sunday, Feb 19*, we have the next
FreeDOS virtual get-together. It's at *11:00am US/Central Time*, use your
favorite timezone converter to find your local time.

We alternate topics every time. This time, the focus is *technical*. (And
probably some social time at the start, anyway.)

As always, we'll do the get-together via Bluejeans (that's the online
meeting service I use for my training/consulting practice). While you can
connect to Bluejeans using the Chrome browser, you might get some lag.
Folks get better performance by downloading the free Bluejeans meeting
client.

I'll share the meeting URL shortly before the meeting starts.

See you then!
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Re: [Freedos-devel] Proposal: remove Graphical Desktops from next FreeDOS

[Jim Hall]

Danilo Pecher wrote:
> > Quite frankly, I would throw them all on the scrap heap.

Rugxulo wrote:
> I wouldn't quite "throw them away", but for simplicity we really don't
> have to include them. I don't use any GUI in DOS (by default).
>
> [off-topic comments dropped]

And to be clear: I don't plan to delete these from the FreeDOS Files
Archive at Ibiblio. My proposal is just to not include them in the
next FreeDOS distribution. If people want to keep using, say, SEAL -
they can download it and install it themselves.

>From other comments, it sounds like folks are leaning to "Keep OpenGEM
but drop oZone and SEAL" which is a good discussion. So let's try to
keep the conversation focused on that.


Jim


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