Hi, I'm late to replying, but I've read the entire thread, thus you seem to have "mostly" ironed everything out. Anyways, here's a few extra comments, just for completeness.
On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 2:18 AM, Andrew Robins <arob...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > > So this little excursion has taken me quite a bit longer to get around > than I hoped. I have a couple of questions from a noobs perspective - > 1) I seem to recall (?) 'type' and 'write' commands in previous DOS > versions that could be used with a given switch to print to screen a > large document page-by-page. What is the trick to do this in commandline > FreeDOS? I find I have to use EDIT to read text over a page long - and > EDIT won't let me read large files like USBINTRO.DOC. I think you mean "type" and "more" here, but that is fairly primitive. Yes, sadly, FD EDIT is limited to 64k per "buffer" (though I think you can load multiple files), which is by design (and more or less due to difficulty in handling segments). It's not impossible to edit larger files in pure 640k conv. memory, but most 16-bit editors don't handle it well. If the default editor isn't enough, you have many options, but it depends on what exactly you want it to do. E.g., I'm not sure mg2a or Stevie or EZEDIT would fit the bill for you. Though the lazy way out would be to just use 386+ software. > 2) How do I see error messages that flip off-screen during bootup? I had > a few memory allocation error messages when trying to get USBUHCI.com > and USBDRIVE.com loaded in FDCONFIG.SYS using either "install > c:\fdos\bin..." or "device=c:\fdos\bin..." approaches. Had to film the > bootup with my smartphone and take a snapshot to read the apparent > memory conflict (? red herring- no uhci) with JEMMX, EMM386 and XMGR > bootup options. Is there a log file generated somewhere for such error > messages? Don't know. I'll bet some of the bigger gurus know of a clever hack, but offhand I'm not sure. Nothing in the document below showed anything obvious. I'm almost surprised it doesn't already support a pause command internally. http://www.freedos.org/kernel/config.txt I guess you could just quickly press the Pause key when/if needed (to pause the BIOS), but that may not be quite good enough. EDIT: You could try the following (untested by me) quick hack if desperate: http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/tristar/debug/debug/InsertPausesInConfigSys.html > 3) rather than muddle from a commandline level, is there a file manager > that could be recommended to new users to DOS, for retrieving background > docs etc? I've tried DOSSTART and even Arachne seemed to have that > feature... what are the possible alternatives? "retrieving background docs" sounds like something more complicated, TSR-based?? Not sure, lemme check something ... try this: TFB 8k TSR File Browser http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/dos/tfb.zip Otherwise, if you just want a generic file manager without any weird hacks, try NDN or Doszip. Both have editors these days (though the latter is slightly more experimental). http://ndn.muxe.com/ http://sf.net/projects/doszip > 3) Are there any intentions to automate fdconfig and autoexec file > updates? When installing different modules from the options menu on the > FreeDOS CD, it would be nice to have the respective devices implanted at > the optimum position in the fdconfig.sys file... that is probably an > insurmountable wish, however.. "Optimum position" for what, memory? So you want a MEMMAKER clone? No, FreeDOS doesn't have one yet. But it shouldn't be too hard to arrange manually. Any TSRs that can be cleanly unloaded via cmdline switch should be installed last, hence giving you the possibility to free up the most amount of space without hard rebooting. (Anyways, a nicely crafted multi-option CONFIG.SYS menu works wonders.) > Seems like I'll have to go with a 3rd-party option like USBASPI.SYS from > Panasonic > (http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usb-driver-for-dos-usbaspisys/15568.html) > or DUSE 4.4 (http://www.tecumsehconsulting.com/usb.htm). Or maybe Georg's, as mentioned (N.B. shareware, untested by me): http://www.dosusb.net/ > I seem to recall that Eric Auer had packaged some likely prospects > for USB in DOS together somewheres, will have to back-track. Any > suggestions on the matter would be gratefully accepted - including > perhaps some example fdconfig.sys and/if autoexec.bat line > inclusions that work for others in the OHCI boat. I don't recall Eric doing anything, but who knows. Maybe you meant some wget scripts (for legal reasons)?? Dunno. His page has been (mostly?) mirrored below. http://ericauer.cosmodata.virtuaserver.com.br/soft/ http://www.auersoft.eu/soft/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Next-Gen Firewall Hardware Offer Buy your Sophos next-gen firewall before the end March 2013 and get the hardware for free! Learn more. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sophos-d2d-feb _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
