[Freedos-user] FDOS basic how-to questions
From: e.a...@jpberlin.de Hi Pierre :-) As somebody already replied, you could make a bootable USB stick with DOS. Yes, but how? I don't know how since the flash drive isn't accessible on my FDOS PC. Then the BIOS will play the driver for DOS. ? Note that you cannot plug the stick in or out after booting in that case. I gathered that much... Sometimes the BIOS even makes USB disks visible as harddisks if you do NOT boot from them. But you still have to reboot whenever you plug another stick, I think. Sounds right. The other option is to use USB drivers for DOS. At the moment, the Bret Johnson drivers ( http://bretjohnson.us/ ) are a common choice, as they are free and open. I went to that site. I D/L the all file, which seemed cool to me, since it wasn't that big (~400k) 2ut I didn't see any file/utils that would apply to my USB FD (flash drive) Boot/access ordeal. There are also shareware DOS drivers, even with USB 3.0 high speed support, by Georg Potthast ( http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/ ) which only work for a while after each boot until you register them. Both drivers have the limitation that not all mainboards / chipsets are supported. You can also download a number of older, commercial drivers, which usually came with some hardware but often also work with other. Good to know, thanx. Burning files to CD / DVD / BluRay is hard in DOS, because you need stronger drivers for your (e.g. ATAPI or SATA) drive. Some people have collected commercial drivers which you could use with DOSCDROAST or similar toolkits, with the same problem as using old commercial DOS USB disk drivers. The problem being they're not FREE? If you find a safe way of using USB sticks, that is probably the solution with less headache. Memory cards such as SD in USB readers also count as USB stick in that sense, and might actually respect the write-protect tab on the card for you. Built-in card readers may or may not behave as USB readers. Right. Note that you can even plug CF memory cards to IDE connectors with simple mechanical adapters. Every operating system and BIOS should accept them as harddisk replacement that way, of course again without the ability to plug them in or out while DOS is running. Hmmm, I don't see this as a working solution. Nevertheless, good to know. Note that speed of all sorts of flash sticks or cards is bad in typical DOS use, because DOS does not pool writes and does not usually read-ahead. The latter can be fixed by loading lbacache with the tickle tool. Or you can load uide which is a very big cache. Both only work for BIOS supported drives, they will not notice drives connected with separate drivers. I'm banking on any FD, even in DOS, is at least faster than floppies. Is that not the case? I'm hoping so, but even if not, the capacity advantage more than compensates for any lack of speed, to me anyway. Neither will pool writes, though. Because flash storage is often low in writes per second, you get slow writes with DOS. Other operating systems do few-but-big writes. If your disk is SSD, you can forget most of those but items, SSD are flash disks which are very fast even with bad drivers. I do use an SSD, but not in my FDOS PC. Regards, Eric Thanx for all the valued info! -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FDOS basic how-to questions
From: rugx...@gmail.com Hi, Almost none of them have it pre-installed these days. I bought a Sony USB-hosted floppy drive, and it works (in DOS), but I've not used it a lot lately. I have one too, but mine isn't a Sony drive. I think mine is a Dell laptop drive. I forget where I ordered it from, but in their descriptions, they touted the Dell drive's reliability which surprised me, but so far, so good. I was able to use clear packing tape to mount it inside an old aluminum HD cooler that I had lying around. It does work in Win. I haven't tried it in DOS. I use it in Win for quick-formatting the myriads of 1.44s I have. Yes, old machines are more than adequate for most DOS stuff (and sometimes better, due to more compatible hardware). I agree with that 100%! Apparently the damn stupid universal serial bus (USB) has various versions and host controllers or whatnot. UHCI is one of them, supported by Intel and VIA motherboards, I gather. Unfortunately, some computers (like this Lenovo desktop) don't support it, only other stuff (EHCI). Blech. Yesterday, I read a little about that USB 'junk'. I quickly realized how big a mess it was! Typical of Intel to try set a standard in hopes that it would stick or take-off again. They did have some successes such as the PCI bus others, though. They also had failures, though. RAMBUS comes to my mind. That reason and a couple others is why I'm now in the AMD camp. :) BTW, in trying to get the FD (flash drive) going, I tried setting it to be the first boot device. Currently, the first boot device is the CDR, #2 is the floppy, then the HD is #3. I have #4 set to disabled. FDOS is perfectly happy with this set-up. I knew I needed to add the flash drive as #1, if I wanted to boot from it. I assumed the following choice was for USB, but wasn't sure. Any clues on this: Intel UNDI, PXE-1.0 (build dev.) I haven't the foggiest idea as to what that is, do you? When I tried it as the #1 boot device, I got a non-system disk error to check cabling... After that, I gave-up and set all my boot devices back the way they were. I get it, floppies are small, slow, and error-prone. They're not perfect. I don't expect anybody to want to use floppies, but ... it's so much harder to get USB support on non-mainstream OSes. You can say that again! :) USB is just too complicated, but since everybody only uses Linux, Windows, ... then nobody cares about complexity nor requirements of anybody else. Yes, I'm following you there. I chalk it all up to mainstream marketing. IOW, if we can't make big bucks on it, we'll have to drop it:) It's definitely a headache, at least for me. Maybe some others here (Ulrich, Mike B.) can give hints, if you're curious. I kinda doubt it to be a worthwhile project. There are just a few documents text files that I would've liked to have... I figure that I've been without them for this long... It's just one of those things where it'd be nice, but there's not a dire need. I have to try to make it work, though. Go for the flash drive. For me, RUFUS works well, so I can't complain (too hard) about lack of floppy support. I'll try it. I haven't had too much luck with RMprepUSB anyways. Sure, compared to floppies, it's fine. But I'm not sure long-term storage is a realistic goal. Mainly because I've heard (but can't prove) that CD-Rs don't last but about 5-7 years anyways. That's tough to hear. I was under the assumption that they're ultra-reliable since they're not affected by magnetic fading or magnetic fields. Not to mention the lack of physical contact with the drive hardware. I thought CDs were pretty much indestructible... -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FDOS basic how-to questions
From: bblaauw@home.nlRugxulo schreef op 8-5-2013 23:16: Something like this still has some legacy controllers/connectors/headers: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z77%20Professional/?cat=Specifications I bought an ASROCK MB that had a floppy controller on it, but I had to return it as a defectiveunit. I may be wrong, but I swore off that brand becasuse of that ordeal. Yes the OHCI versus UHCI (both USB1.1) battle isn't much fun if all you want is a working controller. EHCI (USB2.0) is more universal, just like xHCI (USB3.0). Generic drivers are nearly always non-existing though, especially floppy and CD drivers. Thanx, good to know... Let's not even start talking about how bootable FireWire interface is on computers, compared to Apple. Glad that Thunderbolt is taking over for (bootable) highspeed external devices. Bernd LOL! :) -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] [ANN] picotap 0.0.2 - DOS/OpenWatcom compatible TAP generator parser
picotap is a tiny TAP-protocol[1] generator library (test) and TAP parser (test harness) written in C and JavaScript (Browser OneMonkey JS). It was inspired by code in kazuho's github projects. It now compiles and runs on Linux, OSX, DOS and your Browser. Code: https://github.com/lpsantil/picotap Zip: https://sites.google.com/site/lpsantil/Home/ptap002s.zip [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Anything_Protocol -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Intel UNDI PXE
intel undi pxe is the preload execution environment (p.x.e.) that allows your computer to boot off ethernet network: a network boot. undi is searchable on google and a careful search engine study reveals it to have something to do with network boot: universal network device interface (u.n.d.i.). select, so-equipped computers can boot off undi pxe. eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com BTW, in trying to get the FD (flash drive) going, I tried setting it to be the first boot device. Currently, the first boot device is the CDR, #2 is the floppy, then the HD is #3. I have #4 set to disabled. FDOS is perfectly happy with this set-up. I knew I needed to add the flash drive as #1, if I wanted to boot from it. I assumed the following choice was for USB, but wasn't sure. Any clues on this: Intel UNDI, PXE-1.0 (build dev.) -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Bret Johnson USB driver documentation summary attempt
Hi USB users :-) This is a reply to FDOS basic how-to questions, trying to give an introduction to Bret's drivers and a summary of the documents or at least ideas about which bits to read. As somebody already replied, you could make a bootable USB stick with DOS. Yes, but how? I don't know how since the flash drive isn't accessible on my FDOS PC. You create the bootable stick using another PC / OS. People seem to recommend RUFUS for Windows for this which probably is much easier than sys-freedos.pl (sys-freedos-linux) :-) For example Rugxulo should be able to explain Rufus afair. Then the BIOS will play the driver for DOS. ? When the BIOS can boot from USB storage it means that it knows how to access it. And when you boot from USB stick, the BIOS will do exactly that for you. From the point of view of DOS, it will look as if you have booted from any normal harddisk... Some BIOS versions can also do this with as if ... floppy or as if ... ZIP drive so DOS might end up thinking that your stick is A: and not C:. 2ut I didn't see any file/utils that would apply to my USB FD (flash drive) Boot/access ordeal. That is because the all file is about all OTHER programs. You want the this file (usbdos.zip) instead. In the all.zip file you get stuff like a resident clock, joystick or mouse used to send cursor keys, a tool to slow down your PC in case your DOS programs run too fast, print screen to file, gamepad driver, keyboard macro tool, serial port status info... :-) The usbdos file comes with 20 000 lines of documentation which is a lot of info for us. Note that usbdos only uses the slower USB UHCI or USB 1.1 transfer, but I think newer chipsets still support that as well so the only problem is speed loss: Factor 40 slower than USB 2.0 could do, even more compared to USB 3. The documentation includes a technical handbook for people who want to write further drivers for specific USB devices and the introduction for those who want to use the existing drivers, at power-user level. The short story is that you want to load USBUHCI to drive your USB controller inside the PC, then one or more other drivers for the USB devices that you want to use later. If you do not use PS/2 for those, you will have to load USBKEYB and USBMOUSE for your keyboard and mouse, because the BIOS will stop helping you with USB keyboards and mice as soon as you start using your own DOS driver for the USB controller. For USB sticks / disks / floppy, you want to use USBDRIVE. You can also load USB printer drivers and a few others from Bret. Maybe Bret (or Richard Bonner) could write some quick start document for the average DOS user and include it in the ZIP? In case you have wondered, the drivers are free, open source, with the restriction that you must not make non-free software from them nor charge (more than your own expense) for copies. Some page numbers to read in USBINTRO, nr. are at page bottom: 15 introduction to the tree like connection structure of USB 16, 17 USB philosophy introduction 27 UHCI OHCI EHCI XHCI ... controllers: If you have USB 2, you have both EHCI and implicitly either OHCI or UHCI USB 1 compat. Note that only UHCI is compatible with the DOS drivers of Bret! 28 use USBHOSTS to know if you have UHCI (Intel / Via) as needed Note that there is also OHCI, which is the not supported OTHER variant of USB 1. If you have USB 2, you also have either UHCI (good) or OHCI (you will need another driver). Not sure how much those 2 variants differ from each other. Maybe Bret can explain? 29 both real mode (at most HIMEM) and VCPI (EMM386) are compatible with the DOS drivers, but DPMI (Windows) is not. 33 maybe, if you really want to know how fast or slow you can get 34, 35 what the legacy talk is about, what BIOS legacy support is The following pages explain how the BIOS does that and why using DOS USB drivers often means that the BIOS no longer helps you to use USB keyboard / mouse etc., for all or some of your USB ports. 39 good to know: All drivers are unloadable TSR which you load at the command prompt, no editing of config.sys required :-) 40 good to know: The drivers run in the background, are modular and thus not limited to a certain type of device (e.g. sticks). 41 important to know: The drivers are static, so they do not do special magic for you about plug and play. Instead, plug in the device, then load the driver. When done, you can unload it and then unplug the device. Those two steps are of course optional. 42 good to know: Most drivers make your USB devices look like their classic counterparts for DOS, good for your old software. 45 some debugging tools: USBSUPT1, VENDORID, PS2MTEST, ... 46 put the drivers in a separate directory and add that to your DOS PATH so they can find each other, when necessary. 47 if you do not want the drivers to use UMB, use the lowmemory command line option: USBUHCI LowMemory:Yes And use ? for help. 48 to uninstall e.g. the keyboard driver,
Re: [Freedos-user] FDOS basic how-to questions
Hi Bernd, Pierre, Something like this still has some legacy controllers/connectors/headers: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z77%20Professional/?cat=Specifications I bought an ASROCK MB that had a floppy controller on it, but I had to return it as a defectiveunit. I may be wrong, but I swore off that brand becasuse of that ordeal. Another nice DOS mainboard is the Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 rev 3.1: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3786#ov For AMD Socket AM3+ processors such as Athlon II and Phenom II, Chipset AMD 870 / SB 850, for DDR3 DIMM RAM, with HDA 7.1 sound. USB 3.0, SATA3 at 6 GBit/s, two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (only 16 plus 4 lanes, not full SLI), two PCIe x1 slots (sharing lanes again). Choice between normal BIOS and EFI boot for 3 TB harddisks, LAN up to 1000 Mbit/s, eSATA, S/PDIF digital audio both optical and coax, many USB and SATA sockets, FireWire IEEE 1394a, but also: 3 classic PCI slots, 1 classic IDE connector for up to 2 drives (ATA133 speed), 1 classic floppy connector - for only 1 floppy. Connectors for serial and parallel port - not on-board, needs cables to real printer / rs232 sockets elsewhere in your case. PS/2 (just one, fits keyboard or mouse). In short, you can use this to make a modern PC which still connects to a lot of good old hardware that you may have from DOS times, if necessary :-) Eric PS: You can plug 20 PCIe lanes, 16 for the main (graphics card) PCIe x16 slot, 4 shared between the two x1 slots and the second PCIe x16 (mechanically x16, electrically max x4) slot, which is still fine for e.g. a fast net/disk controller or SSD card. -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
