Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Karen, the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics Do you recall the items in norton utilities? There is a wikipedia article about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities The first version in 1982 included: unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that bathide - related to filehide timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that reverse - sets colors to black on white clear - you can use cls for that filesort - sorts directories on disk diskopt - tunes floppy access speed beep - just beeps the speaker print - prints files Which free and open tools for directory sorting and disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy sector format, which tools do we have for this style? According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came with a tool called print itself. In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and directory listings, system information, text search, wiping of disks and files etc. Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? Similar for "wipe". Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries some tricks to reconstruct data from almost unreadable sectors, but only supports 128 GB style CHS, not LBA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite claims FreeDOS bundled with SpinRite to trigger some 16-4-8-bit CHS overflow > 128 GB? Well-known free/open alternatives are photorec and testdisk. The batch enhancer is similar to our v8 power tools, I guess. It can beep and show messages in color and with text boxes etc. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Karen, the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics Do you recall the items in norton utilities? There is a wikipedia article about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities The first version in 1982 included: unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that bathide - related to filehide timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that reverse - sets colors to black on white clear - you can use cls for that filesort - sorts directories on disk diskopt - tunes floppy access speed beep - just beeps the speaker print - prints files Which free and open tools for directory sorting and disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy sector format, which tools do we have for this style? According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came with a tool called print itself. In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and directory listings, system information, text search, wiping of disks and files etc. Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? Similar for "wipe". Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries some tricks to reconstruct data from almost unreadable sectors, but only supports 128 GB style CHS, not LBA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite claims FreeDOS bundled with SpinRite to trigger some 16-4-8-bit CHS overflow > 128 GB? Well-known free/open alternatives are photorec and testdisk. The batch enhancer is similar to our v8 power tools, I guess. It can beep and show messages in color and with text boxes etc. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Eric, Do you recall the items in norton utilities? If not, I can post a list of the various tools? I am hoping for a collection of options if that resonates. Norton for example lets you create a repair boot disc, which would be a fine start. that disc then had items to check your hard drive stability, to repair problems, manage formatting those sorts of things. Does that help? Will certainly check out the item you referenced here too. Karen On Tue, 14 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi, some ideas: HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility | | | | HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility HDAT2 is program for test or diagnostics of ATA/ATAPI/SATA, SSD, USB and SCSI devices. | | | ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant | | | | | | | | | | | ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant ASTRA performs computer configuration analysis and provides detailed information on your computer hardware and i... | | | HWiNFO - Free System Information, Monitoring and Diagnostics | | | | | | | | | | | HWiNFO - Free System Information, Monitoring and Diagnostics Free Hardware Analysis, Monitoring and Reporting. In-depth Hardware Information, Real-Time System Monitoring, Re... | | | En martes, 14 de mayo de 2024, 20:28:07 CEST, Eric Auer via Freedos-user escribió: Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm > My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care > and diagnostics of that infrastructure? > For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my > larger drives and so forth. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi Karen, please specify the type of diagnostics you would be interested in. For example PCISLEEP can give you a list of PCI devices in your PC, but you seem to be interested in disk or filesystem analysis etc.? Maybe tools which display the SMART health status of your disks? I remember having used tools for that and to configure disk sleep. SMARTUDM (1997-2003-?) from sysinfolab was one I tried. No idea whether there are variants supporting post-IDE/ATA/SATA drives. SMARTDFT / DFT 3.00 also displayed or logged SMART disk status. Regards, Eric PS: Interesting to notice that Veit's tools still exist on https://kannegieser.net/veit/programm/index_e.htm My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Hi folks, One stated advantage of freedos shared often is the ability to use more contemporary hardware. My hope is that there is also dos based software supporting the care and diagnostics of that infrastructure? For example, while I have Norton Utilities for DOS, it cannot see my larger drives and so forth. Ideas? Thanks, Karen ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Hi, Please consider reporting this to libvirt on GitHub. I'm literally the only user up there who asked for sb16 not to be axed. Speak up, or the devs will speak for you - and usually against your interests. Best regards, Michał W dniu 14.05.2024 o 12:12, Lukáš Kotek via Freedos-user pisze: Hello everyone, I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by specification of audiodev backend driver. Working audio configuration: -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ Problematic audio configuration: -device sb16 \ -device adlib \ I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? Best regards, Lukas 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Good to know! I just upgraded to Fedora 40, and I use QEMU to run FreeDOS. I'll have to update my script that runs QEMU. On Tue, May 14, 2024, 5:35 AM Lukáš Kotek via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its > emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM > always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, > everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info > regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and > relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. > > At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by > specification of audiodev backend driver. > > Working audio configuration: > > -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ > -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ > -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ > -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ > > Problematic audio configuration: > > -device sb16 \ > -device adlib \ > > I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. > Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, > etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. > > I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution > of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also > I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things > I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? > > Best regards, > Lukas > > 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s > 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ > 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] QEMU, DOOM, and sb16 issue resolved with audiodev specification
Hello everyone, I recently hit a problem regarding Sound Blaster 16 card and its emulation using QEMU. In short, if 'sb16' device was specified, DOOM always hung at the moment the sound was about to be initialized. If not, everything worked properly, but without sound. I checked all the info regarding configuration on the wiki, also the youtube video [1] and relevant mailing lists mentioning the same [2] or similar [3] problems. At the end, I found out there is a simple solution for this problem by specification of audiodev backend driver. Working audio configuration: -device sb16,audiodev=snd \ -device adlib,audiodev=snd \ -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd \ -audiodev pipewire,id=snd \ Problematic audio configuration: -device sb16 \ -device adlib \ I am on Fedora 40 and qemu version I am using is qemu-8.2.2-1.fc40. Please, replace pipewire with the backend you actually use (alsa, pa, etc). And sure, proper setting of BLASTER variable is still expected. I'd like to share this here as I noticed there was no clear resolution of these problems in the past. Maybe someone can find it useful :) Also I was thinking about adding a note regarding this (plus few other things I hit in the past) into wiki. What do you think about it, please? Best regards, Lukas 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSyn_6WB04=16s 2. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37302450/ 3. https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/36905837/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code
That attitude toward the MS-DOS source code seems rather limiting and short-sighted. My recent device driver worked well enough on later versions of DOS (and FreeDOS) but I was having a devil of a time trying to figure out why DOS 2.x would not honor the device driver telling it that the media had been changed. Having the source code available allowed me to find a bug in DOS 2.x, and also cleared up several documentation questions (more like outright problems). Being compatible with all flavors of DOS should matter to anybody writing user code, device drivers, or even FreeDOS developers trying to improve the appeal of FreeDOS. MS has no need to placate the open source community, especially with old versions of DOS. This is somebody's passion project. I look forward to when the source code to DOS 3.3 or DOS 5.0 are released. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
