Re: [Freedos-user] Loading old DOS programs under FreeDOS
Amedee Van Gasse schreef: > Eric Auer schreef: >> Hi :-) >> >> I think WordPerfect 5.1 was a really popular word processor >> for DOS, much more suited for DOS use than graphical Word >> versions today... >> >> The ODF and MS-OOXML formats are, as far as I remember, both >> actually "renamed" ZIP files with several XML files inside. >> >> I think MS-OOXML also has binary files inside for printer >> settings or similar sometimes. While the full office formats >> are indeed extremely complex, you can often get a quite good >> idea of the text content by unzipping the XML inside which has >> the focus on content, as opposed to layout etc, and then >> removing all XML tags and attributes. Example: >> >> ... >> Hello >> ... >> >> ...would simply be reduced to "Hello", easy to read in DOS. >> Does anybody know a nice program for that for DOS? When in >> doubt, you can always use the DJGPP port of GNU textutils, >> for example the SED tool, to remove the XML markups... ;-) > > > I know there is a program on Linux that does exactly that, but I forgot > its name. Shouldn't be hard to find. If someone could port that... > Found it: odt2txt http://stosberg.net/odt2txt/ I don't see a reason to reinvent the weel. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Loading old DOS programs under FreeDOS
Michael Robinson schreef: (...) > It is truly sad that Microsoft, since it doesn't support it's > dos versions of Word anymore, won't allow free redistribution > of it. The reality is, there are very few old computers left > that can only run dos, compared to the number of computers that > run Linux or Windows. (...) > Open office is too heavy for dos anyways. Any efforts to port > abiword to dos? How about producing an OSS clone of Windows > 3.11 or Windows 98SE? The advantage of doing the latter is > that the clone can be made to work with freedos instead of > the other way around. I have never felt that Windows NT > was a good replacement for dos based Windows. Microsoft > did a sloppy job, too many 9x programs want to be run as > administrator on an 2000/XP system. (...) Most old computers that you would want to use for word processing, can run a lightweight Linux and Abiword. That could explain why nobody bothers to write/port a word processor for DOS. Anyway you really don't need a GUI at all when you have things like LaTeX. (...) > If people hand out illegal copies of software, it hurts > efforts to replace that software with something like open > office or ReactOS plus Open Office for example. Why bother > with free stuff if you can get commercial software without > paying for it? If the open source alternatives catch on, > the legal problems of pirating software go away. (...) And vice versa: if more illegal use of software is tracked down and punished, Software Libre will become more attractive. Remember the "Get Legal" campaign that OpenOffice.org did? I'm doing my little part: friends and family think that I'm their free service desk because I work in IT, but I simply refuse to help anyone with illegal software. The message is getting there: their usage of OpenOffice is increasing. Although that may also be because I was often able to repair a corrupt MS Office file with OpenOffice. "OpenOffice can fix files that MS Office can't!" Anyway, it's a bit off topic for a mailing list about FreeDOS. ;-) -- Amedee -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Loading old DOS programs under FreeDOS
Eric Auer schreef: > Hi :-) > > I think WordPerfect 5.1 was a really popular word processor > for DOS, much more suited for DOS use than graphical Word > versions today... > > The ODF and MS-OOXML formats are, as far as I remember, both > actually "renamed" ZIP files with several XML files inside. > > I think MS-OOXML also has binary files inside for printer > settings or similar sometimes. While the full office formats > are indeed extremely complex, you can often get a quite good > idea of the text content by unzipping the XML inside which has > the focus on content, as opposed to layout etc, and then > removing all XML tags and attributes. Example: > > ... > Hello > ... > > ...would simply be reduced to "Hello", easy to read in DOS. > Does anybody know a nice program for that for DOS? When in > doubt, you can always use the DJGPP port of GNU textutils, > for example the SED tool, to remove the XML markups... ;-) I know there is a program on Linux that does exactly that, but I forgot its name. Shouldn't be hard to find. If someone could port that... -- Amedee -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Loading old DOS programs under FreeDOS
Marco Antonio Achury Palma schreef: > My all times favorite DOS word processing program was WordPerfect 5.1, > has a very hard learning curve, but once you learn the keystrokes is > really eficient, I worked a lot with it and tested WP6.0 but was very > slow on amy 486SLC with 2 Mb Ram... > > With WP you can make things like look for all ocurrences of > [NewLine][NewLine][Tab] and replace to [NewLine][Tab][Tab] I don't > know how to do this with WinWord but by sure you can't do it without > write some VB code. Actually, you can. I have done it in Word 2003. I don't have a copy of MS Word on this Linux box so I can't explain in detail, but trust me it can be done without VBA. It's not well documented tho. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Purpose of dos...
Michael Robinson schreef: > I like dos when I have an old computer and some old games that > work under dos. Running Windows on a 486 is a pain in general. > Even a low end Pentium these days is slow. (...) > Freedos is free and useful insofar as it is compatible with > MS-DOS when it needs to be to run old software. > > Freedos is useful if there are applications written specifically > for it for those of us who don't have functional MS-DOS software > lying around. I use Freedos for a programming game. I write programs in Pascal[*], compile them in FreeDos, and let them compete in a simulator that only works on DOS. [*] Cue bashing of my favorite toy programming language ;-) -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Purpose of dos...
On Mon, January 19, 2009 16:12, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi! > >> Just make regular backups, and keep a clean image. >> Make one before you go in the interwebz. >> Got a virus? Just wipe the disk and put the image back. > > As you do not always notice the virus at once, you > better also keep older images. Or maybe you keep a > few generations of backups of your program folders > and separate backups of your data files. Makes it > easier to restore programs without rewinding data. That's a part of every good backup strategy. >> I just want to know, is FreeDOS IPv6 compatible? > > No DOS uses any internet at all - only DOS programs > do... Argh... that's what I meant. It's not a big deal for me tho. Just "nice to have". >> I have an ancient laptop, small and light enough to >> carry around, and with reasonable battery life. I'll >> make it my netbook avant-la-lettre. I just >> have to get the network card working. > > If it is ancient, it should be possible :-). Modern > PCI / PCIe / onboard network also has reasonable > support, better than ISA / PCMCIA I would say. Just > wireless everything has very missing drivers in DOS. I think I have a promblem with the PCMCIA. I will investigate further, and if I don't find it, I'll start a new thread. >>> - zip -r x:\everyth.zip c:\ (same idea as above but compressed) >>> - use doscdroast GUI or mkisofs/cdrecord (iso9660 CD or DVD) > >> ... I prefer 7zip. It has superior compression rates. > > If you have enough RAM and a suitable CPU (Pentium MMX / better?) > to make 7zip work at acceptable speed, yes ;-) Ancient laptop, but still Celeron and 192 MiB RAM. :) -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Purpose of dos...
On Sun, January 18, 2009 19:28, Eric Auer wrote: >> As far as web browsing and dos, isn't dos susceptible to almost >> every single virus on the planet? Another thing, some people >> want to run dos thinking that it can't browse the Internet. > > DOS is too old to support modern viruses, so unless you download > infected copies of old DOS software, risks are quite acceptable. > And of course you can use antivirus software for DOS... Disk space is almost ubiquitous. Lets say your 486 has a 500 MiB hard disk, which was quite big at the time. I can now fit that 16 times on my 8 GiB usb stick. Just make regular backups, and keep a clean image. Make one before you go in the interwebz. Got a virus? Just wipe the disk and put the image back. It only takes a couple of minutes. I think that, except for the embedded developers, most FreeDOS users use it on a hobby machine. It's not a bad idea to isolate it from your main network. Put it on a separate subnet, in a DMZ. Sandbox it. Or virtualize. Qemu works great on Linux. >> I want to go the Netware route because Netware without >> special IPX to IP gateway software isn't Internet compatible > > You want to avoid internet compatibility?? ² I just want to know, is FreeDOS IPv6 compatible? ;-) >> I'd like to see the MARS netware emulator brought >> over to freedos and revived. > > Why not, say, Samba? There already is smbclient for DOS. Didn't know that! Kewl! >> of Freedos being to revive old computers that aren't >> powerful enough to run Windows or Linux and I see it's >> purpose as being to provide a simple OS for the embedded >> computing market. Yes Freedos can be run in an emulator, >> but that isn't my favorite application of it. > > It is indeed useful for embedded computing and when you > want a small OS which is not in the way while you want > to access your hardware directly. I also like running it > in dosemu or full emulators, for old games and testing. > As I only use one (modern, fast, energy-efficient) PC > normally, I do not typically revive ancient PCs ;-). I have an ancient laptop, small and light enough to carry around, and with reasonable battery life. I'll make it my netbook avant-la-lettre. I just have to get the network card working. >> Something that would be nice would be a modified dhcp >> client for freedos that through some reasonable trick >> can accept a different configuration for a particular >> machine than it would normally get. I'm thinking, an >> isolated network for freedos with an update repository >> on that network would be nice. The alternative... > > I see no reason to isolate DOS. Only servers are at risk > regarding "bad internet trying to infect your PC" and in > DOS, you do not have any server running in the background. > That said, I wonder how safe Sioux / EzNos DOS servers are. > (And you can also tweak dhcp SERVERS, instead of clients) Isolation of DOS isn't a client issue, it's a server/network issue. You don't need a modified DHCP client. You only need a well organized network with subnets/VLANs, and a good DHCP server. >> One request for freedos is a nice Gem based backup program >> that can back the system up in part or in entirety to >> anything from a network share to a local DVD burner or >> hard disk. I'm thinking a modern and free program >> with a MyBackup like environment. > > While it is not GEM, what do you think about: > cdd c:\ and then... > > - xcopy /e /s c:\ x:\ (where X: is your USB stick or similar) > - zip -r x:\everyth.zip c:\ (same idea as above but compressed) > - use doscdroast GUI or mkisofs/cdrecord (iso9660 CD or DVD) Indeed. But for my personal use, I prefer 7zip. It has superior compression rates. -- Amedee who will be following this list with more attention, and who will ask questions, and maybe answer some too! -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Purpose of dos...
On Sun, January 18, 2009 09:02, Jim Lemon wrote: > The extensions I'm interested in are mainly those that allow me to > access newer filesystems so that the people who use my tests won't > whinge as much about having to transfer files from DOS to NTFS or the > like. Perhaps something like FUSE (Filesystems in Userspace) could be ported from Linux to FreeDOS? I don't know if it's possible... but I really like the concept of FUSE. -- Amedee -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
