Re: [Freedos-user] Web forum

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 11:28 AM Norby Droid via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Would there be any interest in a web forum for FreeDos?



This question comes up from time to time, and the consensus has always
been a clear "No." Email lists work very well for discussion,
especially for developers, and email is an open standard that works
for everyone.

Migrating to a web forum also adds questions like "what platform will
everyone want to use?" (several to choose from) and "who will maintain
the web forum" (upgrades) "is the web forum accessible for everyone?"
(if some users cannot use it because it's poorly designed for
accessibility, then it's useless for communication). There's also an
additional issue of user login data (such as GDPR) and clearing data
upon request (required by other laws) that we don't have to worry
about since we are using the email list service provided by
SourceForge (for almost all of the "data" issues, SF deals with that
as the service provider or host).

So as long as SF provides the email list service, I think we'll keep
using those. Especially for developer discussion.

But I get it that some folks prefer a web forum to ask user questions.
As Eric pointed out, BTTR's forum is there (although BTTR's forum is
for *any* DOS topics, not just FreeDOS - and sometimes the topics
there wander quite far from "DOS"). The FreeDOS group on Facebook also
has good "user" discussions - this is another venue to ask "how do I
do __ on FreeDOS?" questions.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/freedosproject/


*As an aside: we aren't the only open source project that "still" uses
email lists for developer communication. For example, LKML is where
Linux developers discuss Linux kernel development topics.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] dos navigator

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 8:31 PM Travis Siegel via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> I found my copy of PTS DOS Source, and was digging through them to see
> some of the differences between that and opendos, for which I also have
> the sources, and I ran across the dos navigator menuing system (at least
> I'm pretty sure it's a menu system, don't currently have a dos machine
> setup anywhere, so can't run it). But, interestingly enough, it's
> opensource as well, and I was curious if free dos would be willing to
> include it, there's a lot of traffic on the list at times looking for a
> decent menuing system, dos navigator could be the answer.  PTS DOS uses
> it, so why not?
>
> It can be found at: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/
>
> just in case anyone is interested in taking a look.
>


FreeDOS already includes DOS Navigator 2. It gets installed from the
Applications group:

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/dn2.html


___
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

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

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

Re: [Freedos-user] the msdos 4.0 sources has some multitasking code

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sat, May 11, 2024, 10:49 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hi  Travis,
> Does that mean the MS Dos code for 7 or so is has been releaced now as
> well?
>


No, Microsoft has only released MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2.0 and 4.00 so far.
Nothing beyond that.
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] documentation update

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Thu, May 9, 2024, 7:03 PM Roger via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> https://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> [..]



The wiki migration (from sourceforge to the new hosting) was incomplete
because the SF server update broke the wiki. I didn't get to copy over the
"how to install on virtualbox" pages before then - but once I'm done with
the client work I'm working on now, I can copy things over from the
database copy and then the wiki will be more complete. As complete as it
was from when we were hosted at SF.

So yes, these pages are currently missing, but they'll be there soon.
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] odd news

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

[..]
> 1. I keep an eye on the "DOS Ain't Dead" forums via their RSS feed,
> and I thought the httpDOS announcement on "DOS Ain't Dead" was
> interesting. And we sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) get
> people who ask what cool network stuff they can do with FreeDOS. And
> this was something that SuperIlu had made, and SuperIlu has done some
> other DOS stuff (like dojs, the javascript programming canvas for DOS)
> so it wasn't just some random person posting about it. So I posted it
> as a news item on the website in case anyone else was interested. But
> I also posted it "first" so it wouldn't be the first item in the news
> feed.
>


And to add: the news item points out that httpDOS isn't fully
functional. It says this:

> SuperIlu has created a simple TLS-capable HTTP server for DOS. As
> SuperIlu explains, "It is not in real working condition" but
> it's an interesting demonstration of what you can do with DOS
> in 2024. httpDOS is distributed under the BSD license, with
> components under other open source licenses. You can find it
> on the httpDOS GitHub project.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] odd news

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 5:30 PM Eric Auer via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
>
> hi! as jim prefers all dos related things to be discussed on-list:
>
> why would a https server which is "not in real working condition"
> and a dos port of gnupg where important features cannot be used
> because dos has no /dev/random (see bttr thread) be newsworthy?
> the changes to nasm do not seem to affect the dos version either?
> i hope it is not necessary to start 3 separate list threads now ;-)
>
> https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/
>


FYI to others: news items from the "FreeDOS @ SourceForge" feed
automatically show up on https://www.freedos.org/ so these items are
also on the FreeDOS website.


I'll answer them, since I posted these news items:

1. I keep an eye on the "DOS Ain't Dead" forums via their RSS feed,
and I thought the httpDOS announcement on "DOS Ain't Dead" was
interesting. And we sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) get
people who ask what cool network stuff they can do with FreeDOS. And
this was something that SuperIlu had made, and SuperIlu has done some
other DOS stuff (like dojs, the javascript programming canvas for DOS)
so it wasn't just some random person posting about it. So I posted it
as a news item on the website in case anyone else was interested. But
I also posted it "first" so it wouldn't be the first item in the news
feed.


2. Again, I thought it was interesting that someone had ported GNU's
GPG to DOS, and the announcement was from someone who had ported
Unix/Linux/GNU programs like this before. So I posted an item about it
on the website. I didn't see the rest of the thread
 that
there's a reproducible bug in generating the keypair. [The RSS feed
doesn't always make it easy to see everything in a thread, at least
with the RSS reader I use.] But not every version of every open source
program will be perfect - "release early, release often."


3. I think programmers would want to know what's going on with the
tools they like to use, and this was an update to a popular assembler
that folks use on DOS. The changes didn't affect functionality, but
that's noted in the news item:
> Netwide Assembler - abbreviated [NASM] - is an assembler
> for the x86 CPU architecture portable to nearly every modern
> platform, and with code generation for many platforms including
> DOS. NASM 2.16.03 was recently released, but is a source build
> machinery and documentation update only. [Changes] include:
> Fix building from git in a separate directory from the source,
> and remove some irrelevant files from the source. There are
> no functionality changes. Download the latest version at [NASM
> 2.16.03] - including the [DOS version].



For anyone who's curious, the FreeDOS website displays 6 news items,
then there's a "More news" link to see the rest of the feed. [This is
a placeholder link .. I'd like to make a change over the summer where
a "View more" button expands to show more news items without leaving
the FreeDOS website.] The news items are:

NASM 2.16.03
2024-05-08 9:16am

GnuPG 1.4.23 for DOS
2024-05-08 9:09am

httpDOS web server for DOS
2024-05-08 9:06am

Microsoft and IBM release MS-DOS 4.00 as open source software
2024-04-27 2:52pm

USBDDOS
2024-04-20 4:34pm

MicroWeb ver 2.0
2024-04-20 4:27pm


And the next few items under "More news" are:

VSBHDA version 1.4
4/20

Public domain libm math library 0.7
4/13

FreeDOS videos on YouTube
4/10

Angband 4.2.5 for DOS
3/20


I didn't think people would mind seeing "news about open source DOS
stuff" on the FreeDOS website. :-)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] DOS spreadsheets

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

We talked about this (briefly) during today's virtual get-together:

I teach a few university courses, and right now is final grades time
(that's why I could stay on the video call for only an hour - lots of
grading)

I use LibreOffice Calc to do final grades (either =LOOKUP or =VLOOKUP)
but you can actually do the same thing with a DOS spreadsheet.

On Quattro Pro, you can use @VLOOKUP

On As Easy As (my favorite spreadsheet) you use @VTABLE .. it's
basically the same as @VLOOKUP


Here's a video that walks through each method:
https://youtu.be/Mqgxc7BoJUQ


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] cannot boot installation media

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

To confirm, you're trying to boot the USB installer:

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/FD13-FullUSB.zip


 I assume you unzipped this and wrote the image to the USB flash drive
using the right tool, and didn't just use Copy to get the file to the
drive? (I'm asking because that's a common mistake.)

You will definitely need to use Legacy mode to boot FreeDOS. Legacy
provides a BIOS which FreeDOS needs to run.

When you booted, did you have the USB flash drive already plugged into the
computer? Remember that DOS doesn't understand USB per se, so you can't
plug/unplug the USB flash drive after FreeDOS has booted.



On Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 10:29 PM Davi Ramos via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> So, as I said in another message, I have a computer where I wish to
> install FreeDOS. It is a *Compaq Presario 427, Intel Pentium N3700, 4GB
> RAM, SSD 240GB, and a 14" screen.*
>
> Unfortunately, I cannot get it to boot the installation media
> .
> I have tried numerous USB flash drives as well as an SD card. Forcing it to
> boot takes me back to the bios screen after a few seconds. When I change
> the boot mode to "Legacy", than the flash drive simply disappear. To the
> bios, it's like it doesn't exist.
>
> I'm not sure what the etiquette of sending files to a mailing list is, so
> I uploaded the images with all the settings available on my computer's
> bios. Maybe that will help. I've tried a bunch of combinations but nothing
> seems to work. I was capable of booting into antiX Linux, so it is not as
> if the bios won't boot anything.
>
> These are the images of the bios: https://imgur.com/a/pw8xJBS
>
> Thanks!
> ___
> 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] MSD freedos diagnostic comparative?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Laaca posted about a new system info tool they'd written, described here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2024/03/fetch4fd-system-info-program/




> On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 00:43 Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user <
> freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> simple question.
>> Given freedos does support  things like larger hard drives and so forth,
>> I
>> am wondering if there is a simple tool comparative to msd for DOS among
>> freedos utilities?
>> or, if anyone knows of a simple tool?
>> my goal is not so much diagnostics as a clear indicator of  machine
>> stats,
>> the way msd provides, processor speed, type of video card, number of
>> drives,
>> memory, irq allocations, those sorts of things.
>> the tech behind my new machine has a new job, and was not solid enough in
>> DOS to provide these details..and I have what may be a failing power
>> supply I cannot replace until I know how much power is best.
>> ideas?
>> even a DOS port of Linux tool?
>> Thanks,
>> KarenL
>>
>
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] shouldn't fdimples add programs to path?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 9:51 AM Davi Ramos via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> I installed a bunch of stuff (all editors) but when I try to run
> them it doesn't seem like they're on the path. Is that the correct
> behavior? Should I manually add the bins to path? If so, how?


Some larger DOS applications from the 1980s and 1990s would offer to
do that for you, but not always. Generally, the tradeoff is that if
you have a bunch of possible paths in your PATH variable, you can
overload it. If every package added a path to the PATH variable, that
could get very long. Also, this could confuse things. For example, I
like to install a few compilers on my FreeDOS system, like IA16 GCC
and OpenWatcom. If I'm developing in IA16 GCC, I set my PATH variable
(and a few other variables) so I can use IA16 GCC. If I'm working in
OpenWatcom, I set my PATH variable (and a few others) so I can use
OpenWatcom. I'm not likely to be developing in both at the same time,
though - and I don't need to compile stuff every time I boot FreeDOS -
so I don't load those values in my PATH by default.

If you need a path added to your PATH, and it didn't get added for
you, you can just edit the FDAUTO.BAT file yourself. You can also type
the PATH command on the command line to experiment before you edit
your FDAUTO file. For example, I have FED (programmer's text editor)
installed on my system but I don't have it in my PATH. FED is
installed in C:\APPS\FED by default, and the program name is FED.EXE.
To add FED to the PATH, I could type this at the command line:

> PATH C:\freedos\bin;C:\apps\fed

That sets a completely new PATH variable that says "look in
C:\freedos\bin first .. then look in C:\apps\fed" when running
programs. So with this PATH set, when I try to run FED.EXE on the
command line, FreeDOS will first try to execute any FED.EXE in the
current directory (because it always looks in the current dir first)
then will try to run C:\freedos\bin\FED.EXE - but FED isn't there, so
it will then try to run C:\apps\fed\FED.EXE (and that will work,
because that's where FED.EXE lives).

If you already have a bunch of things in your PATH variable and you
don't want to retype the whole thing just to add one new entry to your
PATH, you can use the %PATH% variable expansion like this: Let's say
my PATH was already set to C:\freedos\bin;C:\freedos\links .. if I
wanted to add C:\apps\fed to the end of that, I can type this:

> PATH %PATH%;C:\apps\fed

Now the new value of PATH is C:\freedos\bin;C:\freedos\links;C:\apps\fed


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] How can I make FreeDOS correctly display the "ã" character?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Davi Ramos wrote:
>> > The "ã" is a very common character in Portuguese. It shows up in words
>> > such as "não", "alçapão", and "órgão".
>> >
>> > The system's keyboard and layout are already configured to "br" (for
>> > Brazilian Portuguese) and working perfectly. Other accentuated
>> > characters display just fine. That is the case of "á", "à", "ô".
>> > However, "ã" shows as something else entirely. Image below:
>> > oIh6TW8.png
>> >
>> > How can I get FreeDOS to correctly display those characters?


Vacek Nules wrote:
>
> Hi Davi,
>
> Your codepage is probably set to CP437, which does not contain the
> "ã" character. Change your codepage to CP850 (or CP858 if you also
> need the Euro sign) and try again.


That's what I was going to suggest too. Looks like Brazilian
Portuguese is codepage 850? So I think Davi also needs to enter these
commands to set up the display for 850:

display con=(ega,850,1)
mode con cp prep=((850) C:\freedos\cpi\ega.cpx)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Dial-up emulation?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 9:38 PM Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Since FreeDOS doesn't support physical network hardware (even if it's
> emulated in a program like PCem or 86Box), I figure there's no way FreeDOS
> is gonna be able to connect to the Internet, right? Well...
>
> The developers of the 86Box project have recently implemented emulation of
> a Hayes-compatible dial-up modem. So my question is... will FreeDOS support
> the emulated modem?
>


Well, it's not that "FreeDOS" would support the Hayes modern, but that
terminal/dialer software would then be able to. FreeDOS is not like Linux,
which uses a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) to support the hardware
directly. FreeDOS, like any DOS, does normal DOS things and leaves certain
hardware access (like playing sounds through a sound card, or accessing a
network to browse the web or check email, or dialing out through a modem)
to other software.

So if you had a terminal/dialer program like Procomm or Telix, then yes, I
expect you'd be able to dial out through this emulated Hayes modem from
FreeDOS.

>
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Ré : Way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

> Ramon Riera Marès wrote:
> >>
> >> > First of all, thanks to all the Freedos developers and collaborators.  I 
> >> > want to know if there is any way or utility in Freedos to have
> >> >  two applications running, for example an outliner and a text editor, 
> >> > and be able to switch from one to the other without having to
> >> > exit the current application.  Thanks and regards.  Ramon Riera.
>


Paul and Liam both mentioned DESQview, which was a popular
multitasking system on MS-DOS in the 1990s. I haven't tried it with
FreeDOS, so I can't comment how well it works or if it uses MS-DOS
features that aren't in FreeDOS.

I'll add that MS-DOS also had a "task swapping" feature in DOSSHELL
that was pretty neat. That feature showed up in MS-DOS 5 (1991) and I
used it all the time when I was a university student. My typical use
case was swapping between a word processor and a spreadsheet, such as
when I wrote my physics lab reports.

An archive of the Microsoft Knowledgebase article about it is copied here:
https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/071/Q71870/


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Ré : Way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Ramon Riera Marès wrote:
>>
>> > First of all, thanks to all the Freedos developers and collaborators.  I 
>> > want to know if there is any way or utility in Freedos to have
>> >  two applications running, for example an outliner and a text editor, and 
>> > be able to switch from one to the other without having to
>> > exit the current application.  Thanks and regards.  Ramon Riera.

Paul Dufresne wrote:
>>
[..]
>> There was a program, DESKVIEW, that was making an OS that was reentrant... 
>> as far as I understand,
>> that was running over a DOS. Making it easy to have more than one program 
>> running at a time.
>> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
[..]
>

Ramon Riera Marès wrote:
>
> Thanks Paul.
>
> I asked AI Gemini and he answered me this:
>
> Question:
>
>  Is there any utility in freedos that allows me to run two programs
>  at the same time?
>
> Gemini answers:
>
>  Yes, there are some utilities in FreeDOS that allow you to run two
>  programs at the same time:
>
>  1. TCC:
>
>  It is a command-line shell that allows you to execute multiple commands
>  in a single line.
>
>  You can use TCC to run two programs at the same time using the &
>  command.
>
>  For example, to run the calc program and the notepad program at the
>  same time, you would run the following command:
>
>  calc & notepad
>
>  The & command tells TCC to run the following command in the background.
>


This is describing the Take Command ("TCC") CMD shell drop-in
replacement for Windows systems, not DOS:
https://jpsoft.com/products/tcc.html

The only "TCC" programs for DOS that come to mind are Borland's Turbo
C Compiler and the Tiny C Compiler.


>  2. 4DOS:
>
>  It is a DOS shell that allows you to run multiple programs in a
>  single session.
>
>  You can use 4DOS to run two programs at the same time using the
>  START command.
>
>  For example, to run the calc program and the notepad program at the
>  same time, you would run the following command:
>
>  START calc START notepad
>
>  The START command starts a new program in a separate window.


I was not aware of this feature in 4DOS. In fact, the START command is
not listed in this copy of the 4DOS manual from 1991:

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/jpsoftware/4DOS_Reference_Manual.pdf

The command reference in the back of the manual goes from "SHIFT" (p.
285) to "SWAPPING" (p. 286). In the Index at the end of the manual, it
goes from "Standard output device" (p. 349) to "Startup options" (p.
350) to "StdColors directive (p. 350). So a "START" command isn't
listed anywhere.

4DOS has a "4START" but that is the name of a batch file
("4START.BTM") that runs whenever you start 4DOS, to set the
environment, colors, etc. But that's not the same as the "START"
command listed here.


Also: the way the "START" sample command line is organized, there is
nothing to suggest to the shell where the two commands should be
divided .. or should it run the command "calc" with the possibly valid
options (such as filenames) of "START" and "notepad"?

Also Also: "..in a separate window" should suggest that this is not
referring to a DOS environment, which doesn't run programs in
"windows."


>  3. W4DOS:
>
>  It is a graphical desktop environment for FreeDOS.
>
>  You can use W4DOS to run two programs at the same time by opening
>  two different windows.
>
>  To open a new window, click the "Start" button and then select "Run."
>
>  In the "Run" dialog box, type the name of the program you want to run,
>  and then click "OK."


"W4DOS" isn't familiar to me, and I wasn't able to find any graphical
desktop environment for DOS called "W4DOS." I don't think this one
exists either.


[..]
> --
>
> Does anyone have experience with these utilities?  Which is the
> simplest?
>


I think you have experienced what is known as "AI Hallucination" where
the AI just makes stuff up. I'm afraid that is a problem with
generative AI. I find that generative AI is usually "ok" to "pretty
good" with summarizing current topics, but generally very poor in
describing things that are edge cases like FreeDOS or FORTRAN. (I
experimented with Bard before it was renamed "Gemini," and did
substantial testing with ChatGPT.)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] How to try FDT2404 (Latest test version) on QEMU

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jim Hall wrote:
[..]
>  > Then I create a virtual disk where I can install FreeDOS T2404. I'll
>  > set this up as 500MB, which is plenty big for what I do:
>  >
>  > $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 2404.qcow2 500M

Paul Dufresne wrote:
> I was prefering raw, because I was using:
> https://www.seei.biz/how-to-mount-raw-images-img-images-on-linux/
> to mount raw disk, and exchange data between the host and the emulated 
> machine.
>
> But I discovered qemu-nbd... that allows the same with qcow2 image too.
> So I guess I will adopt qcow2.


I use qcow2 because it's a bit more efficient, and a little faster.
(Not that speed matters much here .. my 3-yr old desktop PC is still
*way* more powerful than a 1990s '486 or Pentium PC.)

I use guestfstools to "mount" the virtual disk from Linux. Works
great. It's basically this:

guestmount -a "$img" -m /dev/sda1 "$mnt"

In other words:

mkdir /tmp/freedos
guestmount -a mystuff.qcow2 -m /dev/sda1 /tmp/freedos

..and that will "mount" the first (only) partition in my virtual disk,
and make it accessible at /tmp/freedos.

> Now, as I understand, the size of the file for qcow2, is way less than the 
> size specified...
> because allocation is done only when needed... so I would suggest to oversize 
> the value...
> maybe 3G?

That's a lot. FreeDOS (like any DOS) is not big. What are you putting
in that virtual disk? My "C:" virtual disk is 500MB, and that's much
larger than I need to install OpenWatcom plus editors and tools. My
"D:" virtual disk is like 200MB.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] How to try FDT2404 (Latest test version) on QEMU

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I run FreeDOS in QEMU on Linux, so I can show you what I do.

First, I unzip the LiveCD ISO image so I can use it:

$ unzip FDT2404-LiveCD.zip '*.iso'
Archive:  FDT2404-LiveCD.zip
  inflating: T2404LIVE.iso


Then I create a virtual disk where I can install FreeDOS T2404. I'll
set this up as 500MB, which is plenty big for what I do:

$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 2404.qcow2 500M
Formatting '2404.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 cluster_size=65536 extended_l2=off
compression_type=zlib size=524288000 lazy_refcounts=off
refcount_bits=16


And then I boot the FreeDOS 1.3 LiveCD using QEMU. To install, I don't
need much, so I set up FreeDOS to use 32MB memory. I use -enable-kvm
with QEMU 8.1.3 on Fedora Linux 39.

$ qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -cdrom T2404LIVE.iso -hda
2404.qcow2 -boot order=d


That gets me into the installer, which will always boot from the
LiveCD because I used order=d. Install FreeDOS as you would normally.

After I install, I use a slightly different command line to boot
FreeDOS. This gives me two things: 1. I have a separate hard disk
image with all my personal stuff, and 2. I add SB16 and AdLib support
so I can play games. This is the script I use to run FreeDOS: (quoted
with ">")


> #!/bin/bash
> # wrapper to run FreeDOS in a QEMU virtual machine
>
> # to create an empty disk image, do this:
> # qemu-img create -f qcow2 freedos.qcow2 500M
>
> # '-display' options can be 'sdl' or 'gtk' or 'curses'
> # '-soundhw pcspk' is no longer supported
>
> qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -boot menu=on -device sb16 -device adlib \
> -hda /usr/local/tmp/freedos/2404/2404.qcow2 \
> -hdb $HOME/lib/freedos/mystuff.qcow2 \
> -cdrom /usr/local/tmp/freedos/2404/T2404BNS.iso "$@"



A note on the paths: I keep my FreeDOS install (my virtual C: drive)
in /usr/local/tmp because I don't need to back it up. If it's outside
my home directory, I don't bother backing it up when I backup my
computer. (I can just download it again and re-install it.) But I have
my personal stuff under my home directory (in $HOME/lib/freedos) so
that gets backed up.

Also: this shows that I have the BonusCD loaded on the virtual system.
After I install, the first thing I do is switch to the BonusCD so I
can install the compilers and editors I use.


On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 11:01 PM Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hi! Especially to Lunduke fans having their "second part" of DOS week... 
> about one year and a half after first part.
> So from April 3 to April 10 2024.
> I am not a paid subscriber to lunduke.locals.com and just observing it from 
> far.
>
> I decided to retry FreeDOS after not using it for too many months.
>
> And as I do in this time... I search back the messages I have previously left 
> on the list to help me know how to launch qemu...
> as I don't think the wiki have an article about it...
> But it has been a long time... and I am seeding a new message for the next 
> time(s).
>
> So FDT2404 is out: "
> ###
> FreeDOS 2404-Test ("FreeDOS T2404")
> ###
>
> Warning: This is a FreeDOS development build and is for testing purposes.
> It may exhibit behavior vary different from a release build and may not be
> suitable for regular use. For general use, please consider using the latest
> release build available at http://freedos.org
> "
>
> And can be found at:
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/readme.txt
>
> This time, I  have chosen to use 
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/FDT2404-FullUSB.zip
> rather than the usual 
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/FDT2404-LiveCD.zip
> Mostly, I find a disk image, a more simple and logical format that a CDROM or 
> DVD image format (iso file).
>
> So with an iso file I would use -cdrom image.iso... but the FullUSB.zip 
> contains an .img file, that I will use the same
> qemu parameter as the hard drive destination image: -drive 
> format=raw,file=$DISK where DISK=T2404FULL.img
>
> Steps goes about like this:
> Download and extract 
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/FDT2404-FullUSB.zip
>  in FDT2404 directory.
> cd FDT2404
> qemu-img create fdos.img 1000M
> DESTDISK=fdos.img
> INSTALLDISK=FDT2404FULL.img
>
> At install time, I present first INSTALLDISK, then DESTDISK:
> qemu-system-i386 -cpu 486 -name FreeDOS -machine pc-i440fx-4.2 -m 64 -drive 
> format=raw,file=$INSTALLDISK -drive format=raw,file=$DESTDISK -audiodev 
> pa,id=mysnd -device sb16,audiodev=mysnd -device adlib,audiodev=mysnd -machine 
> pcspk-audiodev=mysnd -vga cirrus -display sdl -net nic,model=pcnet -net user
>
> After installation, I present first DESTDISK containing the installed 
> FreeDOS, and then INSTALLDISK (not so much needed anymore):
> qemu-system-i386 -cpu 486 -name FreeDOS -machine 

Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 12:52 PM Thomas Cornelius Desi  wrote:
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> Question to you: Do you know how many LINES the FREEDOS Kernel has?
>
> Thanks, Thomas
>


Doing a quick count of _everything_ in the source tree, including
tools and tests, from  version 2.43 in Jeremy's GitHub
(https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/releases/tag/ke2043) I found this
count:

All *.asm and *.inc files: 14,019 lines
(these are Assembly files)

All *.c and *.h files: 29,510 lines
(these are C language files)


That also includes blank lines, though.


(FYI: the correct capitalization is FreeDOS, not FREEDOS .. because
"DOS" stands for "Disk Operating System" and FreeDOS is the free /
open source version of DOS.)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Why DOS?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 12:28 PM Alvah Whealton via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> This question has arisen several times.  I choose DOS because going back to 
> the Commodore 64 is so impractical for me.
>

I used DOS when I was growing up. My first computer was an Apple II at
school, and then my family bought an Apple II+ clone for home. But
when the IBM PC came out, my family bought one (although I think my
first might have been an XT, not the PC 5150).

Even in the early days of DOS, I realized DOS was more powerful than
the Apple II. Once I figured out that the BASIC programming
environment was essentially the same as the Apple II (except graphics
were quite different) I made the switch. I was sad that I couldn't
move over my old BASIC programs from the Apple II, but I still had fun
writing new BASIC programs on DOS.

And the cool thing about DOS was that it was so simple that even I
could figure it out: the kernel boots, then it reads config.sys for
settings. Then it runs command.com as the first program (the "shell")
and command.com runs autoexec.bat to set up the environment. I was 10
or 11 when we got the PC, and it was simple enough that I could figure
out how it worked. That's pretty cool for someone who was still
learning about computers.

Later, MS-DOS 5 was a huge step up. The earlier DOS versions were
fine, but MS-DOS 5 changed so much. The file manager (DOSSHELL) and
the BASIC environment (QBASIC) and the new text editor (EDIT, a
stripped down QBASIC without the "BASIC" stuff) were outstanding.
Things felt more powerful. I could do a lot more in DOS, and I enjoyed
doing it.

I also loved the DOS programs and games. I liked writing my own games,
mostly math puzzles and turn-based adventure games. But the word
processor we had was very nice. And in high school, I learned about
Lotus 1-2-3 .. and I relied on that for my physics lab analysis when I
went to university. That's also when I discovered the "shareware"
concept, where you could find these excellent programs that did
everything I needed but at a fraction of the price of the commercial
software. I switched from the student edition of WordPerfect to Galaxy
Write, and from Lotus 1-2-3 to AsEasyAs. And I picked up a bunch of
other shareware that helped me.

I learned FORTRAN77 programming on the VAX at university, but my
brother (a computer science major at another university) introduced me
to C programming, and gave me his old copy of Microsoft QuickC (I
think he was using TurboC by then) so I could write my own programs on
DOS. I wrote little programs that enhanced my DOS command line - which
were pretty simple tools with my "beginner" knowledge .. like my own
TYPE that had command line options to convert to uppercase/lowercase
and do other things. But they were useful to me, and I made them, and
that made them special.

When I learned about LaTeX for writing scientific papers (like physics
lab reports) I found emTeX on DOS, and used that. I also wrote some
tools that would simplify converting my papers into LaTeX format, or
convert my LaTeX files to nroff (which I discovered in the campus Unix
lab).


So I guess I've always been fascinated by DOS, back to an early age.
And I find that, despite all the changes in modern computing, some
things haven't really gotten much better (or only incrementally
better) since DOS. My favorite spreadsheet program (on any system) in
2024 is still AsEasyAs on DOS. If I didn't need to share spreadsheets
with other people, I think AsEasyAs could meet almost all of my
spreadsheet needs today - it just does some things differently, like
conditional formatting (because of the limited text color palette).
The keyboard navigation and "/" menus in AsEasyAs are a "plus" for me
because my finger memory is still there. :-)

I love FreeDOS in 2024 because it's a cool DOS system that has tools
that MS-DOS didn't have. The "What's included" report for FreeDOS 1.3
lists everything, but I especially like the Unix-like tools ("GNUish")
and the compilers like IA-16 GCC and OpenWatcom C. I have a legit copy
of Turbo C/C++ that works fine on FreeDOS, but I still love writing
programs with FED (simple, but with things like code highlighting and
editable keybindings) and compiling on the command line. I even use
EDLIN sometimes when I just need to write something quick. (I even
compiled Gregory's FreeDOS Edlin on Linux .. and I'll use it there
instead of ed(1) sometimes, just for the retro feel.)

And I love that folks are still writing new stuff that keeps DOS going
in 2024. Jerome releases a new Test Release every month, and I always
install that right away. Even though I run FreeDOS in a virtual
machine, you have SBEMU or VSBHDA to emulate SB16 if you run FreeDOS
on real hardware. Japheth's JEMM works well. lDebug and Debug/X are
great extensions to the original DEBUG. The mTCP tools do cool things.
Willi's FDHELP documentation is a great reference for new users.
There's so much there!

Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 6:26 AM Liam Proven via Freedos-user
 wrote:
[..]
> There are good reasons that DOS went away some 35 years ago. It has
> its uses but not being able to flip to another window or another
> screen to consult documentation, or try something out, or look it up
> online, is a *massive* handicap.
[..]
> If you have a Raspberry Pi, the core of RISC OS is 6MB of code. That's
> the kernel, the GUI, the desktop, the text editor, image viewer,
> BASIC, and so on. It's a multitasking internet-capable GUI OS with one
> of the best and fastest BASICs ever.

That's a very interesting way of "advocating" FreeDOS, and "helping"
folks who are new to FreeDOS.

Here we have a person who discovered FreeDOS, who wants to experiment
with FreeDOS by writing programs with it, and was looking for pointers
to get started. It's a very odd reaction to immediately tell that
person to go find another operating system. That's not very welcoming.

If someone discovers FreeDOS and wants to explore FreeDOS, we should
help them find a way to "Yes" and not to "No."


[..]
> I like DOS. I use DOS. But I am also realistic about DOS. If you want
> to learn, today, almost anything else is better.
>

We all know that FreeDOS is DOS, and that means it is an operating
system built on 1980s and 1990s limitations. But FreeDOS is a cool
retro system with more updated tools, so it's great for learning.
FreeDOS (like any DOS) has very few "moving parts," you can see how it
starts up and what it's doing: 1. kernel 2. config.sys 3. command.com
4. autoexec.bat. And if something goes really wrong (like you did
something weird in a new program you wrote, and it crashes and locks
up the system) you just reboot.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Report back: QEMU - Max size of Linux access folder

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:27 AM hms--- via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Correction. My apologies. My memory doesn't work all that well these days.
> Re. Linux error on boot up. I incorrectly said deleting the files in the
> /dev/crash directory fixed the problem.
> The correct directory is /var/crash
>

That makes more sense. Nothing should be writing logs to the /dev
directory. But writing to /var is more typical. Although I would have
expected /var/log/crash … but I don't know Ubuntu systems very well.

>
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 4:08 PM Norby Droid via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>>
>> DOes anyone have any experience with AUdioPCI cards onFreeDOS?
>[..]

Please start a new thread for this question. It is unlikely to be seen
in a discussion thread about how to get started with programming on
FreeDOS.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 5:23 PM tsiegel--- via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>[..]
> If you want something a bit more powerful, but not as complex as C, you
> can always use turbo pascal, there are multiple versions of turbo pascal
> in the museum site Borland setup before being sold to who know who, and
> last time I checked, (about a year and a half ago), that site was still
> active.
>
> That site also has versions of turbo c, though I'm pretty sure it's not
> the latest version of turbo c for dos, but that's not really a problem,
> because there are other C compiles for dos that are free if the turbo c
> doesn't meet your needs.
>[..]


The website you're thinking of is Embarcadero. They bought the "IP"
(rights) to Borland's products years ago, and they make them available
via their "archive" website. We link to Borland TurboC, TurboC++, and
TurboPascal from this page on the FreeDOS website:
https://www.freedos.org/about/devel/

The programs are free to download, but you need to register an account
with them. I created an account for myself and I downloaded TurboC and
TurboC++ (they run great under FreeDOS) but I found their archive
website to be very slow and had weird navigation. But I did manage to
download them.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 11:45 AM Thomas Cornelius Desi via
Freedos-user  wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> could someone from the list give me an advice, what programming language to 
> learn,
> if I would want to do some programming in FREEDOS?
>
> I am an absolute »Noobie« with programming, but stumbling about some source 
> files,
> especially BASIC, which I would work with.
>
> My aim is to do some alterations to existing source (sort-of-text editor).
>
> What would your advice be?
>


Great to hear you want to create programs in FreeDOS!

We list some resources on our website that you might be interested in:
https://www.freedos.org/about/devel/

Our preferred C compiler for FreeDOS programs is OpenWatcom C, and our
preferred assembler is NASM. But if you are just getting started, you
might start with something like BASIC or Pascal. We include many of
these tools in FreeDOS. Here's a list of everything that's available
in FreeDOS 1.3 (look at 'devel'):
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html

The 'fbc' package is the FreeBASIC Compiler, and 'fpc' is the
FreePascal Compiler.

If you want to explore other programming languages, we have a "teach
yourself" guide to learn C programming here:
https://www.freedos.org/books/cprogramming/

That "ebook" also has links to YouTube videos if you prefer tutorial
videos. You can also find other "programming how-to" videos in the
"FreeDOS Programming" playlist on the FreeDOS YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@freedosproject/playlists

To learn about C programming, I recommend using a C compiler we
provide in the FreeDOS distribution. I really like IA-16 GCC and
OpenWatcom C.


Writing a text editor as a first project when learning programming may
be a tough job. But you suggested you want to make changes to an
existing editor, so that may involve less work. To learn a new
programming language, I recommend starting with small programs and
work your way up. The C programming guide (above) walks you through
how to write your own simple versions of several FreeDOS commands ..
and by the end of the book you learn how to write your own turn-based
board game using the conio library in C.


I hope that helps you to get started!


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU - Max size of Linux access folder

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jim Hall wrote:
[..]
> > If there's a config issue on your Lubuntu, you might
> > consider updating to 23.10 or 24.04 LTS

Liam Proven wrote:
> Whoah. Not correct. Not possible.
>
> LTS releases can be upgraded directly to the next LTS release (and
> nothing else.)
>
> Interim releases only to the next interim release. If that is then an
> LTS, then you can go LTS->LTS.
>
> So, the only choices for 18.04 are to 18.10 (now long dead) or to 20.04.
>
> Then, from 20.04 the OP could go to 22.04... and for now, that's it.
> 24.04 isn't out yet.

Well, whatever the process is to move from "old Lubuntu" to "new Lubuntu."

I run Fedora and whenever the new version comes out, I backup my data,
nuke and reinstall. But then again, I tend to install packages here
and there to experiment with over time - I'm not interested in
carrying forward some tool or program I installed 4 months ago and
used for a week. So completely reinstalling works well for me (even
though they have an "upgrade" process).


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU - Max size of Linux access folder

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 3:34 AM h...@iafrica.com  wrote:
>
> Hi Jim
> Thank you. I have few questions. What is the maximum size allowed for
> the FreeDos image file? Can I resize my image file, currently 200Mb? Can
> I create an additional virtual drive "D:" and mount it in the same way?

I wouldn't approach this as "what's the biggest disk I can use" but
"how much disk do I need?"

DOS is pretty small. It's really only the things you add on to it
(applications and data) that takes up large amounts of space. My C:
drive is 500MB, and that's pretty big. My D: drive (where I store all
my data and source files) is 220MB. I have mine set up that way
because I start over with a new C: drive every time we have a new
monthly test release, but all my stuff stays safe on the D: drive.
(When I install the new test release, I don't boot QEMU with the D:
drive image.)

My D: used to be 100MB, but then I added a lot of games and stuff to
it. There wasn't any point in going through gymnastics to resize D:
dynamically .. I just made a new 220MB D: drive, partitioned &
formatted it, mounted both under Linux (guestfsfools) then copied
everything over. That takes very little time to do, but trying to find
a way to resize the D: disk image and extending the filesystem on it
to fill the new size would have taken more steps - and I'm a lazy guy,
so I took the easy route. Making a new drive image, partitioning &
formatting it, and copying files took a few minutes.

> Re. Use of "sudo" When I tried to run QEMU with with the "-enable-kvm"
> option, I received an error message of permission denied. I have since
> tried without "sudo" and it now works? My Linux installation (Lubuntu
> 18.04) has also sustained damage since playing with QEMU. I receive an
> error message window on the desktop after boot-up which simply says "
> System Error" and provides two buttons of "Report" and "Cancel". No
> other info. I'm guessing there is a log entry hiding somewhere?

I don't know how or why QEMU would have caused any damage to the Linux
operating system, even when running it as root (sudo). QEMU is
providing a virtual machine environment to the guest operating system
.. and that shouldn't cause a problem in the host operating system.
Since the error comes up "on the desktop" (when you login) I suspect
the "system error" you're seeing is an unrelated user profile issue.
Unfortunately, I don't run Lubuntu (I run Fedora) so I'm not confident
I can help you track down the error. My first suggestion would be to
create a "dummy" account on Lubuntu and login to that. If you don't
see the error when you login there, then the "system error" is
something going on with your account .. probably a user profile issue
in LXDE (Wikipedia says Lubuntu 18.04 LTS uses LXDE).

For what it's worth: Lubuntu 18.04 LTS is quite old. I understand the
release "number" is actually a date, so 18.04 was released in April
2018. Wikipedia says this was supported for 3 years, and support ended
in late April 2021. The current Lubuntu is 23.10 (released October
2023) and the next release is supposed to be 24.04 LTS (planned for
late April 2024). If there's a config issue on your Lubuntu, you might
consider updating to 23.10 or 24.04 LTS, which will give you a fresh
start anyway - and get you up to date.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] QEMU - Max size of Linux access folder

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I wrote the article, but I haven't used this QEMU feature for a long
time. I found that the "live" access to the folder could be
problematic (sometimes no problem .. typically slow .. crashed QEMU a
few times) but that was several years ago and the QEMU folks may have
fixed that issue by now.

Now, I use a virtual disk image for QEMU. After I shut down the
FreeDOS guest, I can "mount" the virtual disk as a non-privileged
Linux user with guestfstools, and manage files like I normally would.
If the image file is "$img" and the mount point is "$mnt" (such as
/tmp/freedos) then run this:

guestmount -a $img -m /dev/sda1 $mnt

And when you're done, you can unmount it with this:

guestunmount $mnt


Also: You don't have to run QEMU as root (with sudo). I never do.

Jim


On Sun, Mar 10, 2024 at 12:53 PM hms--- via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hi there
> I need some help please. Does any one know how to get around the size
> limitation of the access Linux folder when running FreeDos under QEMU?
> The access folder is named "dosfiles" as in Jim Hall's article on
> Opensource.
> Running the command:-
> sudo qemu-system-i386 -m 32 -rtc base=localtime -drive
> file=dos.img,index=0,media=disk,format=raw -drive
> file=fat:rw:dosfiles/,format=raw -boot order=c -display  sdl -enable-kvm
>
> Gives status message of:-
> vvfat dosfiles/ chs 1024,16,63
>
> And an error message is issued:-
> qemu-system-i386: -drive file=fat:rw:dosfiles/,format=raw: Directory
> does not fit in FAT16 (capacity 516.06 MB)
>
> Removing files from the "dosfiles" directory allows FreeDos to run.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS webpage - where can I see more News?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I will need to add a link or button to show more news. Right now, it
just shows the latest six news items.

The FreeDOS news items are actually stored in the SourceForge News
system, and the website pulls from the RSS feed to generate the news
items for the front page. Here's the link to our news items on SF:
https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/



On Sun, Mar 10, 2024 at 4:55 PM Ladislav Lacina via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> After last changes of the FreeDOS webpage I don't know how to display more 
> "What's new" on the webpage.
> In the previous designs there was a link like "Older news" but now I do not 
> see it more.
> I was looking the announcement for the Dosfetch utility but because of this 
> issue I was not able to find it.
> ___
> 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] C programming guides

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Starting a new thread for this topic:

On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 7:46 AM Linvel Risner via Freedos-user
 wrote:
[..]
> I'm trying to research written programming guides, although maybe I
> should just watch the Jim Hall video sets.
>


I also wrote a series of articles to support the videos, which might
interest you:

https://www.freedos.org/books/cprogramming/

I've been planning to migrate the FreeDOS Wiki to new hosting for a
long time, and Goal #2 after that is to move the "FreeDOS Books"
content (including 'Writing FreeDOS Programs in C') into the wiki. So
eventually, the programming series will be in the wiki.

I also worked with folks to edit the C programming articles into a
"version 2.0" for a printed book, which was available on Lulu.com for
a while. Let me know if you are interested in that and I'll see if I
can reactivate the item on Lulu.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Announcement: lDebug release 7

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Excellent news, thanks for sharing! I'll post a news item about it for the
website this tomorrow, when I'm in front of my computer again

On Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 1:23 PM E. C. Masloch via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hello list!
>
> Today I prepared release 7 of lDebug (small L). lDebug is an advanced
> debugger for 86-DOS like systems. It is based on Paul Vojta's and
> Japheth's FreeDOS Debug/X, which in turn started out as a clone of
> MS-DOS Debug. Like all of these, it operates with a line-based terminal
> interface. lDebug expands a lot on the capabilities of its ancestors
> however.
>
> Release 7 adds one big feature that's new: The debugger now allocates
> space for and allows loading of Extensions for lDebug (ELDs). Several
> dozen ELDs have been written so far. They're included in the release in
> the bin/ subdirectory (lDebug original packages) or in BIN/ (FreeDOS
> package). The ELD architecture was created to allow optional extensions
> of the debugger without bogging down the build, particularly the code
> segment, with a lot of most likely unused code.
>
> Other than that, some bugfixes have arrived. To summarize from the
> manual's list of news [1]:
>
>   * The DIL command works now, fixing an embarrassing bug in release 6
> for which I provided patches [2].
>   * The INSTALL command correctly works with the AREAS keyword followed
> by another keyword.
>   * Two bootloaded mode file system read errors were fixed, one when a
> file ends exactly on a cluster boundary and another when a FAT12 entry
> is read which straddles a sector boundary in the FAT.
>   * The BOOT PROTOCOL= command with two kernel load files (MS-DOS v6 or
> IBM-DOS load protocol) now allows to freely select the second (DOS) file
> in any subdirectory of the partition to boot from.
>
> A few new features were added (aside from those implemented by
> Extensions for lDebug):
>
>   * An INSTALL TOGGLE command to switch certain features on or off.
>   * A fractional digit sometimes displayed for formatted sizes.
>   * ::scripts:: and ::config:: keywords can be used in pathnames passed
> to Y, EXT, or BOOT DIR commands in bootloaded mode.
>   * The debugger will allocate a 2 KiB environment block for itself (in
> any mode) which is intended for storing Variables for lDebug using the
> set.eld and variable.eld.
>   * The application and device init will try to work with a smaller
> initial allocation instead of enforcing a maximum-size ("init max")
> layout early on.
>
> Several new switches are now recognised by the application and device
> mode init. /X resizes the ELD code instance segment from its default
> size, /Y does likewise for the ELD data block area, and /H is the switch
> to do the same to the debugger's history buffer. There is also the
> undocumented /T switch, described some on the blog [3].
>
> Some little-used features of the debugger were actually thrown out. The
> build options _EMS, _RM, and _RN are now disabled by default. They
> correspond to the X commands, as well as the RM and RN command. If
> desired, then apart from creating a build with the options enabled,
> users may instead choose to install the Extensions for lDebug that share
> the sources of the disabled commands. They are named x.eld, rm.eld, and
> rn.eld. They can be used either as transient ELDs (to run a single
> command; requires DOS or bootloaded FS access each time) or installed as
> resident ELDs (needs to access the file only for ELD install).
>
> The packages of this release are found on our server [4]. In the fdpkg
> subdirectory I placed a FreeDOS package, and in the svardpkg a SvarDOS
> binary and sources package each. As usual, all changes are recorded in
> the hg (Mercurial) repository, which can be browsed using our hgweb [5].
>
> As a news blurb for the FreeDOS website (and the sourceforge.net news
> tracker [6]) I would suggest the following:
>
> lDebug release 7
>
> lDebug (small L) is a DOS debugger based on FreeDOS Debug/X. Today's new
> release 7 adds the architecture for Extensions for lDebug, with 52
> different ELDs included in the release package. Further, a number of
> smaller improvements and fixes are included, several of which make
> lDebug better in its bootloaded mode. The application and device mode
> init is less memory-hungry than it would be with its prior "init max"
> approach. Find more details on [the mailing list], and everything lDebug
> at [the lDebug website][7].
>
> Regards,
> ecm
>
>
> [1]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#news-r7
> [2]:
>
> https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_live_patching_the_debugger_itself
> [3]:
>
> https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_debugger_relocation_all_switches_explained
> [4]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/ldebug/
> [5]: https://hg.pushbx.org/ecm/ldebug/log/release7
> [6]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/
> [7]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/web/#projects-ldebug
>
>
> 

Re: [Freedos-user] One use case for FreeDos

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Thomas Cornelius Desi wrote:
>
> Apropos authoring on DOS Software: As I was looking for
> someting nifty that would enhance my writing workflow on
> the computer, I decided for VDE by Eric Meyer writer.
> ( have a look here: https://archive.org/details/vde-197 )
> It actually does sort-of-UTF8 encoding which in my case
> (German Umlaute äöü ß) is important.  And yes: why has
> it become so cumbersome to switch of internet-connections?!

It's a different sort of thing, but a colleague shared his editor's
advice to write in a way that makes it difficult to go back and edit
what you've done, while you're writing it. The idea is that you don't
spend time "editing as you go" - constantly spinning your wheels,
editing what you just wrote when you should be focusing on writing new
stuff - and instead do all your editing and revisions after you've
finished a full draft of something (article, chapter, etc).

I tried his advice, and I have been (unironically) writing articles
using Edlin or ed(1) at home. (That's why I had the "comma" question
last week.) I write my content in plain text using Markdown, which
makes it easy to do simple formatting like section headings, bold, and
italics. When I'm done with my draft, I run the Markdown command to
convert to HTML, open it in a browser and copy/paste into a word
processor - where I'll finish editing before I submit. It works well
for what I do. And it's the ultimate in "distraction free" writing.
:-)


> and let’s mention »Captain Blackbeard« editor. Also great!
>

That's an editor I hadn't heard of (there were a million text editors
in the DOS era) so I looked it up:
http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Captain_Blackbeard

Very interesting programmer's editor.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] One use case for FreeDos

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Mart Zirnask wrote:
>> As for writers with DOS, I recalled and managed to dig up a video with
>> Philip Roth using a standing desk and a Blue DOS Screen - is this also
>> Wordstar? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBlVEcMSOGw=201
>>
>> The video is dated 2004, though - back then, I imagine it was not that
>> uncommon yet to use a DOS wordprcessor.

Louis Santillan wrote:
>
> That looks like Wordperfect for DOS.

Agreed, that's definitely WordPerfect for DOS at 3:30 in the video.
And a few seconds earlier at 3:25, you can see the WordPerfect
template over the Model M function keys.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] One use case for FreeDos

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

> Dan Schmidt wrote:
> > Now, I might have gone with WordPerfect 6 instead of
> > WordStar 4, but the idea itself is solid: A computer that
> > you just use for writing, sans distractions. No YouTube,
> > no Email, no Facebook -- you sit -- you write.  I mean,
> > it's hard to argue it didn't work well for this guy!


Anton Shepelev wrote:
> No ChatGPT assistant/coauthor.


"Doesn't have ChatGPT or a co-author tool" is actually not a problem
for a professional writer. It can actually be a bonus. :-)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] One use case for FreeDos

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sat, Jan 27, 2024 at 4:51 PM Dan Schmidt via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Now, that's an interesting use for a Dos/FreeDOS retro computer:
>
> https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write
>
> How many computers destined for the landfill still have perfectly good
> screens and keyboards?  (Recalling those heavy, grey, indestructible
> PS2 keyboards where the keys snapped back up with a vigour that
> seemed to sent your fingers flying on to the next character)  Now,
> I might have gone with WordPerfect 6 instead of WordStar 4, but the
> idea itself is solid: A computer that you just use for writing, sans
> distractions. No YouTube, no Email, no Facebook - you sit - you write.
> I mean, it's hard to argue it didn't work well for this guy!

I know I'm kind of an odd duck among my friends, but I'm with George
R.R. Martin on this. (Not the first time I've seen this article from
2014.) DOS is pretty good at the distraction-free environment,
necessitated by the limitations of the era. A distraction-free
environment is great for certain kinds of work, especially writing.

Actually, I've seen other, similar articles from different writers who
do the same. There's an example of a professional screenwriter (don't
remember the name) who still used a DOS word processor in 2020 to
write movie scripts. It was specialized software aimed at writing
scripts, and it only ran on DOS. This person said they had an office
set up just for writing, with a dedicated DOS-only laptop for writing.
If he needed to look up something on the Internet (or wanted to check
email) he had a separate computer for that. I'm not sure how he
transferred files from DOS to his other computer, but you can use a
USB drive for that.

There's a lot of DOS software that's still great in 2024. And I'd
argue some tools haven't gotten much better since the DOS days. My
favorite spreadsheet (on any platform) is As Easy As on DOS. That saw
me through my undergraduate program. If I didn't need to share
spreadsheets with anyone else, I think As Easy As could manage 99% of
my spreadsheet needs. And probably 100% if I just accepted that some
things worked differently (only 16 text colors and 16 background
colors for conditional formatting of cells, for example .. As Easy As
ran in VGA mode so could do 16 background colors).

I also experimented with using Word for DOS 5.5 as a "distraction
free" writing environment, and it works well. Word 5.5 uses modern
keybindings like ctrl-c to copy, ctrl-v to paste, etc (I didn't use
earlier versions of Word, might be the same there too, don't know) so
my fingers don't have to re-learn how to select text. If I did more
writing that didn't require special formatting (I rely on styles for
my tech writing these days) I'd probably be able to get by with Word
5.5. And LibreOffice Writer can read the files, too.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jim Hall wrote:
> > Same for word processors. We used a few word processors at home,
> > probably copies of whatever my parents were using at work.
[..]
> > I looked through the shareware
> > catalog(*) I subscribed to, and ordered a copy of the most highly
> > rated word processor: Galaxy. It was "only" $100 which was a lot for
> > a student, but much less than the student edition of WordPerfect.

Alvah Whealton wrote:
> I used Galaxy for a long time. Does anyone know if it is possible to
> find a legal version of that program anywhere?

If you mean a legit registered but free/gratis version, then I don't.
I've only been able to find the unregistered shareware version for
download. I don't think the developers behind Galaxy are in business
anymore, or I would have reached out to them to ask if they could
release the full registered version on a website somewhere. (For
example, TRIUS released the activation code for the last version of As
Easy As for DOS [shareware spreadsheet] on their official forums. So
you can go to the TRIUS forums if you want to get the code to use this
great shareware DOS spreadsheet.)


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 5:39 PM andrew fabbro via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Whatever programs are most representative, they might have been
> distributed as shareware.  There's still "trial software" today but
> not like going to a BBS and seeing hundreds of shareware packages,
> or getting a CD stuffed with them.
[..]


I agree! I first used DOS when DOS was new (1981) but by the time I
moved to university (1990) shareware had definitely taken hold. And
shareware was just as powerful as the "commercial off the shelf"
software but a fraction of the price. And that was a huge deal for a
university student.

We had Lotus 1-2-3 at home when I was in high school, and I learned a
bit about how to use it then. But as a physics student at university,
I bought my own copy of As Easy As spreadsheet (shareware). It came
with a manual that was great as a reference and to explore new
features.

Same for word processors. We used a few word processors at home,
probably copies of whatever my parents were using at work. So I
learned how to use WordPerfect. And I bought my own "student edition"
of WordPerfect when I went to university. When the new version came
out, I just couldn't afford it (the student edition was less
expensive, but still pricey) so I looked through the shareware
catalog(*) I subscribed to, and ordered a copy of the most highly
rated word processor: Galaxy. It was "only" $100 which was a lot for a
student, but much less than the student edition of WordPerfect.


(*) Did anyone else subscribe to a shareware catalog? I know you could
dial into a BBS to find shareware apps, but I found a catalog that
tested tons of shareware apps and games and listed the ones they
thought were the best. You sent in an order with a check (to cover
copying and shipping) and they mailed back one or more floppies with
copies of the shareware (original unregistered zips) that you picked.
I think they published a new catalog every few months. I'm sure that's
how I found As Easy As. I know I discovered Galaxy, Telix (modem
dialer and terminal, like Procomm) and Mercury (equation solver, from
the same person who wrote Borland Eureka) from that catalog. And a
bunch of games.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I'm thinking about doing a video that shows how to do real work on DOS. I
sometimes see comments on YouTube with people asking "could you really do
*work* with DOS?" And the answer is *of course you can, that happened every
day.*

So I'm collecting a list of things you'd do in the 80s and 90s with DOS to
do work. Sure, I'll put a game it two in there, but I'm focusing on getting
work done.

What programs or types of programs would you like to see?

__

**For myself:*
*I've done some videos about DOS apps, but nothing like "here's how I did
everyday work." When I think back to my 1980s and 1990s (especially the
early 90s) I think of my time at university as a physics undergrad. So
that's a spreadsheet and a word processor for sure. Probably make a simple
chart then include that chart in a "lab report" document (or at least leave
room in the document to print it when I print on a dot matrix printer).
Probably a dialup terminal to talk to the uni committee lab? File manager.
And a compiler to write my own tools.*

*The only difference is for the video I'll try to highlight FreeDOS distro
tools as much as possible, like Doszip for the file manager. *
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 2024 calendar coming soon

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jim Hall wrote:
[..]
>>> 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.
>>>


FYI: I've finished grading so now I'm starting on the calendar.

The calendar will be a series of screenshots of FreeDOS programs, and
possibly a little "info box" on each to talk about it. I'm open to
suggestions! Currently I'm thinking about these (not in order):

- FreeDOS command.com ("FreeCOM") version 0.60 [screenshot from FreeDOS Alpha 5]

- FreeDOS kernel 0.92 [screenshot from FreeDOS Beta 1]

- "Welcome to the FreeDOS install program (version 2.2)" [screenshot
from FreeDOS Beta 2]

- installing FreeDOS Kernel 2010 [screenshot from FreeDOS Beta 5]

- screenshot of FreeDOS Beta 9 boot CD menu

- screenshot of Block Drop

- screenshot of the standard 16-color (8 background colors) screen test

- screenshot of Edlin 2.23 [probably for May, because that was the
month Gregory released the first version of Edlin]

- screenshot of FreeDOS installer [from FreeDOS 1.0]

- screenshot of FDIMPLES [from FreeDOS 1.3]

- screenshot of "FreeDOS 1.3 - Install" [from FreeDOS 1.3]

- screenshot of FreeDOS 1.3 after it's booted to the command line



Of these, 5 are basically black with gray text (alpha 5 command.com,
beta 1 kernel, beta 2 install, edlin, and FreeDOS 1.3 after boot). And
4 are basically blue with text (beta 3 install, FreeDOS 1.0 install,
FDIMPLES, and FreeDOS 1.3 install). That might not be very visually
interesting - but probably interesting historically. Would you
recommend *not* using any of the above screenshots? Are there other
screenshots that you'd like to see instead?


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] FreeDOS 2024 calendar coming soon

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

(I'm re-sharing this item from my virtual get-together "followup"
email so it gets seen by others)


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.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Epson dot matrix printer emulator?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

That looks super interesting, and I think that fits my need - thanks. I'll
have to give this a try.





On Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 11:33 AM Ben Collver via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> I wrote a post about how to do this on FreeDOS.  It converts Epson printer
> data to image or PDF.  DOSBox-X has similar Epson printer emulation built
> in, and you can install FreeDOS on that.
>
> Basically, the process goes like this:
>
> * Run prn2file to capture the printer data to a file.
> * Print from a DOS application as desired.
> * Run prn2file again to close the captured file.
> * Run escparse to convert the captured file to PDF.
>
> Details:
>
>
> https://gopher.tildeverse.org/tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/log/2022-06-15-print-quest/
>
> -Ben
>
> ___
> 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] Epson dot matrix printer emulator?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I'm looking for DOS software that will basically simulate an Epson dot
matrix printer. Like an FX-80.

Basic idea is that I should be able to print from a DOS program to a file,
then feed that file into this emulator so I can view the output.
Specifically looking for graphics mode printing (like charts from a
spreadsheet, etc) on the Epson.

Bonus if it actually simulates printing line by line as it draws on screen.
I don't need it to convert to an image file or PDF.

Any ideas? I figure someone out there wrote something like this, maybe as
shareware in the 1990s? Hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Jim
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Dunfield releases 40+ years of Source Code

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Tue, Nov 7, 2023, 5:15 AM hms--- via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> This is indeed a treasure trove of material.
> Does anyone know where to find the user manuals and binary files?
>


The binary files are at https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/dnld.htm

>
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Dunfield releases 40+ years of Source Code

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

This is super exciting! If I remember correctly, we recommended
Micro-C as a great free (gratis) C compiler for DOS. I remember using
it for several programs of my own at the time.

It would be great if Dave could have used a more standard open source
license (for example, any of the licenses from the Opensource.org
list). Using a standard, accepted open source license makes it easy
for everyone to understand what the person sharing the code intends.
Based on how brief the COPY.TXT file is, the BSD license might have
been a better choice and seems to match the intent (as far as I can
see at first read). But choosing a license is up to Dave.

On Sun, Nov 5, 2023 at 9:33 PM Louis Santillan via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Dave Dunfield has released what he calls "40+ years of source code".
>
> https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=7=97034
>
> https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/dnldsrc.htm
>
> What I find most interesting is the source to his C compiler, Micro-C.  Lots 
> of other tools other bits that are new to me.
>
> The terms seem liberal but not quite OSS.
> https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/dnld/sc/COPY.TXT
>
> Maybe in the line of BSD or MIT/X like licenses.
>
> If you would like to see the binary versions of some of these projects, you 
> can find them here.
> https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/dnld.htm
> ___
> 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] DosView, a modern image format viewer and converter

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

FYI: The DosView news item has been on the https://www.freedos.org/
website for the last few days. It's currently the top news item on the
FreeDOS website.


On Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 5:01 AM Eric Auer via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
>
> Hi! SuperIlu is has recently released version 1.1 of DosView:
>
> https://github.com/SuperIlu/DosView
>
> It uses Allegro and compiles with DJGPP 12, so with a 386+ CPU,
> enough RAM and VESA, you can now view those WEBP, JPEG2000, TIFF
> and other modern file formats in truecolor graphics modes on DOS.
>
> You can convert images to other formats with DosView as well :-)
>
> A thread about it on BTTR:
>
> https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?id=20798=0=time=0
>
> Interestingly, the newest DosView EXE UPXes from 1.5 to 0.6 MB :-)
>
> Cheers, 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] Ré : New game for DOS using DJGPP - Open Source

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Juan wrote:
>  > I used DJGPP back in the 90s, and was a life changing experience for me:
>  > my first contact with GCC and free software.
>  >
>  > I never managed to finish any games back then, but I have released one
>  > recently, and the source code is available in case anyone is interested:
>  >
>  > https://git.usebox.net/gold-mine-run/about/
>  >
>  > There are also binaries available here:
>  >
>  > https://www.usebox.net/jjm/gold-mine-run/
>  >


I'd like to try this game, and maybe demo it on the FreeDOS YouTube
channel - but I haven't been able to run this game consistently on
FreeDOS. I think I need help.

I read the dosbox.conf file so I can see how to run the game.
Sometimes when I run it, the game actually runs (but unplayably fast)
and other times it just sits there and chews CPU. At first, I thought
it was because I tried to run SLOWDOWN, but sometimes the game doesn't
run if I have SLOWDOWN running, and sometimes the game doesn't run if
I don't have SLOWDOWN running. So it's not SLOWDOWN.

I'm running this on QEMU, if that helps:

qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -boot menu=on -device sb16 -device
adlib -hda freedos.qcow2 -hdb mystuff.qcow2

The "freedos" drive is my C: drive (installed from T2310) and the
"mystuff" drive is my D: drive, where I extracted the gminer.zip file.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] HIMEMX zip file dates

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Eric wrote:
> You can also find updates for JEMM and HIMEMX on Japheth's GitHub "Baron von 
> Riedesel", even his HIMEMSX to use more than 4 GB RAM :-)

Mercury Thirteen wrote:
[..]
> Looks like I fell behind on keeping up with all of Japheth's updates! The 
> downloads section at MercuryCoding.com has been updated with new versions of 
> HiMemX and JWasm as well. Thanks, Eric, for (indirectly) pointing this out to 
> me! :)
>

I didn't have the latest HIMEMX mirrored on Ibiblio, so I just grabbed
the copies you have. I checked the file contents, and they have been
touched since the original. For example, 3.38
(https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/HimemX/releases) was released
Nov 21, 2022 and has file contents like this:

$ unzip -l HimemX338.zip
Archive:  HimemX338.zip
  Length  DateTimeName
-  -- -   
 6056  11-21-2022 13:01   HimemX.exe
 6056  11-21-2022 13:01   HimemX2.exe
 1954  04-16-2020 06:38   Readme.txt
 4871  11-21-2022 13:01   History.txt
81855  11-21-2022 13:01   HimemX.asm
  296  03-24-2020 01:56   Make.bat
  529  03-24-2020 01:58   Makefile
- ---
   101617 7 files


It looks like you modify the zip files when you mirror them. Your
version looks like this:

$ unzip -l 3.38/himemx338.zip
Archive:  3.38/himemx338.zip
  Length  DateTimeName
-  -- -   
0  09-23-2023 03:38   APPINFO/
  568  09-23-2023 03:38   APPINFO/HIMEMX.LSM
0  09-23-2023 03:38   BIN/
 6056  09-23-2023 03:38   BIN/HIMEMX.EXE
 2168  09-23-2023 03:38   BIN/UMBM.EXE
 6056  09-23-2023 03:38   BIN/HIMEMX2.EXE
0  09-23-2023 03:38   DOC/
0  09-23-2023 03:38   DOC/HIMEMX/
 1954  09-23-2023 03:38   DOC/HIMEMX/README.TXT
 4871  09-23-2023 03:38   DOC/HIMEMX/HISTORY.TXT
0  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/
0  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/UMBM/
  296  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/UMBM/MAKE.BAT
12147  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/UMBM/UMBM.ASM
0  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/HIMEMX/
  296  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/HIMEMX/MAKE.BAT
81855  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/HIMEMX/HIMEMX.ASM
  529  09-23-2023 03:38   SOURCE/HIMEMX/MAKEFILE
- ---
   116796 18 files


(You sent your message on 9/23, so that explains the dates.)

Are you folding the source code into the "exe" zip file to create a package?


At least for the mirrored files on Ibiblio, I prefer to keep the files
as provided by the developer (Jerome creates packages, but the Files
Archive section is a straight mirror.) So I'll re-mirror the original
releases from GitHub.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] EduQiz rel 2023

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 2:58 PM Mateusz Viste via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hello List,
>
> About a year ago I have created a graphical, quiz-like program as a
> pretext for my kids to get some hands-on with my 386 PC and learn a
> thing or two in the process. I named the program EduQiz and kept it
> private until now. Since I am quite satisfied about how it turned out, I
> decided to publish it today. Here it is:
>
> http://eduqiz.osdn.io/
>
[..]


Very cool! I've added a news item about it on the www.freedos.org website.

Since you mentioned in your email and on the website that "this is NOT
a 'ready to play' product: it is up to you to prepare your tests and
quizzes" I think it's safe to assume this shouldn't go into the
FreeDOS distribution. :-)


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] languages

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Joao wrote:
> > It's been a while since i use freedos on asus eeepc with portuguese from
> > portugal and if i recall i can't write the * with shift and *+" key and
> > since there is no numeric keypad.
>


Tom wrote:
[..]
> >  "i can't write the * with shift and *+" key"
> c) about the worst bug complaint ever. you don't deserve a better keyboard 
> driver ;(


It's not a bad bug complaint. According to Wikipedia (see link) the
asterisk (*) is on the plus (+) key in the Shifted position. It's next
to the "P" key. So "Shift and +" should produce "*" on a
Portuguese/Portugal keyboard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_QWERTY_keyboard_language_variants#Portugal


*Also, telling someone "you don't deserve a better keyboard driver" is
not cool. :-( We're all in this together to create a welcoming
environment. Let's treat everyone with respect.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Planning the FreeDOS "2024" calendar

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

I'm making a FreeDOS "2024" calendar, and looking for suggestions of
what screenshots to include in it. Any ideas?

The "2023" calendar came out in January 2023, but that's too late. I'm
planning to share the "2024" calendar in mid to late October so folks
can get a copy for Christmas gifts, or otherwise in time for the New
Year.

The calendar has an image for each month. We've always had a
screenshot of a FreeDOS program for each month (EDIT, FDIMPLES, ..).
I'm planning the same for the new calendar, plus a "sidebar" that has
some info about the program in the screenshot (like "The first version
of Edlin was released on... and is a line-based editor...")

Looking for suggestions of what screenshots you think would be great
to have in the calendar.

Also: Any important FreeDOS-related or DOS-related or "classic
PC"-related dates that you think should be marked on the calendar?


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Announcement: lDebug release 6

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jim Hall wrote:
> > Can you send me an announcement (in about 100 words) that I can
> > copy/paste into the news system?

C. Masloch wrote:
> Sure, I based it on yours with a few improvements:
>
> lDebug (that's with a small L) is a 86-DOS debugger that replaces the
> classic DOS Debug program. The latest version (release 6) is available
> today! The new version includes several cool new features and fixes
> bugs. Some features were suggested on the FreeDOS feature request
> tracker, including "style 2" and "style 3" alternative symbolic flag
> displays. Lists can be specified as words or dwords. The DT "dump text
> table" command can translate numbers to text. lDebug can read a config
> file on startup. More details are found [in the mailing list
> announcement] [1]. Get it from [the lDebug website] [2].

Thanks! I updated the news item with this one.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Announcement: lDebug release 6

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

> Hi Jim,
>
> I noticed that the file on ibiblio isn't updated yet [1]. Likewise the
> FreeDOS Software page [2] linked from the website [3]. Though both of
> these list 1.3 in their pathnames, so I'm not sure what the appropriate
> action would be. However, I do think that the website [3] should link to
> the most recent files.
>
> Browsing ibiblio I found that the freedos/files/repositories/latest/
> tree is even more outdated [4]. The ldebug/ subdirectory does have
> release 5, but the ldebug.zip file (in the latest/devel/ directory) says
> it is from 2022-04-04. The unstable tree has the same old files [5].


Jerome usually updates the installer repo with new packages, so I'm
leaving that to him.

However, the zip file is mirrored on ibiblio, here:
https://ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/debug/ldebug/rel6/


> Finally, here's your news item quoted:
>
>
> > lDebug release 6
> > 2023-08-26 9:27am
> >
>> lDebug (that's with a small L) is a 86-DOS debugger that
>> replaces the classic DOS Debug program. The latest version
>> (release 6) is available today! The new version includes
>> several cool new features and fixes bugs. Some features
>> were suggested on the FreeDOS feature request tracker,
>> and include "style 2" and "style 3" alternative symbolic
>> flag displays.
>
> Fine so far.
>
> > You can display lists with leading keywords.
>
> This is wrong, there is no change to any data displays with the leading
> AS WORDS or AS DWORDS keywords. Rather, they can be specified on the
> *input* that a user gives in a list parameter [6]. This modifies how the
[..]

Well, I did my best trying to write a news item based on your 680-word
announcement, with 18 footnotes. It's not always easy to get it right.
:-)

Can you send me an announcement (in about 100 words) that I can
copy/paste into the news system?


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Planning the next virtual get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 1:00 PM zerofive--- via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Is there a recording of the get-together? I couldn't attend due to personal 
> reasons. :(
>


Sorry, I don't record the virtual get-togethers for personal privacy reasons.


But maybe we'll see you at the next get-together?


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Planning the next virtual get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

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

We had a great conversation about different topics, mostly about tech
topics - like programming, DOS apps, the wiki, and retrocomputing.

We'll plan the next virtual get-together for Sunday, September 24.
That will be focused on "social time" - get to meet other FreeDOS
users and developers as more than a screen name.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] REMINDER: FreeDOS virtual get-together is tomorrow

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Hi everyone!

We're about 15 minutes away from the virtual get-together. Here's the
connection information, for anyone who needs it early:

https://bluejeans.com/909315200/0433

Meeting ID: 909 315 200
Passcode: 0433


Phone number: (if you are dialing in by phone)
+1.408.419.1715 (US / San Jose, Calif.)

*see all dial-in numbers (including other US numbers) at
https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] REMINDER: FreeDOS virtual get-together is tomorrow

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 10:29 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
[..]
> Let's do it! Plan for our FreeDOS virtual get-together for NEXT
> SUNDAY, August 27 at 11am US/Central. (Use your favorite timezone
> converter to find your local time.) We usually alternate topics every
> month (technical v social) but we didn't get to meet last month - so
> this meeting will be focused on "technical."


Hi everyone!

Just sharing a quick reminder about tomorrow's (Aug 27) virtual
get-together at 11am US/Central. I'll send the URL shortly before the
meeting starts.

The meeting is on BlueJeans. We've found that you may get video "lag"
if you connect using only a web browser ("web client") but performance
is much better if you download the (free) desktop client:
https://www.bluejeans.com/downloads


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Announcement: lDebug release 6

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Great news, thanks! I've been following the feature request discussion
on the tracker, so it's great to see the new version with the cool new
changes.

There's a lot in this announcement (because so many new features) so I
wasn't able to reproduce all of that in the news item for the website,
but I did my best. :-)


Jim

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:31 AM C. Masloch via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hello list,
>
> I finished release 6 of lDebug (with a small L) today. This is my
> advanced 86-DOS debugger project based on FreeDOS Debug/X (in turn based
> on MS-DOS Debug), with some ideas from DR-DOS Debug. The duration since
> the prior release 5 is back to less than 6 months as opposed to the year
> between releases 4 and 5. Apart from the usual amount of bugfixes, there
> are some new features.
>
> If the debugger is not bootloaded (that is, loaded as a DOS application
> or DOS device driver) then some of the boot-specific code and messages
> is discarded, saving some resident memory. The ATTACH command [1] does
> the opposite of the TSR command, allowing a device-mode debugger to
> attach to a process. The K command is a synonym to N usually, to stay
> compatible to my MSDebug build [2]. .HEX files can be read now.
>
> Some features were suggested on the sourceforge.net FreeDOS feature
> tracker. These include style 2 and style 3 alternative symbolic flag
> displays [3]. The E, F, and S commands allow specifying lists with
> leading keywords like "AS WORDS" or "AS DWORDS" [4] [5]. The DT (dump
> text table) command [6] allows to generate an ASCII table [7], a table
> of the top half of the 8-bit space, or to dump the bytes of a specified
> number as text [8]. The H command displays the remainder if the
> outermost operator is a division [9].
>
> Another feature suggested there [3] is the debugger will attempt to read
> a configuration file on startup now, either from the directory specified
> in the %LDEBUGCONFIG% variable, or else the same directory as the lDebug
> executable. This is described a bit in the manual section on "Invoking
> the debugger as an application" [10]. Further, when a Script for lDebug
> (.SLD) file is not found it is searched for in the directory specified
> by the %LDEBUGSCRIPTS% variable [12], or also the debugger executable
> directory.
>
> The INSTALL and UNINSTALL commands were extended with many new nouns for
> reconfiguring the debugger [11] without having to look up cryptic
> numbers to set or clear in the Debugger Common Options (DCO) variables.
>
> There is a new mode called RH mode [12], which allows the RH command
> [13] to replay any of the last several dozen register dumps from the
> debugger's auxiliary buffer. While on the topic of the auxiliary buffer,
> the application mode and device driver mode init of the debugger gained
> the ability to grow this buffer to up to 24 KiB, beyond its minimum size
> of just above 8 KiB. This is done by passing an /A switch to the
> debugger's init [10]. Because it is done in the init, this costs very
> little amounts of resident space.
>
> Another two features are done in the debugger init, costing no space in
> the resident debugger. The first is the /P switch (or component /PE and
> /PS switches) to guess a filename extension and do a path search for the
> specified file. The second is a warning for an unknown filename
> extension, which can be disabled with a /PW- switch.
>
> Finally, the default build of the debugger gained the run time option to
> install interrupt 0Dh and interrupt 0Ch handlers in Real/Virtual 86
> Mode, using an INSTALL INTFAULTS command [11]. Most physical machines in
> Real 86 Mode, and the most recent dosemu2 VMM in Virtual 86 Mode, will
> dispatch faults in 86 Mode to these handlers. However, the same handlers
> are usually invoked for two different IRQs. The debugger's handlers will
> query the Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC) to find out whether a
> corresponding IRQ is being serviced; if it is then the debugger will
> pass along the call to the downlink of its handler. Otherwise, it is
> treated as a fault.
>
> The release packages are available from our server [14] as usual. The
> fdpkg subdirectory [15] has a FreeDOS package that I prepared. The
> svardpkg subdirectory [16] has executable and source SvarDOS packages.
> The repo history up to the release can be read in our hgweb [17]. The
> News chapter of the manual has a section on release 6 [18].
>
> Regards,
> ecm
>
>
> [1]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#cmdattach
> [2]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/msdebug.htm#cmdn
> [3]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/feature-requests/93/
> [4]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/feature-requests/102/
> [5]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#parlist
> [6]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#cmddt
> [7]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/feature-requests/105/
> [8]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/feature-requests/99/
> [9]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/feature-requests/100/
> [10]: 

Re: [Freedos-user] Online Get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

Jerome wrote:
>> I think the monthly online get-together is today.

Jim wrote:
> We haven't scheduled the August get-together, and today I have another
> video call at that time (family call).
>
> However, how about a virtual get-together next Sunday, August 27?

Jerome wrote:
> Sounds good.
>
> If it was today, I wasn’t sure if I could have make it.

I think we've usually scheduled the FreeDOS virtual get-togethers for
the 4th Sunday of a month. That's because I usually do my family video
call on the 3rd Sunday of a month. :-)


Let's do it! Plan for our FreeDOS virtual get-together for NEXT
SUNDAY, August 27 at 11am US/Central. (Use your favorite timezone
converter to find your local time.) We usually alternate topics every
month (technical v social) but we didn't get to meet last month - so
this meeting will be focused on "technical."

As usual, I'll share the URL here on the email list (and the website,
and Facebook, and Mastodon) shortly before the meeting starts. We'll
use BlueJeans, which you can use via a web browser (they recommend
Chrome) although you may see a video lag. We find you get better
performance if you download the (free) desktop client.


Also: BlueJeans has announced they will be closing down, sometime in
the "first half of 2024." So I'm starting to look again at other video
meeting options, for the few times that I need to do remote workshops
for my consulting practice. (Most of my work in the last year has been
in-person.) We might experiment with some of these later this year.
:-)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Online Get-together

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

We haven't scheduled the August get-together, and today I have another
video call at that time (family call).

However, how about a virtual get-together *next Sunday*, August 27?

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023, 8:03 AM Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> I think the monthly online get-together is today.
>
>
> ___
> 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] How do I change screen resolution?

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 7:40 AM EdzUp via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hi all, I could cobble together a Command line app to chuck the system
> into VGA/SVGA resolutions :)
>


But this is just a special case of the MODE command, which can already set
the screen to use (for example) 50 lines.
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] (C library) SvarLANG ver 20230730

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 9:38 AM Mateusz Viste via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have recently released a new version of SvarLANG. SvarLANG is a C
> library and toolset for enabling DOS applications to easily support
> multiple languages.
[..]
>
> http://svardos.org/svarlang/


Thanks, Mateusz!

I posted a news item about it for the FreeDOS website, but I wanted to
ask before I mirrored a copy to ibiblio. Would you like me to make a
copy at the FreeDOS files archive at ibiblio?


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Dos

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 5:14 PM Rahim Fakir via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Whats The main Diference between freedos and dos.
> Which os The best, dos freedos runs a 486?


As Bryan said, FreeDOS is a more modern version of DOS.

Also, FreeDOS is open source software. Very early versions of MS-DOS
(v1.25 and v2.0, at https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS) are available
under an open source license, but these were very primitive versions
of "DOS" that don't have a lot of functionality. For example, MS-DOS
2.0 was the first version to support directories.

You also can't download (legally) a "freeware" copy of MS-DOS, that I
know of (certainly not one that is of much use, such as MS-DOS 5 or
MS-DOS 6.x).

By "more modern," we mean that FreeDOS has more features and includes
more tools than MS-DOS ever did. For example, the FreeDOS distribution
includes apps and tools, including some network utilities. We also
include compilers and assemblers and editors, so you can write your
own DOS apps to run on FreeDOS.

And yes, FreeDOS will run on a '486 CPU.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] My curiosity

[Jim Hall via Freedos-user]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 3:46 PM Daniel Essin via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm following this list and find it very interesting. I found it when I
> was trying to prepare myself to help a friend whose business in built
> around a DOS app. It's clear that many/most/all? have access to other
> computers and OSes. This would be obvious if only because one needs
> access to the internet even if only to get this list. This has made me
> curious.
>
> What are others using freedos for: business, curiosity, running retro
> games and apps for fun, to avoid total dependence on the evil empire, or
> something else?
>


Hi Dan

We ran a survey several years ago, and then last year, to answer
exactly that question: How are people using FreeDOS?

Several years ago (around 2014?) we found people were running FreeDOS
for 3 or 4 main use cases:

1. To play classic DOS games
2. To run legacy DOS applications
3. To support/develop embedded systems

and sometimes 4. To install firmware updates on certain motherboards

I recall that the legacy DOS software was often in a business setting,
such as organizations that needed to retrieve information from an old
DOS application. You discover that some data is locked up in some data
files that are only accessible by the program that wrote the data. So
you find the software (or download it if you don't have it), then
install FreeDOS + the application, and "save as" the data to some
format that you can use.

We did this when I served as CIO for a university. One of the faculty
found some old floppies with old research data. They wanted to get the
data back (I think to write a paper that referenced the historical
data). We installed FreeDOS on a spare PC that had a floppy drive,
found the original program on a DOS apps archive site, installed that,
and loaded the data. That program could also dump the data into a
plain text file (similar to CSV) which the faculty researcher could
load into a spreadsheet to do further analysis.

More recently, we found that people were running FreeDOS for (mostly)
3 main uses:

1. To play classic DOS games
2. To run legacy DOS applications
3. To develop new DOS programs

For #3, I think that mostly represented FreeDOS developers responding
to the survey.

The survey had a few outliers (we still see people who use FreeDOS to
install firmware updates, for example) but in 2022, those were pretty
low compared to the other 3 uses.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] FD 1.3 startuup problem

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 1:15 AM Bob Yates via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> Using menu option 1, 2, or 3 the process stops with message JemmEx v5.79
> [02/02/20].
>
> Options 4 and 5 work.
>
> Could the Shellhigh command be the problem?
>


There's not much info to go on based on what you provided. Is there a
more specific error message that you're seeing? Can you share your
FDCONFIG.SYS?


Another way to debug this is to press F8 during boot; this will cause
FreeDOS to prompt before loading every line in FDCONFIG.SYS and
FDAUTO.BAT. If a command fails to return, then that's the line that
caused the problem.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] newsnuz

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, Jun 9, 2023 at 7:56 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:

> On 6/9/2023 4:57 PM, Jim Erickson wrote:
> > it can be found in C:\NET\NEWSNUZ\SNUZ.EXE it can be installed via
> > fdimples from the networking section. sorry about that!
>
> Well, color me surprised. Before i posted my previous question what it
> is, I did a Google search and came up empty. So I kind of wonder how
> this got onto any FreeDOS installation media (you also failed to mention
> which version). I also just checked the 1.3 Live CD and it is NOT
> included in that one, don't have any of the other CD media handy right
> now to check who the actual author is and equally important, what kind
> of IP networking library it would require (and possibly which other
> preloaded IP networking prerequisite).

[...]

According to the package report, it should be available in the livecd,
bonuscd, and fullusb installers.
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html


It’s been long enough since 1.3 that I’d completely forgotten it was there.
But it’s in the package review, too.
http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Releases/1.3/Packages#Networking


Based on what I found in my other email, it looks like this uses wattcp,
but I’ve never used an nntp client on DOS so I never tried this one either.

Jim


*Aside:*
*This is a reminder that when we one day start planning 1.4 (or 2.0,
whatever we call it), I think we need to look at what packages we include,
and consider dropping some unneeded packages. I’ve tried to start those
conversations since the 1.3 release, but maybe I should try again.*
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] newsnuz

[Jim Hall]

> On 6/9/2023 8:00 AM, Jim Erickson wrote:
> > i am attempting to get snuz running on my freedos 1.3 installation. i
> > have a wattcp.cfg and a snuz.rc configured. however when i run
> > snuz.exe i get "tcpopen failed" error. just wondering what exactly i
> > am doing wrong. will gladly supply any requested files. thanks in
> > advance.

On Fri, Jun 9, 2023 at 5:54 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:
>
> What the *&$#% is snuz?
>

Going by a comment in wattcp.svg, it's a News client (nntp client)
that can use WatTCP. See lines 1120-1103 in wattcp.cfg, here:
https://github.com/ya-mouse/dos-utils/blob/master/watt32/bin/wattcp.cfg

However, I don't know where to find snuz. My google searches come up
empty. Can the original poster (Jim E) please share a URL to snuz?


*General note: If you ask for help with a program, don't assume others
know what it is. Include a URL or some other indication of where to
find it.

Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Doshexed

[Jim Hall]

>> On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 7:27 PM Christopher Evans
>> >
>> > I uploaded updated doshexed 1.13g hex editor archive at 
>> > http://icctechconsult.com/ showcase page.

> On Wed, May 31, 2023, 10:29 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for sharing this!
>>
>> What are the changes in 1.13g? I downloaded it, but I don't see a file
>> that contains a list of changes.

On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 4:36 PM Christopher Evans
 wrote:
>
> Only list of changes is logged in hexed.c file.


Can you be more specific? This is the comment block at the top of the
file. I downloaded the doshexed_v1.3g_freedos_2023.zip file from your
website, but it looks really old. Last updated May 2016.

 ** -
 ** v1.0a  FEB - 10 - 2013   Hex Viewer/Editor for FreeDOS
using Borland C 3.1
 ** v1.0c  FEB - 12 - 2013   Added dosmem free check, wont
load if document
 **  is greater than ramavail.
 ** v1.0e  FEB - 13 - 2013   Added loadcolorcfg() as per
request from freedos-user
 **  list.
 ** v1.0g  FEB - 17 - 2013   Made this compile on linux,
 ** v1.1aFixed ramfreeink.. so it works on linux
 ** v1.1b   9:57p Why is pgup/pgdn/arrows not
working in linux?
 ** v1.1c  FEB - 18 - 2013 10:31  added argc == 0 to fix coredump issue.
 ** v1.1d  13:00  Now reads multibyte terminal
keyboard codes on linux
 ** v1.1f  14:43  Set color to 7,0 make sure
clrscr in dos works right
 ** v1.2a2119:04  try to get debug data in dos
version of cut()
 ** v1.2c  Apr - 3  - 2013 19:49  Took out the bootsector read
code too dangerous
 ** v1.2e  June- 11 - 2013 21:44  Minor code fixups.
 ** v1.2f  June- 26 - 2013 17:10  Removed the donation nag screen...
 ** v1.3b  Oct   10   2014 22:30
 ** v1.3g  May   52016 13:40  recompile dos version update
 ** -


And if I look for any file updated "2023" in that zip file, I only
find the Readme has changed:

$ unzip -l doshexed_v1.3g_freedos_2023.zip | grep 2023
> Archive:  doshexed_v1.3g_freedos_2023.zip
>   121  05-29-2023 16:56   doshexed/readme.md


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Doshexed

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 7:27 PM Christopher Evans
 wrote:
>
>
> I uploaded updated doshexed 1.13g hex editor archive at 
> http://icctechconsult.com/ showcase page.
>
> When I get more $ I'll get my Linux mini pc so I can get back into freedos 
> and Linux programming again.
>


Thanks for sharing this!

What are the changes in 1.13g? I downloaded it, but I don't see a file
that contains a list of changes.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Wait! What did that say?

[Jim Hall]

Very cool! I've posted a news item about it on the website.

Since this is still alpha (alpha-3) I assume it's too early to mirror
on the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio, so I haven't copied it there.
Let me know if you'd prefer I make a mirror.


Jim



On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 12:35 PM  wrote:
>
> Have you every watched you DOS machine boot and find yourself saying
> “what was that message?” as it scrolled off the screen?
>
> Wonder no more.
>
> I’ve just release the first version of LOGGER for testing.
>
> It includes a device driver that gets loaded in the FDCONFIG.SYS
> (or CONFIG.SYS) that will record all the messages at boot time. And
> continue logging during normal system usage until it is turned off.
>
> It also includes a program to VIEW the log (in full color when enabled),
> PRINT it to file for later and various other functions. When logging
> is on during normal system usage, it can even be used to view the
> output of previous commands similar to a “scroll-back” buffer of
> up to 64Mb of XMS memory. That would be roughly 60,000 pages or 30,000
> color pages. (storage of a 80x25 page can range from 50 to 4100 bytes
> depending on the recording mode and contents).
>
> If you are interested in giving it a whirl, you can find it at:
>
> https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/logger.html


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] A new mTCP (2023-03-31) is available

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Apr 10, 2023 at 2:02 PM Michael Brutman  wrote:
>
> Just a small correction - please change the URLs to start with
> http://www.brutman.com/ as per the original announcement.  You've got
> http://brutmanlabs.org/, which is a PCjr running at 4.77Mhz.  It's doing
> fine under load, but eventually it will run out of log space and be
> moved back to something more fun. :)  Perhaps an online version of
> Eliza to compete with ChatGPT.
>

Fixed!


> (The PCjr has been running and serving traffic for 10+ days now.
> I was redirecting from the usual home page to get some traffic for
> better testing.  I'm going to see if I can get 1000 continuous hours
> on it, which for 39 year old hardware is no small feat.)

Impressive for a PCjr. :-)


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] A new mTCP (2023-03-31) is available

[Jim Hall]

Sounds good! I've mirrored this, but marked it as invisible (sort of
"pre-mirrored" it, if you will). I can mark it as "visible" at some
later time.

News item posted on the website. I'll also share it on Mastodon.


Jim

On Sat, Apr 1, 2023 at 11:38 AM Michael Brutman  wrote:
>
> http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP.html
>
> From the release notes:
>
> Unicode support for Telnet and IRCjr
> RLE graphics support in Telnet (fun as a demonstration, but not very 
> practical)
> The web server gets a built-in SNTP client for keeping the server time 
> correct across many days/weeks of runtime.
> A keyboard handling workaround for VirtualBox users.  (OpenWatcom had a 
> run-time bug that interacts poorly with the incomplete BIOS keyboard handling 
> in VirtualBox.)
> Many small bug fixes and improvements, including in the base TCP/IP library.
>
>
> Jim & Jerome - As before, please give me a few weeks before mirroring it so 
> that I can get a rough idea of how many people are downloading it.  I need 
> some reason to justify all of this work. ;-0
>
> On a side note, unless something huge happens this is going to be the last 
> update for a while.  I suspect this code will last a few years.
>
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ___
> 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] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

> > On 2/6/2023 5:40 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
> > > Would you prefer an article on Pascal? I know you (also) are a fan of
> > > it. An article from your experience there might be useful.

> On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 9:49 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:
> > No, kind of programming language agnostic, with examples in BASIC, Turbo
> > Pascal, C and assembler. As mentioned, it will be about programming in
> > DOS for DOS.

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 8:34 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> Just a caveat: I think they want only "open source" tools. And,
> although they list OSI approved licenses, I would be surprised if they
> were sympathetic to OpenWatcom (Sybase v1).

I've written a few articles for Opensource.com that use OpenWatcom on
FreeDOS. For example, the "conio" article used OpenWatcom.

That said, any other articles I write about conio will probably use TK
Chia's IA-16 libi86. But that's just because I love the work on IA-16
GCC.


[..]
> In other words, you probably can't talk about "Turbo Pascal" proper,
> only the dialect as used in either GPC or FPC or p2c. They don't want
> you promoting or pointing people to proprietary software.

Correct, you shouldn't write about proprietary software for
Opensource.com. One exception is if you're writing about "open source
alternatives to proprietary software." So writing a "(Free)DOS
programming with Pascal" article that uses FreePascal is great; a
Pascal article that uses TurboPascal would probably get rejected.

("Open source alternatives" is always a popular topic, by the way. If
anyone wants to write an article about "Open source alternatives to
proprietary DOS software that you can run on FreeDOS in 2023," I'm
pretty sure the editors would go for that. My example is a very long
title; the editors can help you with the title.)


[..]
> I don't think they are sympathetic to the history of QB, PDS, VBDOS.
> (Steve Nikolas is the resident BASIC expert around here.)

"History of programming" articles can be okay, but I'd guess the
editors would look for the article to turn to open source options.
That's what I'd look for, if I read the article. For example, an
article about the history of BASIC might highlight a few variants like
AppleSoft BASIC, BASICA, GW-BASIC, QuickBASIC/QBASIC, and FreeBASIC.
Most of those are proprietary; GW-BASIC was made open source a few
years ago, and FreeBASIC is GNU GPL. As a suggestion: You might make
the focus into something like "[most] programs written for an earlier
BASIC should work fine on a later BASIC, and that's the cool thing
about BASIC backwards compatibility .. it's just BASIC." Or something
like that. I am not an editor on the site, but my guess is they would
like that. You can always email the editors to ask them.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

*I'm going to ignore all the off topic stuff in this conversation and bring
it back to the original focus:*

>> And yes, an article, possibly a series of articles, about programming on
> >> DOS, for DOS, will be forthcoming...
> > Would you prefer an article on Pascal? I know you (also) are a fan of
> > it. An article from your experience there might be useful.
> No, kind of programming language agnostic, with examples in BASIC, Turbo
> Pascal, C and assembler. As mentioned, it will be about programming in
> DOS for DOS.
> >
> >
>


Yes, I think articles about DOS programming in any language would be very
interesting. As long as the language variant is open source (for example:
NASM is an open source assembler, Microsoft MASM is not) the editors and
readers at OpenSource have shown great interest all kinds of programming
articles. They've run programming articles about Algol68 and other lesser
known languages.

So yes, write an article about programming for FreeDOS with FreePascal. Or
programming for FreeDOS with NASM. Or programming for FreeDOS with ___.

If you'd like a simple program to start with, they often use the "guess the
number game" as a simple programming example. Pick a random number between
1-100, and loop ("too high" and "too low") until the user guesses correctly.

Comparisons between DOS programming and Unix/Linux programming would also
be good. Like how would you port a Linux ncurses program to DOS conio? Or
how would your approach differ if you were to write a program on DOS vs for
Linux? As an example, I loved Jerome's article about large number
arithmetic on DOS.

>
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 8:43 AM Liam Proven  wrote:
>[..]
> But I have a suggestion:
>
> How to install FreeDOS onto a USB key, so you can boot a BIOS-equipped
> PC into DOS from USB. I've done this myself and it works very well.
>
> You can create the key using VirtualBox, and then run it either in a
> VM or on bare metal. I described this (with respect to Linux) in my
> blog:
> https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/50416.html
>
> I've done this with FreeDOS 1.3 and it works very well. You can insert
> the key and just copy DOS apps and things onto it, then eject it, put
> it into another PC and boot it, and the new apps are right there.
>


I'll add this to my list of topics I might write about sometime.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 3:01 PM Aitor Santamaría  wrote:
>
> Hello Jim,
>
> Is this list of topics available somewhere on the web? The list here
> looks far shorter and does NOT include FreeDOS:
>
> The A to Z list of writing topics for Opensource.com | Opensource.com
>

I think they need to update that page; it's out of date (2016).
Rugxulo asked the same question but I think my reply got buried in the
thread:

The list was shared on the "frequent writers" email list, not
a web page - or I would have just linked to a web page.



So no, that list I shared it not on a web page that I know of.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 4:39 PM Karen Lewellen  wrote:
>
> What is their compensation rate?
>

Opensource.com is a volunteer-contributor site, so writing is
uncompensated. I get paid to write for other websites and magazines,
but I choose to volunteer on this one.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

> On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 3:01 PM Mart Zirnask  wrote:
> >
> > If I manage to build the command line mode of Rob Pike's sam editor
> > [1] for DOS, I could probably do a writeup on how to use it. Because
> > of the so-called structural regular expressions [2, 3], it is a really
> > interesting editor. Excellent for processing arbitrary strings that
> > spawn across multiple lines, since sam doesn't expect the input to be
> > full, terminated lines.

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 4:30 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> I've heard of it but never used it. It's very interesting. Plan9's
> successor to Ed, right? (Grep and Sed both came from Ed. Even AWK took
> the regex code from Egrep, I think.)

Brian Kernighan uses SAM, and I've interviewed Brian a few times.
Brian describes SAM as "ed" or "vi" on steroids. And that's how the
SAM website describes it, so I guess that's not a surprise.

SAM is a window-based editor, so it uses graphics mode. To me, this
looks a lot like the window editor on the Apollo/DOMAIN system - I
managed a small Apollo/DOMAIN network in the mid 1990s. You can find a
screenshot of SAM on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_%28text_editor%29#/media/File:Sam_text_editor.png

Compiling this for DOS would be an interesting exercise. Not sure if
it's possible, but give it a shot and let us know.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 3:39 PM Eze B  wrote:
> I’d love a place to learn more about Freedos and a place with
> articles for a beginner/entry. My dad who passed away used a program
> named IMAGE to make programs for CNC machining on Freedos. I myself
> have 0 knowledge when it comes to Freedos, I just know how to find the
> programs but I have no idea how to print them or transfer them. Would
> love an article/tutorial on basic commands and how to navigate.

I wrote a bunch of articles about how to use FreeDOS, including how to
navigate and use the basic command line tools. You can find them
collected in a series of free ebooks. (These are the most popular
articles about FreeDOS from Opensource.com, collected as ebooks.)


Here they are:


A guide to using FreeDOS
https://opensource.com/downloads/guide-using-freedos

An advanced guide to FreeDOS internals
https://opensource.com/downloads/advanced-freedos

A guide to tips and tricks for C programming (on Linux and FreeDOS)
https://opensource.com/downloads/guide-c-programming


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 3:42 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
>[..]
> I assume you meant we can (also) write open source articles about the
> above subjects, too. But, AFAIK, none of those directly relates or
> interacts with FreeDOS.
>

Correct. I shared the entire list (verbatim) that the editors shared,
so you could see that "FreeDOS" and "conio" and "C programming" were
there. (The list was shared on the "frequent writers" email list, not
a web page - or I would have just linked to a web page.)

I also shared the list of ideas to show that the site is pretty open
to a variety of article topics. For example, Jerome wrote a great
article about doing 64-bit math on 16-bit DOS:
https://opensource.com/article/22/10/64-bit-math


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 1:38 PM Linvel Risner  wrote:
> I’m by no means a FreeDOS expert, I’m just a user, but if anyone
> would like help writing an article I’m here to help. I know our
> community is very diverse linguistically and as a result I’m
> more than happy to lend a hand to an English as a second language
> speaker/writer. I would take no credit, you’d have 100% ownership of
> the article, I’d just like to help in some way. Reach out if y’all
> need anything :)
>

The editors are very cool with multiple authors on
articles. So it's fine to buddy up with someone to write
an article. They will list both of you as the author.

And they don't pay for articles (it's a volunteer writing
site) so it's not like you have to split proceeds.

Opensource publishes articles under a Creative Commons
license. You still "own" the article, Opensource.com
doesn't claim it. You can even run the article somewhere
else if you want.

Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

> On Sun, 29 Jan 2023, 18:41 Jim Hall,  wrote:
>>
>> If anyone here is interested in writing articles about FreeDOS,
>> Opensource.com is interested in running FreeDOS articles. I write
>> articles for them sometimes, and the FreeDOS articles perform very
>> well on the site. In fact, they recently listed FreeDOS among their
>> list of "topics we're interested in for 2023." Also included in the
>> list: conio and C programming.
>>[..]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 1:19 PM John Vella  wrote:
> That sounds like the sort of thing I'd be interested in doing, but
> what sort of article are they looking for? Are they after a "history
> of FreeDOS" type article, because that's been done so many times it
> would be hard to write anything original, wouldn't it?


I think the editors would say they don't need another "history of
FreeDOS" article right now. The best time to write a "history of"
article is in June when our anniversary comes up again (June 29).

The best articles on Opensource.com are "how-to" articles, so you
could write an article about "how to use (command) on FreeDOS." Pick a
package in the FreeDOS distribution, and write about that. For
example, you might show how to use the E3 editor. Or you might show
how to use SORT to sort a file starting at column N (such as SORT /+2
to start sorting at column 2). Or you might demo how to use DOjS to do
some simple Javascript programming.

DOS programming articles are good too, such as the conio and C
programming articles that have done well. In my experience, the more
focused you can make these, the better. Don't write an article about
writing a full game from scratch. Write about a specific programming
topic instead. If you have a programming background, you could write
an article about "how to write a DOS version of __" such as "how to
read an arbitrary-length string in C on FreeDOS" [like Linux getline]
or "how to read keyboard input in C on FreeDOS" or "how to play sounds
on a SB16 in C on FreeDOS." Those are just some C programming
examples; Assembly or Pascal articles are good too.

Don't worry about overlap, if Opensource.com already has an article on
that topic. As long as the other article isn't too recent, they are
glad to run another perspective on the same topic. Especially if your
article is at a different difficulty level (maybe the other article
was "entry level" and yours is more "for the experienced DOS user").

Also don't worry about it being too "basic" or "entry level." As one
of the editors once commented to me (when I asked about "entry level"
articles): they have a variety of readers; some are more "expert"
folks, some are just getting started. They need articles at all skill
levels. (And these days, not a lot of readers had used DOS in the
1980s and 1990s, so it's all new to them anyway - but they are
interested to read about it.)

For Opensource.com, they only run articles about open source software.
So an article about "how to run Lotus 1-2-3 on FreeDOS" will get
rejected, because Lotus 1-2-3 is proprietary software. Even "how to
run As Easy As on FreeDOS" will get rejected; while As Easy As is free
(gratis) it is still proprietary (closed source). But "how to play
Freedoom on FreeDOS" is more likely to be accepted because Freedoom is
open source.

Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Anyone want to write an article about FreeDOS?

[Jim Hall]

If anyone here is interested in writing articles about FreeDOS,
Opensource.com is interested in running FreeDOS articles. I write
articles for them sometimes, and the FreeDOS articles perform very
well on the site. In fact, they recently listed FreeDOS among their
list of "topics we're interested in for 2023." Also included in the
list: conio and C programming.

I can tell you the editors are very welcoming, which is why I continue
to write articles for them. If English isn't your first language, and
you aren't confident of your English writing skills, they can help
with editing to make the final version really nice.

Here's the list they shared, in case this inspires anyone to write an article:

- accessibility
- Ansible
- apt
- Awk
- Bash scripting
- Blender
- C getopt
- C Programming
- Chaos Engineering for K8s
- Compose Key
- conio
- Containers/Pods
- cron
- Curl
- DevOps
- DevSecOps
- dnf
- doxygen
- Emacs
- find command
- Firewall
- FreeDOS
- GDB
- GIMP
- Git
- GNOME
- GNU Screen
- Go Beginners
- Grep
- Home Automation
- Inkscape
- Intro Small Scale Scrum
- Java
- JavaScript
- Jinja2
- Jupyter
- Kdenlive
- Kubectl
- Kubernetes
- Kubernetes SRE
- Linux Apps
- Linux perms
- Logrotate
- Markdown
- MySQL
- Networking
- Parted
- Pygame eBook
- PyPI
- Python
- Raspberry Pi
- Running K8s on RPi
- Rust
- Sed
- SELinux
- SSH
- sudo
- sustainability
- systemd
- tmux
- Vim
- wget

Email the editors at o...@opensource.com

They have a "write for us" page at https://opensource.com/writers


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 12:42 PM Gabriele Barbone  wrote:
>
> Hello i have a question can freedos run on
> Power Mac G3 G4 ?


Not natively. FreeDOS (like any DOS) needs an Intel CPU and a BIOS;
the PowerMac has neither of those. Instead, you would need to boot
FreeDOS from within MacOS, using a virtual machine or PC emulator.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UDVD2 drivers not starting on UTM MacOS - help needed

[Jim Hall]

Thanks BJ

UEFI would certainly be a problem. FreeDOS (like any DOS) requires BIOS
services to run. FreeDOS cannot run on a system using UEFI.



On Mon, Jan 9, 2023, 4:04 AM BJ Yackley  wrote:

> Hi there - new to this ML, but this thread showed up when I was looking
> for help on the exact same problem (UTM for Mac not booting FreeDOS) and I
> think I managed to solve it.
>
> The solution seems to be to uncheck the "UEFI Boot" option in the QEMU
> settings pane when you edit the VM. I also had the FD13 boot floppy
> inserted into a virtual floppy drive, but I don't know if that mattered or
> not. The FreeDOS installer booted up, and I was able to partition and
> format the drive and am now installing FreeDOS. Everything looks good so
> far.
>
>
> --
> BJ Yackley
>
> ___
> 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] Convert WordStar documents

[Jim Hall]

This page has downloads for converting Wordstar to HTML and RTF, as well as
some that are generically marked "converter."

http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wsdos-downloads


On Mon, Jan 9, 2023, 6:48 AM M. Osman Talayman  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Does anyone know of a program to convert WordStar documents to PDF,
> plain text, MS Word format?
>
> Thanks
> Osman
>
>
> ___
> 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] UDVD2 drivers not starting on UTM MacOS - help needed

[Jim Hall]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 5:02 PM E. Auer  wrote:
>
>
> Hi Knedlik!
>
> If I assume that UTM is some sort of virtual environment
> and assume that either way, you primarily need CD/DVD access
> during install, which means after booting from the install
> CD/DVD itself, then I would recommend that you try using the
> ELTORITO driver instead. This uses generic BIOS support, while
> the UDVD2 driver is for IDE/ATAPI/SATA, which means that AHCI
> controllers are not natively controlled. On PC, you can try to
> configure them to SATA instead of AHCI mode, but maybe Mac OS,
> UEFI or EFI or UTM does not offer this choice?
>


Yes, UTM is a virtual environment for MacOS. More info on their website:
https://mac.getutm.app/

The website says that UTM is just a front-end for QEMU, so QEMU is
really doing the hard work here. My thought is that if FreeDOS works
on QEMU (and it does - that's how I use it about half the time) then
FreeDOS should work on UTM on Mac. The fact that you're having
problems indicates UTM has changed the QEMU config. (QEMU has a long
command line to enable support for all kinds of things, so UTM is
probably not selecting something that others might.)

I only know about UTM by looking at their website, but if Knedlik
downloaded UTM from their website, maybe they can try running FreeDOS
in QEMU from the command line, to see if that works - instead of using
the UTM front end?

Here's the command line I use on Linux to boot FreeDOS in QEMU:

qemu-system-x86_64 -name FreeDOS -enable-kvm -cpu host -m 16 -boot
menu=on -hda freedos.img -cdrom FD13LIVE.iso -device sb16 -device
adlib -soundhw pcspk -vga cirrus -display sdl -usbdevice mouse


As always, your mileage may vary. In particular, "-enable-kvm" may be
problematic on the Mac, I don't know. (And don't forget to change that
command line to use your own hard disk image file instead of
freedos.img. You can create your own with the qemu-img command.)


If it helps you, here are two older articles I wrote about booting
FreeDOS in QEMU:

https://opensource.com/article/17/10/run-dos-applications-linux

https://opensource.com/article/18/3/can-you-run-dos-raspberry-pi



Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Updates on the FreeDOS YouTube channel

[Jim Hall]

You might not know we have a YouTube channel.

I post videos there on a variety of topics, such as DOS games, DOS
programs, and programming. Most of the content in the last few months
has been programming.

Here are a few videos you might have missed:

Math on the command line with VMATH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ErxomqIF0

How to make a timestamp in FreeDOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XApjTuu9Xg4

Optimize a C program with macros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTf_Voy1-ew

C programming bugs with macros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7VABqB0q6g

How to tweak VirtualBox performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ChxiuIbP8

Learn machine language on this cool retro toy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptoyRCRYFU


Videos have been slow coming in the last few months (I took on too
much work in the last quarter of the year) but things should be on a
more regular schedule this year. Subscribe to our channel to get
notified of new videos, usually once a week.


If you're curious: I have a Patreon, which in theory lets me take time
off from consulting to make videos. But that really brings in just
enough for me to do one or two videos a month - not a lot compared to
my consulting rate. The YouTube channel generates a little $ from ads,
but it's barely enough to cover website hosting costs. (I'm not
looking for help covering hosting costs, just being honest - you don't
get rich on YouTube and Patreon unless you are a "content mill," and
I'm not.)


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Happy New Year, everyone!

[Jim Hall]

It's the first day of 2023, so I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year!

If you're new to the freedos-user list ("new" could be anytime in the last
few months, but maybe haven't posted anything yet) use this thread to say
"Hello" to everyone.

I hope you're excited for what this year will bring. For myself, I'm
finally digging my way out of other work so I can (a) finish editing the
"Why we love FreeDOS" ebook, and (b) update the FreeDOS website so it's
easier to use.
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Writing date and time into log file

[Jim Hall]

On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 2:12 AM M. Osman Talayman  wrote:
>
> Thank you all for your suggestions.
>
> I will definitely look into 4dos. I will not use its specific date and
> time functions as that will tie me to it. However, it is interesting
> in itself. Is it used a lot amongst FreeDos users?
> I guess I was too focused on doing everything from a batch file. I
> should, of course, have look into doing it using some of the other
> tools suggested like AWD, SED etc.
> The suggestion for using struct dosdate_t dt; and struct dostime_t tm;
> as suggested by Jim Hall, works perfectly and it allows me to format
> the date and time any way I want. Also it is simple.
> The amount of data that will go into my log files is minimal. It is
> just for me to keep track of what happens when I run certain batch
> jobs that I will write eventually (I'm just getting started with
> FreeDos).
>


Sounds like you're familiar with compiling, but for anyone who wants
to see a "follow along" tutorial, here's a video I posted to the
YouTube channel about this:

"How to make a timestamp in DOS"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XApjTuu9Xg4


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Questions about link files

[Jim Hall]

> > The link files in C:\FreeDos\Links set an environment variable. For
> > example I found this in the file blkdrop.bat
> >
> > set _LINK.BLKDROP=%DOSDRV%\GAMES\BLKDROP\BLKDROP.EXE
> >
> > If I run this, I expect the environment variable _LINK.BLKDROP to be
> > added to the system, but when I do a "set" I don't see it. Why is
> > that? (I must be misunderstanding how the "set" command works).
>
> After you type SET xxx=yyy you should see it show up when you type
> the SET command afterwards.  There are two reasons I can think of
> why it wouldn't show up.  One would be if you are out of environment
> space so it never actually got added.  The amount of environment
> space is limited, and I'm not sure how different DOS versions react
> if a variable never got added due to a size limitation (some may just
> fail silently).  I don't remember having that problem myself, so I'm
> not sure.

At the end of the BLKDROP.BAT file, you will see this:

:Done
set _LINK.BLKDROP=


That effectively "clears" the _LINK.BLKDROP environment variable, so
it is removed from the environment, thus SET doesn't display it
afterwards.


> > Why are some of the link files .COM files containing binary data?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "link files .COM files".  COM files
> are binary executable files and always contain binary data.  They can
> (and usually do) contain some readable text data embedded in the binary
> code, but they don't have to.
>

These .COM programs are there. You can find them in C:\FREEDOS\LINKS
which is part of the default PATH when you install FreeDOS. Here's
mine: (basic install, plus a few compilers, so there's not much there)

C:\FREEDOS\LINKS>dir /w /b
[.][..]   BLKDROP.BATI16ADDR2.COM   I16AR.COM
I16AS.COM  I16BUTIL.COM   I16CPP.COM I16CXXFI.COM   I16ELFED.COM
I16GCC-A.COM   I16GCC-N.COM   I16GCC-R.COM   I16GCC.COM I16GCOV-.COM
I16GCOV.COMI16GPROF.COM   I16LD.COM  I16NM.COM  I16OBJCO.COM
I16OBJDU.COM   I16RANLI.COM   I16READE.COM   I16SIZE.COMI16STRIN.COM
I16STRIP.COM


These are very tiny "shortcuts" that are there to run other programs
that wouldn't normally be part of the PATH. Rather than setting a
longer PATH that has the programs you want in it, the C:\FREEDOS\LINKS
directory contains them.

On my system, I always rewrite my FDAUTO.BAT file to be very simple,
and it doesn't include the C:\FREEDOS\LINKS directory in the PATH. But
for more general users, it's a way to make more programs available by
default without overloading the PATH variable.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Writing date and time into log file

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 1:42 AM M. Osman Talayman  wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I just can't figure this one out: From a .bat file, I want to write
> entries to a log file. Each entry should have a date and time in the
> form MMDD:HHMMSS I have searched the internet for solutions on how
> to do this, but none of the solutions work (I think they are for
> cmd.exe in modern Windows which is more advanced than command.com).
>
> My first problem is, that I just cannot figure out how to write just
> the date without all the preceeding text (Current date is Thu
> 12-23-2022).
[..]


Why not the "Current date is" text? If you're trying to put entries
into a log file from a FreeDOS BAT file, you presumably aren't dumping
a ton of output into the log (my guess: you probably aren't writing a
ton of output to the log file, perhaps noting when a job was last run,
and probably copying the output of a command). Assuming you're just
looking to put the date and time in a log file, from a BAT file, DATE
/T and TIME /T will make a timestamp of when the command was run.

Or if you just want a program to generate the date and time, you could
do something like this:

#include 
#include 

int
main()
{
  struct dosdate_t dt;
  struct dostime_t tm;

  _dos_getdate();
  _dos_gettime();

  printf("%d-%d-%d %.2d:%.2d:%.2d\n", dt.year, dt.month, dt.day,
 tm.hour, tm.minute, tm.second);

  return 0;
}



For example, if you save this as NOW.C and compile it to NOW.EXE
(using OpenWatcom C, with -ox will generate an 8k binary) you will get
output like this:

C:\> NOW
2022-12-23 17:59:54


And you can easily append that output to a file.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] System hangs on boot.

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 4:29 PM Jeremy Leonard via Freedos-user
 wrote:
>
> I reinstalled from floppy onto a 40MB IDE drive and this works. So it
> must be something to do with the CF card. The card works with MSDos.
> MS-DOS only sees it as a 504MB drive. I FDISK and format it and it
> works. Is there anything I can try with FreeDOS to get this working?

I know others have had problems with real hardware systems built using
a CF card instead of a hard drive. I've seen people comment about that
on this list a while back - also on Twitter and Facebook. This problem
is sometimes (often?) the fault of the CompactFlash not doing a
perfect job of emulating or representing an IDE hard drive. When these
folks try the same system with a real hard drive, the problem does not
reappear.

As Eric suggested, you could try installing FreeDOS on top of the
MS-DOS install (don't repartition, just reinstall) and that would
work.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] Updated draft of "FreeDOS 28" book

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone

I've uploaded draft #2 of the "FreeDOS 28" book to GitLab.
https://gitlab.com/freedosproject/freedos28

This project is very late, and that's a "me" problem. This is the last
time I take on this many extra classes - I overloaded myself. :-P

Draft 2 is mostly formatting fixes (gluing lines together, some minor
formatting) but no content changes yet. Plans for draft 3 include
final edits for grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, etc. Any
one-line responses will get dropped. The "notes" marked in yellow will
be replaced with actual text. Basically, I expect draft 3 will be a
"final" draft. After that, we'll have a final production copy of the
ebook.

This ebook will also be made available for sale (at cost, profit
margin set to zero) as a print book via Lulu.com, for anyone who wants
a print copy. Lulu is a worldwide network of printers that support
self-publishing. If you haven't used Lulu before: once a book is
"published" on Lulu, anyone can buy it in their local currency. I
understand your print request goes to someone local to you; if you're
ordering from Spain, it should get printed by a Spanish printer - this
saves on shipping costs.

Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Feelings on lfn

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Nov 7, 2022, 7:08 AM Joseph Norton  wrote:

> Hi listers:
>
> I’m just curious about how you all feel about the use of lfn in FreeDOS
> (or any real DOS).
>
> [...]
>
> I’m curious about what your feelings about lfn are.  Do you keep lfn
> turned on, or off?  If so, why?
>

I've never been a fan of long filenames in DOS, at least for myself. Once
you start using them, you end up with weird short filenames for programs
that don't support LFN. So I've just always avoided using long filenames on
DOS. For me, DOS is 8.3.
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Getting FreeDOS

[Jim Hall]

> On Fri, 28 Oct 2022 at 15:37, Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> > I'm making a guess, but I think your question is because HP
> > distributes a really old version of FreeDOS (I think FreeDOS 1.1)

On Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 11:14 AM Liam Proven  wrote:
>
> It's worse than that. It's a very complicated setup of Debian 9 with
> an old FreeDOS instance on top.
>
> https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packard-freedos-option/
>

I'd managed to forget about that Rube Goldberg machine. :-P


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Getting FreeDOS

[Jim Hall]

> On Thu, 27 Oct 2022 at 17:31, Maruko Marchena  
> wrote:
> good day to all, a query, how can I get FreeDOS, according to HP told me
> that I have to request them from you to be able to generate the tests
> with your equipment, otherwise, the guarantee does not continue. First
> of all, Thanks


On Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 6:24 AM Liam Proven  wrote:
>
[..]
> * You can download FreeDOS from the website you presumably found this list 
> from:
> http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
> What do you mean by "tests with your equipment"? The FreeDOS project
> doesn't make any equipment. If you're asking about HP kit, ask HP.
> FreeDOS is nothing to do with HP; HP just puts FreeDOS on some
> machines to avoid paying Microsoft for Windows licences.
>

Correct, FreeDOS doesn't make hardware. HP (and a few other vendors)
install FreeDOS on their hardware as a low-cost alternative to
Windows, but we don't have any relationship with those vendors.

I'm making a guess, but I think your question is because HP
distributes a really old version of FreeDOS (I think FreeDOS 1.1) and
you would like to download FreeDOS 1.3 (the latest version)? As Liam
said, download the FreeDOS 1.3 LiveCD from our website at
http://www.freedos.org/download/ and use that to install FreeDOS on
your PC. You will need to "write" or "burn" the LiveCD image to a
CDROM or other install media to boot it on your computer.

Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Semware has released TSE as Freeware

[Jim Hall]

> On 10/20/2022 9:17 PM, dmccunney wrote:
> > I recall Qedit, and used it back in the day, though it was never my
> > primary editor.
> >
> > It got renamed from Qedit to TSE due to a trademark issue.  Qedit author 
> > Sammy
> > Mitchell was unaware there was another editor called WEDIT, provided
> > by Hewlett-Packard for their midrange multi-user systems line.  Oops!

On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 11:51 AM Ralf Quint  wrote:
> Doesn't make much sense!? Why would he rename QEDIT if there was a
> WEDIT. There were (and still are) tons of different xEDIT programs out
> there.
[..]

I read that as a typo (W is next to Q) such as typing the email on a phone.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Semware has released TSE as Freeware

[Jim Hall]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 5:48 PM  wrote:
>
> If any of you remember Qedit, or its big brother TSE (the Semware Editor),
> you may be interested to know that TSE if released as freeware.
>
> You can download a copy at www.semware.com.
>
> Though the Windows version is prominently displayed, you’ll also see
> the DOS version can be downloaded as well.
>
> Here’s a link to the DOS version:
>
> https://semware.com/files/tse-pro-install/tse250e.zip
>
> The file should be unzipped at the root of your DOS system with
> directory structure preserved (pkunzip -d tse250e.zip).  Unzip does
> this automatically.  You’ll have a directory called TSE250E which you
> might want to rename to TSE.
>
> Note that, this is the version from 1997, and it hasn’t been updated
> in a while.  Jemex may have problems with it, but, not sure which program
> is at fault.
>
> Now that the program can be downloaded, testing may be possible to
> determine this.


Very cool! It's not open source, so we can't include it in FreeDOS.
But it's still great to see classic DOS software released as freeware.
(A lot of the older software may not have source code to share anyway,
or may be unavailable for other reasons.)

I'm sure others will be interested in this, so I'll post a news item
about it on the FreeDOS website.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Tex et. al

[Jim Hall]

>  Jim Hall said:
> > It was cheaper to render the document on my
> > DOS PC in my room, and print to my Epson printer.

On Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 1:29 PM Jose Senna  wrote:
>
>   Please, how did you render TeX format in the PC then ?
>

The usual way, I guess? You run LaTeX to turn a *.tex file into a
*.dvi file (dvi = device independent). EmTeX had a program that would
print a *.dvi file to an Epson dot matrix printer, which is what I
did. I recall there was a "high quality" version and a "low quality"
version. I might print a low quality version of my document, make
final edits, then print a high quality version. If you wanted to
preview a document before printing it, there was a program to do that
too.

Downloading a few zip files from EmTeX and taking a quick look, I
think dvidot printed a *.dvi file to a dot matrix printer, and dviscr
displayed a *.dvi file to the screen.

It's the same idea to how you'd use LaTeX today. If you're running
LaTeX on a Linux system, you might convert a *.dvi file to a *.pdf
file using dvipdf, or to a *.ps file (for printing to a PostScript
laser printer) using dvips.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] TeX (emTex et al.)

[Jim Hall]

> On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 4:55 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> > (Disclaimer: I've never personally used TeX but am still aware of it.)
>
[..]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 5:35 PM dmccunney  wrote:
>
> I have used it a bit,  but can't imagine doing it under DOS
>
> TeX is another gift to the computing world from  Donald A Knuth,
>
> The primary usage I've seen for TeX is typesetting mathematical
> equations.  Non-ASCII characters. superscript and subscript and the
> like a grist for TeX's mill,
>
> The reason I can see for trying to use TeX under DOS is having  a TeX
> source file I want to render.  That would likely be to a printed page,
> and would presume a printer capable of properly rendering the file.
> (I'm not aware of a TeX viewer for DOS. though I suppose if you could
> dump the out as an image file a DOS image viewer might serve.)


I used EmTeX quite a lot when I was an undergraduate physics student.
Our physics program was very lab-focused, so it seemed I was always
writing a new lab results report. And as part of describing the
analysis, we needed to include the necessary equations. I really liked
how LaTeX rendered equations - they looked really nice, and they were
easy to write once you understood the syntax. I could have used the
University's Unix labs to write LaTeX documents (and I often did) but
I would have had to pay per-page to print my nicely formatted LaTeX
documents to the laser printer. It was cheaper to render the document
on my DOS PC in my room, and print to my Epson printer.


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

[Freedos-user] FreeDOS virtual get-togethers in 2022

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone!

I've managed to overload myself - that's good for a consultant, but
bad for work-life balance. (That's also why I've been so silent on
email lately.) So I need to take a break where I can. I love getting
together on the FreeDOS virtual get-togethers, but I could really use
that free time.

Let's cancel the FreeDOS virtual get-togethers for October, November,
and December. We'll figure out the new schedule for 2023 at that time,
if folks want to keep doing them.


Jim


___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user