Re: [Freedos-user] PCI parlallel port card....

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 5/19/2024 2:25 AM, Frantisek Rysanek via Freedos-user wrote:

Are there any PCI cards that live at IO adress 378 so they are
compatible with DOS ?

I'd argue that the devil's in "subtle detail", and forecast hard
cheese for you :-/

In order to decode the IOport window at 0x378 by a PCI card, this has
to be supported by the chipset (probably south bridge) and the BIOS
of the motherboard where you are trying this.
I don't know how the PCI card that was linked to handles this, but if 
the card itself adds an onboard ROM BIOS which patches into the default 
calls for the parallel port functions and traps the (otherwise 
non-existent, hence adding the card) ISA (port) address space, this will 
work rather transparent.


But I can only remember one card, which I used probably +25 years ago, 
what was doing that fine. And that was a card that I remember was at a 
rather premium price point, al those cheap "made in Shenzen" PCI cards 
had the actual ports in PCI (port) address space, maybe patched some 
BIOS routines, but certainly only worked with some specialty drivers 
which would have to handle the access to those high PCI port numbers and 
commonly would NOT just work seamlessly with any old software that was 
trying to access the parallel (or serial) port...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 5/18/2024 3:56 PM, tsiegel--- via Freedos-user wrote:


Does spinright still have a dos version of their software posted 
anywhere? I seem to recall, that was a really good utility.  I 
unfortunately never had the money to purchase it, and I gave up on 
Norton Utilities after paying 50 bucks more for the advanced version 
of 4.5, then got the same upgrade price as those who didn't, so I 
considered that bad marketing, poor customer retention, and just 
bailed on the whole Norton brand, and never dropped another dollar on 
anything Norton related, and that continues to this day.


I know spinright had some upgrades from their dos package into the 
early windows era, but I lost track after that, so no clue where it is 
now, or even if it's still around.  Nonetheless, it was a good utility 
for hard disk maintenance when it was out.


SpinWite was a useful tool for floppy disks, but it rather sucked when 
using it with hard drive...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] "Upgrade" from MS-DOS 6.2.2

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 2/22/2024 7:43 PM, DAMON GRAY wrote:

Augh!! Ralf, that's so much not what I wanted to hear.

Don't kill the messenger! LOL
But, it is what it is. I was under the impression that FreeDos had 
dealt with the USB peripheral issue.


Well, no. Just what exactly gave you that impression? No DOS is "USB 
aware", this is something that became mainstream AFTER the official DoD 
(Death of DOS).
FreeDOS (just as any DOS) depends on the USB support in the BIOS of the 
machine it is running on. I have yet to find an older computer, with a 
proper BIOS (instead of (U)EFI) that would be required to run (Free)DOS 
in the first place, that would not work with a USB keyboard and/or 
mouse. Well, one exception is a weird HP Brio that would not work with a 
USB keyboard to actually get into the BIOS, so I had to keep a PS/2 
keyboard around for that one. But it would work fine with USB keyboard 
and mouse once booted into the OS (any OS, I played with a couple the 
last time I had that machine out of storage). And CuteMouse has been 
working fine for me, without much fuss, on any machine, with any mouse, 
that I had the urge to use with a mouse. Don't play games though, so 
depending what your use case is, YMMV...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] "Upgrade" from MS-DOS 6.2.2

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 2/22/2024 7:18 PM, DAMON GRAY via Freedos-user wrote:

Greetings all.

I have a working MS-DOS system running on 6.2.2 but it has gigantical 
problems with the USB Mouse. I've attempted multiple USB DOS driver 
solutions. Some work half the time. Others not so much.


I'm working on the assumption that FreeDos will handle the USB mouse 
and keyboard. But here's the challenge...


I don't want to start from scratch. There was a lot involved in 
getting this system set up as it is, particularly with regard to the 
Gravis Ultrasound card.


Is it possible to just "upgrade" this MS-DOS to FreeDos, or is 
starting from scratch my only option? I'm very much hoping that I'll 
be able install FreeDos over the top of MS-DOS.


Thanks for any advice you can offer.
Yes, you could just "sys" the existing drive, in order to transfer the 
FreeDOS kernel/basic system files.


But honestly, I doubt that this will solve your problems, as using a 
mouse, ANY mouse, is not an issue of the OS being used, as neither 
MS-DOS 6.22 nor FreeDOS have any mouse support/capabilities in the basic 
OS. To get mouse support, you would need additional drivers, which would 
be the same drivers for both systems. And there is no direct USB support 
in FreeDOS either, so in order to use a USB mouse, you kind of depend on 
the support of the BIOS in that machine to support the USB to 
PS/2/serial mouse conversion. That means your basic problem is with your 
hardware, one way or another...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] AUTO SHIFT keyboard on DOS??

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 2/9/2024 11:25 AM, Thomas Cornelius Desi wrote:

Well, if it would work, changing the keyboard should be an easy task. / E bay 
has c a couple of accessible AT Keyboards )
Thanks for considering the problem!


Well, a XT/PC keyboard will only work with an XT or PC, and an AT 
keyboard will only work with an AT type of computer. Because of the 
location of the keyboard controller, you can't just switch them between 
those types of computers, unless you have one of those keyboards that 
have an "XT/AT" switch to enable or disable the keyboard controller (and 
actually, the data protocol between computer and keyboard changes as 
well)...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] AUTO SHIFT keyboard on DOS??

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

Are you guys trying to have DOS behave like macOS? 

Beside that any trickery with the keyboard controller would only work on 
an AT keyboard, where the controller chip is actually on the motherboard 
of the computer, and thus accessible with an I/O port, on XT/PC 
keyboards the controller is in the keyboard itself and not/far less 
accessible for any programming..



Ralf






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Re: [Freedos-user] MSdos 7.1 question

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 11/3/2023 5:55 AM, Alain Mouette via Freedos-user wrote:

Hi, I would like to clarify some things:

FreeDOS is limited to 2Gb files, some special programs can use 4Gb 
(full 32 bits sector number) but it is not the norm.
In which way is "FreeDOS" limited to 2GB sized files? (Sorry, never 
bothered wit such large files on DOS (any DOS)? The file size entry in 
the FAT32 directory entry is a 4 byte integer. As a filesize can't be 
negative, this should be a UINT_32/unsigned long and thus allow for 
files up to 4GB. If the FAT32 enabled file functions of INT 21h do 
handle this properly with a unsigned long, any program that does the 
same and the programmer of an application didn't get lazy and just 
assumes "signed long is big enough for everyone", then this should be a 
problem of that application, not FreeDOS. If the respective routines in 
the FreeDOS kernel do in fact handle the FAT32 file size entry as a 
signed long, than this is a bug that needs to be fixed IMHO...


FAT32 is free, but IIRC there a patents problems with other newer formats
FAT32 itself was never patented, it was the long file name format and 
handling that was covered by patents, which by now have expired. exFAT 
is  not really an extension like FAT12->FAT16->FAT32 where and doesn't 
have such limitations, just doesn't have all that journal stuff that is 
included in NTFS, which has become the standard file system ever since 
Windows 2000 (and Microsoft intentionally limits the use/format of FAT32 
partitions larger than 32GB).


Disk size is not a problem, I have routinely installed very big 
partitions and FreeDOS can handle that just fine. Remember that 
FerrDOS has evolved a lot over time. 


Disk size limit should be 8TB, just like with any other FAT32 
implementation.



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] 7zip for dOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 11/1/2023 12:32 PM, Karen Lewellen wrote:

I am sorry if this question is very very silly.
My goal is to extract, not to create a 7zip file.
The file referenced by Eric, seems to have archiving tools, but not 
extracting ones.
Unless I am missing something profoundly obvious? 


Well, there is one executable to do it all. You just give it a different 
command, "a" to create/add to a ZIP/7Z file, "t" to list the files 
inside, and "x" to "eXtract". Just check the readme.txt



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] 7zip for dOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 10/31/2023 1:27 PM, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote:

I do not have a freedos install cd.
I understand that 7 zip files require the 7zip program...which is why 
I am seeking it somewhere.

are such files  given names like
file.7zip?
the latter does not keep the three character extension rule, which is 
why I am likewise asking.
Karen 


The common file extension for 7Zip files is .7z


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] gminer.exe game needs an emulation friendly wait_vsync()

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 10/2/2023 5:13 PM, Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user wrote:

I discovered that if I comment out the two while (in vga.c):
void wait_vsync()
{
    //while (inportb(0x3da) & 8);
    //while (!(inportb(0x3da) & 8));
}

Then the game under dosbox run just like under VirtualBox.

I have tried all the available options for emulated graphics "card" 
under VirtualBox... no change.


So... I guess what I/we need, is a more emulation friendly 
wait_vsync() function.


That is the VSync check that was required on true CGA cards to avoid 
flickering/"snow" when writing anything to the screen.


This is something that is not required on any monochrome adapter (MDA, 
Hercules) or on any video cards EGA and newer. Ideally (it does so in my 
screen writing libraries), this wait loop should just be executed if 
indeed a CGA adapter, and none other, is installed in a system. I am not 
sure if any VM, be it DOSBOX or VirtualBox is actually emulating this 
very specific hardware issue and access to that specific 6845 port...



Ralf
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Re: [Freedos-user] Candyman?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 9/14/2023 1:15 AM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote:


Hi! Does anybody here know the user nicknamed Candyman?

There is a strange thread on BTTR started by that account,
maybe somebody could contact Candyman via another channel
and ask what has happened.

Regards, Eric 
You do not take this serious don't you? Sorry, but that smells more than 
just fishy from a continent away


There are so many things in those post that just don't make any sense. 
"My name is CandyMan and my parents give me heroin. Track my IP to find 
me, but just in case, here is my address". Also naming all those names 
and addresses.


Looks to me more like some attempt on doxing/swating someone


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound is too loud when running a BOOM source port

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/15/2023 3:28 AM, Liam Proven via Freedos-user wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2023 at 18:36, Ralf Quint via Freedos-user
 wrote:


Well, Liam, you owe me a full cup of coffee (I might be able to salvage
the keyboard)...

:-D

(I saw the to/too typo the second I hit "send"...)


Well, that was not what caused my little accident... 


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound is too loud when running a BOOM source port

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/10/2023 10:11 AM, Liam Proven via Freedos-user wrote:

On Thu, 10 Aug 2023 at 18:00, zerofive--- via Freedos-user
 wrote:

Any idea on what should I do?

This seems to obvious to mention, but hey...

Turn the volume knob on your speakers down?

Well, Liam, you owe me a full cup of coffee (I might be able to salvage 
the keyboard)...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/6/2023 2:35 PM, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user wrote:

First…

There seems to be a general misunderstanding that DOS only supports 
80x25 columns. While it is possible that an extremely lazy programmer 
would hard code for that resolution, most did not. Even back in the 
early days the display could be in 40x25, 80x43, 80x50 and numerous 
other text resolutions. Through the use of special text mode fonts, 
most VGA cards could even support different font heights producing 
very unusual display resolutions such as 80x20, 80x16, 40x22, etc. 
Therefore it was always a bad idea to hard code support for a single 
display resolution into software. 


Sorry, Jerome, but that is all beside the point. The OP is not trying a 
different text resolution, but is trying to force a graphics mode, which 
will NEVER work with any basic DOS text mode program.


Yes, it is possible, at least on legacy hardware, to get text 
resolutions other than 80x25 and 40x25 (as well as 80x43 on an EGA  
adapter and 80x50 on a VGA adapter), but those are HIGHLY legacy 
hardware depended, as they rely on directly manipulating the VGA 
adapters sync registers.
I used to write and use a tool myself that could generate up to 132x60 
character text screens, on the right VGA hardware.
HOWEVER, on a lot of newer video card/chips, this direct manipulation 
doesn't work anymore, as those newer chips simply do not support the 
sync of the video signal in the same way as undocumented ways of the 
original VGA adapters allowed. On some, you will actually damage the 
hardware, as you are generating out of bounds frequencies, on some, 
simply nothing will happen, either no change or simply a turning of the 
video signal, resulting in a black screen, from which only a cold boot 
and subsequent re-initialization of the video hardware will recover from.
It will also no work on a lot of LCD/LED screens, which do no sync the 
video signal like old CRT monitors did.



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/6/2023 1:37 PM, zerofive--- via Freedos-user wrote:

Hello! Just tested it.
It changes the resolution, but now I just don't see anything. I tried 
doing Ctrl+C exiting it but to no avail :(

Any reason why could this happen?


Because you don't pay attention to the replies you get.

DOS is using *text *mode, you just can't select a*graphics *mode and 
expect to get text output in that mode. *Text* mode and *graphics* mode 
are, as far as DOS and most DOS based applications are concerned, two 
_mutually exclusive modes of operation_.
And btw,  80x25 character text mode in fact is technically a 640x480 
"VGA mode" (using the standard 8x16 character matrix, 80x8=640 and 
25*16-480).



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/6/2023 5:39 AM, EdzUp via Freedos-user wrote:
Hi all, I could cobble together a Command line app to chuck the system 
into VGA/SVGA resolutions :)


-Ed
EdzUp


And what would this going to be accomplishing?


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/6/2023 2:51 AM, zerofive--- via Freedos-user wrote:
A VGA resolution (?), 640x480 resolution so the text doesn't look 
messy when I am cURLing a website, for example, or when the --help 
parameter is too long.
There seem to be a serious misconception on your end. FreeDOS, like any 
DOS, works only in text mode, so you can't just select any graphics mode 
on the console. The text modes "look" is determined by the characters 
set in the BIOS of the modes available, which in short, would be 80x25 
on a monochrome (Hercules) adapter (MODE MONO) and both in 
monochrome/"black" with 80x25 and 40x25 for ANY color adapter 
(CO40/CO80, BW40/BW80).


You can NOT select any graphics resolution (like the VGA 640x480) on the 
console/command prompt. DOS is by all means text based and any graphics 
mode would be set by a DOS application only, including but not limited 
to GUIs like GEM or Windows (1.x, 2.x, 3.x) but it is those applications 
responsibility to handle drivers, resolutions and selected fonts...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 5:08 PM, zerofive--- via Freedos-user wrote:
This question may been asked a million times but I just can't figure 
it out, and googling it gives no results (except telling me that I 
need to use `mode` and some parameters but this just wouldn't give me 
what I am trying to achieve)
But I found out that `NANSI.SYS` contains a paramter which (I think) 
allows me to set at least 640x480 resolution. I also included it 
(nansi.sys) in FDCONFIG.SYS with parameters `/t18` but it doesnt seem 
to work. Any idea on what could be the issue or I need to do it the 
other way?


What screen resolution? By all practical means, DOS runs in text mode, 
80x25 characters. What is it that you want to change to?



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 1:02 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:


And yes Ralf, if the servers or companies have strict security 
standards requiring newer protocol versions, then curl will fail or 
will eventually fail to communicate with them.
Well, he stated that an attempt to use http instead failed, so I 
wouldn't have expected that any fallback in curl or wget would succeed.


This is why the proxy support is a better solution today.  The system 
hosting the proxy can be newer and support the newest security 
standards for older systems.


Again, why not use that host that you would use for that proxy for 
whatever curl/wget transfer you want to do? It seems to be always as a 
rather futile endeavor to force something like this onto (Free)DOS when 
this is pretty much a non-issue with any more modern, Internet-aware, 
operating system. And yes, doing this through a 3rd party proxy is 
certainly a less than secure and thus preferred option...



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 12:51 PM, Louis Santillan via Freedos-user wrote:



Don’t do anything that requires security (banking, personal info, 
connecting to work) if you decide to use a 3rd party proxy.  All of 
these proxies can potentially see your credentials and sensitive 
information.  It would be best to stand up your own proxy if your 
technically capable of doing so.


Seriously? Why not use a Linux host, with proper encryption protocol 
support in the first place? What you suggest looks to me just like 
another "von hinten durch die Brust ins Auge" issue..



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 12:37 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:
zerofive, you did not provide us actual error messages.  We can only 
speculate.


At least with curl on Linux, you can bypass cert checks with “-k”.  If 
you still believe it’s certs and you have a known good certificate and 
private key, you pass them as “--cert” and “--key”, respectively. 
 wget has similar arguments as well.
The general problem here is, as I already mentioned, more likely the 
lack of support of current encryption protocols rather than the use of 
any certificate by those protocols.


And any bypass you mentioned is likely just a way to fall back to 
unencrypted http, which more and more sites these days simply do not 
support anymore.



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 12:34 PM, zerofive--- via Freedos-user wrote:
Then what do I do if I want to make a cURL request or WGet to a secure 
HTTPS page?

Do I just use HTTP?
But then it will forcefully redirect to HTTPS connection...
What do I do?


Use a properly Internet enabled operating system.

Yes, I am aware that this is not the answer you probably like to hear. 
But you need to understand that anything Internet related is kind of 
shoehorned/piggybacked on top of DOS, an operating system that was 
already officially declared dead by the time the Internet start to 
proliferate.


As everything https these days will require TLS 1.2 or newer to 
communicate, the only other thing you could do is to check with the 
authors about their tools supporting this level encryption...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 8/5/2023 5:35 AM, zerofive--- via Freedos-user wrote:

Hello everyone! I am new to FreeDOS.
When I try to use cURL or WGet, they sometimes error and refuse to use 
secure HTTPS connection.
I figured it was from outdated certificates. Is there any way I can 
update them, manually or automatically?

Thanks!


FreeDOS knows jacksh@t about any certificate.

And rather than a certificate issue, it is much rather an issue about 
the encryption protocols and associated key length in general that 
prevent you from using https connections in recent years. This is 
totally an issue of the applications you are using, making sure that 
they would be able to at least support TLS 1.2, or newer...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] A Couple of USB Device Issues

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 7/31/2023 2:06 PM, DAMON GRAY via Freedos-user wrote:
Greetings all. I'm new to this list, so I hope to not post anything 
inappropriate or out of order.


I have an old Dell Optiplex 745 I'm trying to "FreeDos" and am having 
a couple of issues.


I have yet to get the USB Laser mouse to work properly. It's an iHome 
FastTrack Laser Mouse - a cheap sucker, but it is comfortable in my hand.
Don't know that mouse, but it seems that this is rather a BIOS/USB port 
issue of your computer or with that particular mouse. I have one of 
those (Small form factor, the older one with the rounded edges and 
silver side cover) and on that one, I used FreeDOS with both corded and 
wireless Logitech/Dell El cheapo mice just fine


The other issue is PCI sound cards. I have an Aureal Vortex2 and also 
a Soundblaster Audigy 4. I have fought with all three of these devices 
for almost two weeks and simply cannot get them to work properly.


PCI is likely a no-go, as those cards used memory addresses above 1MB 
and/or higher I/O ports and/or IRQ and likely there will no no DOS 
driver for those, so a Windows/Linux card only, at least the Creative 
Labs doesn't list even DOS any more, the "lowest"/oldest you can select 
in Windows 98. Anything I could find about the Aureal card also states 
strictly Windows only...



Ralf

PS: I found just what looks like a 3rd party web site that list some 
apparently DOS drivers at www.philscomputerlab.com/aureal-vortex-2.html, 
you might wanna try that...
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Re: [Freedos-user] Basic freedos question before I try this?

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 7/24/2023 6:06 PM, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote:

Hi folks,
Too many layers in the process for me to try the install.
That and the thinkpad, which is a thinkpad 600x is not in condition 
for the work it seems.
I do wonder though if the freedos networking options would have 
functioned with the on-board Ethernet structure? 


Does your 600x include an Ethernet port "on-board", AFAIK, they didn't 
and you needed (as it was pre-USB days) an PCMCIA/CardBus adapter and 
that's where the soft  brown matter hits the fast rotating appliance...




Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Accessing usb stick from freedos.

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 7/23/2023 1:50 PM, Rugxulo via Freedos-user wrote:

The alleged 4 GB file size doesn't work on some OSes (FreeDOS, Windows
NT?), only on old Win9x. So you're only guaranteed 2 GB individual
file sizes, universally.
Wrong. You can use files of up to 4GB size on any Windows version that 
supports FAT32. So does any reasonable version of Linux. Yes, some OS 
might limit you to 2GB, as they are using a signed 32bit integer, but 
that is far from being "universally".

You'd need DJGPP 2.04 or 2.05 just to (maybe)
handle it. Even then, last I checked, they hardcoded a check for
"version 7 DOS" before enabling FAT32 support (e.g. du or df).

Don't care about any Unix tool and how they handle this, to be honest...



Theoretically, FAT32 could handle up to 2TB in partition size, while
newer Windows (and some other OS) limit it to 32GB.

I believe the Windows limitation was in "creating" FAT32 partitions
larger than 32 GB because MS found that it was otherwise too slow
under real-mode MS-DOS 7. Vista (and newer Windows) won't even boot
from FAT anymore (too slow, security issues).
Newer version of Windows seem to have problems with accessing 
drives/partitions over 32GB as well. I tried to use a 64GB USB stick 
formatted in FAT32 to transfer stuff between my PCs and my Macbook 
(granted, stuck on High Sierra, but in that regard, I don't think that 
things have changed in newer version of macOS) and it was a no-go on 
both ends. Ended up reformatting that stick with exFAT, which both sides 
can access just fine to work around that particular issue...
And another example is this fine 4GB USB stick, which I used to move a 
2.8GB Linux Mint ISO around. Yes, you have to take my word for it that 
this drive is FAT32...


 Volume in drive F has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 9490-B112

 Directory of F:\

06/27/2023  10:43 AM      WiFi
07/05/2023  11:26 AM   484 GetFolderPath.vbs
02/16/2016  09:05 AM   378 o...@atimesheets.vnc
07/20/2023  09:53 AM 3,050,733,568 linuxmint-21.2-mate-64bit.iso
   3 File(s)  3,050,734,430 bytes
   1 Dir(s) 946,855,936 bytes free

  FYI, Windows 11 is
64-bit host only nowadays and supposedly takes up 25 GB of space.


Totally irrelevant for anything discussed here...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Accessing usb stick from freedos.

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 7/21/2023 2:01 PM, John Vella via Freedos-user wrote:

Hi,

I installed freedos on my IBM Thinkpad T43 and I installed a usb 
driver, which works. Sort of.


I can access a 2gb usb stick, which is formatted to FAT32, and that's 
great, but I want to use a different stick.


This is where the problems begin. It's a 128gb stick. If I find a way 
to create a FAT32 partition to use the whole space do we know if 
freedos would be able to handle that size? Or is there another file 
system I could use?
No, you definitely can NOT use a different file system. FAT[12,16,32] is 
the only file system that FreeDOS understands.
I had never had the need to use such large partitions with (any) DOS, 
and don't use it for anything else, as it is limited to 4GB file size too.


Theoretically, FAT32 could handle up to 2TB in partition size, while 
newer Windows (and some other OS) limit it to 32GB. Not sure if a peek 
in the sources would reveal what a limitation under FreeDOS for FAT32 
partitions would be...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Can FreeDOS Be Installed On A Logical Slice? The Answer Remains Unknown

[Ralf Quint via Freedos-user]

On 7/21/2023 1:51 PM, Jay F. Shachter via Freedos-user wrote:

Esteemed Colleagues:

A little bit less formal might be more appropriate...

slice, Microsoft Windows was still able to boot, and then I recreated
the third primary slice, and I installed FreeDOS onto it.  I had to
change its 8-bit code from 7 to 12; when I left it at 7, FreeDOS
refused to install itself there.  When I changed it to 12, FreeDOS
called it D: and it was then willing to install itself there.


Well, you need to know what you are doing at this point. A partion ID of 
7 (07h) simple can't work, as that would indicate a NTFS partition, that 
is a file system that DOS (any DOS) just doesn't know anything about...


An ID of 12 (0Ch) indicates a FAT32 partition with LBA addressing, and 
this is something that FreeDOS indeed is able to understand



I tried to do the same thing with a logical slice of disk but FreeDOS
failed to see it.  If it is possible to install FreeDOS onto a logical
slice of disk, inside of the extended slice, the technique for doing
so is unknown, or, at least, unknown by me.


DOS can not be installed on a logical partition, it has to be a primary 
partition.



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS code page Unicode compatibility

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/13/2023 11:08 AM, Jose Senna wrote:

  Vacek Nules said:


I'd like to ask the community's opinion and possible
endorsements to get the UTC to accept the [Forint] symbol

   Is the Forint still in use in Hungary ?
Yes, it is still the official currency of Hungary. They apparently 
didn't switch to the Euro like most everyone else...

   Does Unicode still have vacant space in
  its character table?


As I mentioned in my previous reply, this isn't really anything that is 
of concern for (Free)DOS, as DOS is not using Unicode. And as the OP 
mentioned, for (Free)DOS this would have to be added into one of the 
code pages, if there doesn't already a standard exist (I never had to 
deal with Hungarian localization, so I am not certain what all would be 
required here)



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS code page Unicode compatibility

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/13/2023 1:42 AM, EdzUp wrote:

Hi,
   To be fair this seems like a very good idea mainly because any 
barriers to FreeDOS use and acceptance should be removed and this 
seems like a reasonably easy thing to do as it already is there.


-Ed


Much less of a good idea (not referring to the issue at large) as 
(Free)DOS doesn't use Unicode in any form, shape or color, unless a 
specific, graphics enabled application is handling this by itself...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] newsnuz

[Ralf Quint]

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). This would be in any case a 
rather specialized use case, so without any of that info, it is pretty 
much impossible to help you...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] newsnuz

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/9/2023 4:13 PM, Jim Hall wrote:

*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.


+1


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] newsnuz

[Ralf Quint]

What the *&$#% is snuz?

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.




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/7/2023 3:44 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Wed, 7 Jun 2023 at 10:28,  wrote:


Being an English language and keyboard user, I neither use nor possess 
knowledge on using various NLS support programs like KEYB.

Small but important point. The majority of English speakers are not
Americans and we don't use the American keyboard layout. EVERY English
language PC I ever set up in my >30y career ran some sort of keyboard
mapping tool to get my native English language, the language of
England, you know, us, the people who invented it, supported and
working.

keyb uk 437 c:\dos\keyboard.sys

Well, to be fair, the differences between the US and UK keyboard layout 
have pretty much nothing really to do with the language itself... ;-)



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS/V

[Ralf Quint]

On 5/3/2023 12:29 PM, Aitor Santamaría wrote:

Hello!

Although I am some years late, my thoughts on this thread. By the way, 
a very interesting thread on localisation for a hard case (the need 
for DBCS).

Well,..


These thoughts are provided from the simple logic, not knowing about 
DOS/V. In my understanding, supporting Japanese would *at least* 
require the following functionalities, where the clue is given by 
NLSFUNC/COUNTRY:

* Country settings (for date, currency, etc.), that should be easy.

That indeed would be the easy part. But...
* Collating/lowercase/uppercase tables, which in turn implies that 
DBCS are handled where strings are handled, and my worry is about 
filenames: how are filenames stored? how does it relate to 8.3 
limitation, does it become 4.1 or does it require LFN...?
For one, as DOS/V would specifically apply to Japanese (but the same 
would apply at least to Hangul (Korean) and Chinese), none of the script 
systems being used (Katagana, Hiragana, and certainly not Kanji (Chinese 
"characters")) has the concept of upper case/lower case...
* All character devices that currently support IOCTL, should support 
this DBCS. As we have no PRINTER.SYS for PRN, we just need to focus on 
CON:
    - DISPLAY.SYS does not support DBCS, but I suppose that NNANSI 
that is being discussed here will do the work. However:

    - It would require KEYB to work with DBCS: this could work well:
           + if no codepage change is to be issued, DBCS can be outed 
as "strings" by keyb (with an appropriate KL file)
           + if codepage changes is to be issued (because 
NNANSI implements it), it should call  KEYB
* Finally, non-console UI utilities should be made to work with DBCS: 
this includes EDIT, INSTALL, ...


Ok, here is were that soft brown matter hits the fast rotating household 
appliance. I am pretty sure that in order to create a DBCS version of 
MS/PC-DOS, they did not use one and the same code base. Some basic DOS 
function would have to be completely replaced with DBCS aware versions, 
I don't think you can simply maintain dual-capable versions without 
significantly increased memory requirements.


And most importantly, I don't think that we at FreeDOS have simply the 
capacity to do any such adaptation. It would require AT LEAST one person 
that is fluent in English and Japanese, as well as being sufficiently 
proficient in programming.  I don't think there is even remotely anyone 
that could possibly fill that role within the current participants, nor 
even lurkers, or they would be more active (and possibly proposing 
required changes).


This would not only apply to adaptations to the before mentioned East 
Asian languages and scripting systems, but also to things like 
right-to-left systems like Arabic and Hebrew 
(Urdu/Farsi/Pashto/Punjabi/Sindhi/etc)



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] TASM under an emulator?

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/22/2023 2:31 PM, Alvah Whealton wrote:

I'm looking at TASM 5.0 for DOS and Windows, with a date of 1989.
I guess what I'm asking is if Assembler requires any considerations on 
an emulator that other software does not require.


Why should it? The only thing is if you want to use the TASMX 
executable, you need to have a DPMI host running. But TASM will just 
work, this is DOS after all...



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] TASM under an emulator?

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/21/2023 3:30 PM, Alvah Whealton wrote:
Can Turbo Assembler be run on FreeDos, when FreeDos is being run on an 
emulator?


Why not?

 I certainly have


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

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/16/2023 5:59 AM, Jürgen Wondzinski wrote:

Just to chime in: There's still software in use written in FoxPro/DOS from 1994 
:)

In fact, I'm just upgrading and enhancing such a package. It's running from an 
USB-Stick (with FreeDos of course), which is plugged into a smallsized HP 
ThinClient. That beast is used in Delivery-cars, which sell flowers to 
gas-stations all over Germany. It will get replaced by a WebApp on Ipads, but 
until then it is doing it's job now since 25 years :)


Yeah, but that's not Open Source! :P


Ralf ;-)




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

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/7/2023 3:40 AM, tom ehlert wrote:

The use of (n)curses for example is a typical Unix thing, that has
nothing to do with DOS and should not be shoehorned into a DOS
application...

add DEVICE=ANSI.SYS to your config.sys and you can easily 'port'
(=compile and fix C compiler discrepacies) your curses  programs to
DOS.
Well, if you want to "port" an existing program from Unix/Linux to DOS, 
this would be a quick option, with all the added bloat...


programming *on* DOS in the year 2023 is like self flagellation. you
are absolutely allowed to do it; it's just not recommended.
Why not? It worked just fine for all intends and purposes for two 
decades, so why would that not be "recommended" to do so in 2023?
That is the part that I think is the true fallacy that too many people 
perpetrate these days, when claiming to be interested in (Free)DOS.



Ralf




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

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/6/2023 5:40 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 4:35 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:

On 2/6/2023 2:03 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Do you not understand that I see a lot of similarities between the two
OSes? Certainly they share enough for various ports of useful tools to
be made. It doesn't mean they have much in common, but I still see a
lot to learn from classic UNIX and the philosophy of some of the
authors and tools (as evidenced by my quotes from them). DOS is
"simple" (keep it simple!) but still useful (with the right tools and
the right ideas).

No, there aren't really "a lot of similarities" between DOS and
Unix/Linux.

DOS v1 was more like CP/M, but DOS v2 added file handles and
redirection. C compilers for DOS were abundant. C came from UNIX.
Well, no. For one, part of the programming API of DOS 1.xx was similar 
to that of CP/M-80. But it had a totally different underlying file 
system, as Paterson used the FAT filesystem that originally was inspired 
by the 8 bit FAT system used by Microsoft's Standalone BASIC (which he 
helped to implement at SCP) as well as Microsoft's unreleased 8-bit OS 
MDOS/MIDAS, which he was shown by Marc McDonald (Microsoft employee #1).


And C was developed to have a higher level language to implement Unix 
quicker "cross-platform", but while it has some features that it 
inherited from that initial task, it is not a Unix specific programming 
language. That is what in the end has made it so popular over a long 
time. In case of DOS, this shows in the use of very DOS specific 
libraries The file I/O stuff is a bit Unix like, but that's about it. 
The use of (n)curses for example is a typical Unix thing, that has 
nothing to do with DOS and should not be shoehorned into a DOS 
application...



Some *ix utilities MIGHT be useful for the use on DOS,

MKS Toolkit? GNUish? EMX? DJGPP? Heck, even Simtel and Garbo had a few.

I said "some" utilities. Not everything plus the kitchen sink.



"The Lessons of Unix Can Be Applied Elsewhere"

Nice statement, but I think that this is wrong. And just for the record, 
I used my first Unix system before I used my first DOS system...
Unix was from the start to be an abstraction of the hardware underneath, 
running on different hardware, usable with minimal knowledge of the 
hardware (specially, CPU wise).
DOS (as in MS-DOS/PC-DOS) is directly tied to the Intel 8086 CPU, it's 
segmented memory models, it's access to an underlying BIOS (and various 
extensions) on the hardware level and out of necessity, much more 
reliant on direct access to the hardware underneath.



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.


I built and tested P5 Pascal (ISO 7185) with GPC (and GNU Make) for
DOS, Windows, and Linux.


ISO 7185 is the worst thing that could happen to Pascal. Utterly useless 
and outdated by the time it was released.
Same as the standards for "minimal" and "extended" BASIC. There is not 
one mainstream BASIC implementation that is really sticking to either one..



Ralf



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

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/6/2023 2:03 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Do you not understand that I see a lot of similarities between the two
OSes? Certainly they share enough for various ports of useful tools to
be made. It doesn't mean they have much in common, but I still see a
lot to learn from classic UNIX and the philosophy of some of the
authors and tools (as evidenced by my quotes from them). DOS is
"simple" (keep it simple!) but still useful (with the right tools and
the right ideas).
No, there aren't really "a lot of similarities" between DOS and 
Unix/Linux. Some *ix utilities MIGHT be useful for the use on DOS, but 
that doesn't mean by any stretch that things like "The Art of Unix 
Programming" do make any sense on DOS. The main goal should still be to 
program for DOS, not for Unix...


Jim's topic list mentioned Awk, Bash, C, Curl, Emacs, GDB, Grep,
Python, Sed, SSH, Vim, wget. (We have versions of all of those.)

In case you missed it, this was the whole list of possible topics from 
the Open Source magazine, not a list of suggested topics in regards to 
FreeDOS, as that was what Jim was asking in the subject of this thread.


And yes, an article, possibly a series of articles, about programming on 
DOS, for DOS, will be forthcoming...



Ralf




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

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/5/2023 12:06 AM, Rugxulo wrote:

The Art of Unix Programming attempts to capture the engineering wisdom
and philosophy of the Unix community as it's applied today — not
merely as it has been written down in the past, but as a living
"special transmission, outside the scriptures" passed from guru to
guru. Accordingly, the book doesn't focus so much on "what" as on
"why", showing the connection between Unix philosophy and practice
through case studies in widely available open-source software.

And how does this pertain to FreeDOS? :?


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Mouse not working on real silicon

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/15/2023 12:08 PM, Knedlik wrote:

I don’t think having USB mouse in BIOS is the problem… I believe my 
configuration uses BIOS to boot by default.


Mouse support in the BIOS has nothing to do with booting via BIOS...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Mouse not working on real silicon

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/15/2023 11:26 AM, Knedlik wrote:

Hello!
I successfully ran FreeDOS on my Ryzen 5 3600X, RTX 2060, 32 gigs RAM from a 
USB, except for the CDROM, which is obvious considering the missing CDROM 
hardware.
Cutemouse tells me it’s loaded, but when I launch an app using a mouse, I can’t 
move it. I made sure to disconnect all USB stuff except for keyboard and mouse 
and of course the USB.
Any ideas?
-Knedlik


DOS does not support USB. In order to be able to use a USB mouse, you 
need to have USB mouse supported in your BIOS...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] tinyllama - A tiny x86 retro computer

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/23/2022 7:02 AM, Joao Silva wrote:

LOL!
It's not for me, out of my league... i don't mind to some work when i 
know how to or simply to work it out.

I did scroll down fast and i didn't saw the price tag.


There is a price tag? 


Well, I went to DMP's web site and the EduCake (LOL), which supposedly 
includes some RAM and SD card was $69, plus shipping (and tax?), so that 
is probably a bit below $100. That wouldn't be too bad...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] tinyllama - A tiny x86 retro computer

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/22/2022 6:07 AM, Mart Zirnask wrote:

Hi, just something I noticed on Hacker News -- a tiny retro computer,
apparently with integrated Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio. FreeDOS
installation instructions included:
https://github.com/eivindbohler/tinyllama


Seems like quite a bit of assembly required, batteries not included ;-)

Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Feelings on lfn

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/8/2022 11:57 AM, userbeit...@abwesend.de wrote:



How is any Linux feature possibly helping me with running an older,
non-LFN aware program on (Free)DOS?


It won't.
If FreeDOS were to learn the same alternative way of not using the
"tail" (~1, ~2 and so on) on short file names, at least were possible,
that *could* help a little... 


Sorry, but DOS uses a 8.3 naming convention, not 6.3. So I don't see how 
this could possibly "help". It would actually make no f'ing difference, 
you lose two (possibly distinguishing) characters of the filename...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Feelings on lfn

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/8/2022 2:55 AM, userbeit...@abwesend.de wrote:

On Nov 8, 2022, 01:58, Ralf Quint wrote:

But I only use this feature sparingly, as there are a lot of older
software that can't handle them. And the mapping to some xyz~1.abc is
actually losing two significant characters of those 8 available for
generally usable filenames.


On Linux, you can mount a FAT filesystem with the mount option
"nonumtail", where you don't get the trailing "~1" at the end when it is
still possible, e.g. when there are no other files with the same name. 


How is any Linux feature possibly helping me with running an older, 
non-LFN aware program on (Free)DOS?



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Feelings on lfn

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/7/2022 5:07 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 notice that the lfn option is rem’d out in the fdauto.bat file by 
default, so it would appear that, while support seems to be there, the 
feelings of the developers are leaning toward not using it unless it’s 
necessary.


If I remember correctly, there are at least 2 DOS tsr’s that deal with 
enabling long filename support.


I’m curious about what your feelings about lfn are.  Do you keep lfn 
turned on, or off?  If so, why?



Feelings? None. None what so ever... 

But I only use this feature sparingly, as there are a lot of older 
software that can't handle them. And the mapping to some xyz~1.abc is 
actually losing two significant characters of those 8 available for 
generally usable filenames.



Ralf 

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Re: [Freedos-user] Can't see USB stick

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/5/2022 10:34 PM, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:

Thanks, Ralf:

I much rather think that the confusion is that (Free)DOS is not 
plug, so if you plug in the USB stick after FreeDOS is booted 
up, it will very likely (though depending on the BIOS of the machine) 
not recognize that there is a different drive. Boot up with the USB 
stick inserted, and it is very likely to see it just fine. That's how 
it works on my old Dell laptop...


I had tried that without success. But a FAT16 CompactFlash card solved 
my problem.


Strange to say the least. The "booting with the stick inserted" has 
worked for me on several different machines, as long as their BIOS would 
be able to detect the stick on (re)boot.
I am more aware of issues with the controllers for several of those 
flash cards and their BIOS not playing ball in a lot of machine 
(chaining the BIOS to provide the proper INT13h, INT25h/26h. call seems 
to be a common issue, most likely in combination with some memory managers).


(PS: all my USB memory sticks are either FAT32 or exFAT (FreeDOS can't 
read those), haven't probably used FAT16 on a USB stick in about a 
decade or so... ;-) )


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Can't see USB stick

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/3/2022 11:21 AM, Travis Siegel wrote:
It was actually LFN of which I was thinking when I replied to the 
initial email.  I know dos *can* handle long file names, but it 
doesn't do so by default, and requires drivers/TSRs to be loaded to 
assist in this process. 


Well, the issue that had Tom likely tripping over was that LFN (or the 
lack of support for those) won't effect the visibility of the whole USB 
drive, just that you might not be able to easily access files on it. 
That would be a complete different issue...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Can't see USB stick

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/3/2022 5:26 AM, Frantisek Rysanek wrote:

I'd like to second Tom's opinion.
If memory serves, MS DOS understands FAT32 since about version 7 or 8
(present in Windows 95/98) and Freedos since when I remember = could
be version 1 or so...

Did you perhaps confuse FAT32 for NTFS or ExFAT/FAT64?

I much rather think that the confusion is that (Free)DOS is not 
plug, so if you plug in the USB stick after FreeDOS is booted up, 
it will very likely (though depending on the BIOS of the machine) not 
recognize that there is a different drive. Boot up with the USB stick 
inserted, and it is very likely to see it just fine. That's how it works 
on my old Dell laptop...



Ralf




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

[Ralf Quint]

On 10/21/2022 2:14 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:


I'm not a normal windows user obviously, but personally, I love when 
windows apps have text interfaces,


Well, that is a rather personal preference. I am using for years now a 
Windows freeware editor called PSPad. That handles all the text files in 
sizes that ever make sense to load, as well as having a build-in hex 
editor mode where you can even edit binary files. Though I recently ran 
into the issue that it currently treats CP/M text files as binary files 
and opens them by default in Hex mode, because they have a (sequence of) 
Ctrl-Z (1Ah) EOF characters at the end. But the author is pretty 
responsive on his forum and is apparently looking into adding this into 
his detection routine. It has a lot of features that I need when dealing 
with text files (sorting, deleting duplicate/empty lines, detect line 
mode (CR-LF, LF, CR) as well as supporting syntax highlighting for a lot 
of different languages, a tons of character encodings), all with a 
modest size and an not overly complicated menu system.


it means I don't have to worry about them not working with my screen 
reader.  I deliberately didn't download the windows version, because I 
just figured it'd be another one of those fancy editors that refuse to 
behave for screen readers.  Now I need to go give it another look.


The TSE interface kind of looks comparatively "out of place" on Windows, 
so I doubt that I am going to use it much if at all. But then the 
character based UI might indeed make it better suited for text readers, 
for which I luckily don't have any use.  ;-)

But I might start using it (the DOS version) again on (Free)DOS...


Thanks for the info. :)


You're welcome...

Ralf




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

[Ralf Quint]

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!
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 only remember that when he released the first  version of SemEdit, he 
stressed that it was a complete rewrite. I had used (and registered) 
QEDIT for years as my go-to editor for large files on DOS (beside using 
for quite a while SEE from DeSmet C) and I remember that there were 
little, not so subtle changes to QEdit that I stopped using it

I haven't looked at the Windows and Linux versions that aer now
freeware, nor have I had a chance to look at the DOS offering,  But I
was in email contact with Sammy back when he was developing the
Windows and Linux versions.  I don't think they have much in common
with the DOS product.
I actually downloaded the Windows version yesterday, just to look at it, 
and it is pretty much a text based console application, which doesn't 
make it very attractive to use under Windows. I guess the Linux version 
just looks and works the same...

  Among other things, Sammy was creating a new
language that could be used to write editors in.  I very much doubt
what was done in the Semware Editor for Windows and Linux is
*possible* under DOS.  It requires memory, a multitasking OS, and a
more advanced file system than DOS can offer,
That SAL macro language existed already the DOS versions and it just 
looks to me as if the Windows version is just the DOS version with a 
Windows based widget set to make it work better as a Windows app, but it 
is definitely NOT a proper Windows GUI application...


I have to drop Sammy a note, but I suspect he made the Semware Editor
freeware because it was no longer a viable commercial product,
Competition in that area is brutal.  There are various commercial
editors for tjhings like Java development still out there, but the
most popular current general purpose programmers are Microsoft's
commercial Visual Studio product, and their free and open source
Visual Studio Code product, based on the Electron framework first
introduced for Github's Atom editor.  Github has since sunsetted the
Atom project, and it will see no further development. VSC ate it for
lunch.
I have both Visual Studio Community Edition and Visual Studio Code 
installed, but only because I needed it for some specific projects in Go 
and to take a look at Rust. I hate this with a passion, it is just a POS 
if you have ever worked with any of the Borland IDEs, or with 
Delphi/Lazarus. Even when I have to do work in C (not C++ or C#,  which 
I also avoid like the plague where and whenever I can), I prefer to use 
Pelle's C instead...
Those are just a fraction of the size of that "Visual" carp too, Visual 
Studio CE with only MSC installed comes in at about 8GB!

If you are running DOS, the new freeware TSE Pro 2.5 produuct may be a
very nice upgrade oer what ou have, and I'm pleased to see it offered,


Don't have much use for a  large file size editor in DOS anymore, and 
that was the only reason why I used it in the "days of old", much rather 
use PSPad under Windows for that purpose nowadays instead ...



Ralf



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

[Ralf Quint]

On 10/21/2022 5:20 AM, Joseph Norton wrote:


Hi:

Basically, he mentioned that the reason he released it as freeware was 
that he hadn’t made too much in profits for quite a while.


No too surprised. The market for DOS bases software is all but dead 30 
years after the EOL of MS-DOS.


And offering a text based UI for a Windows program, well, that isn't 
likely to draw big crowds either... ;-)


He still plans to work on the product (probably the Windows and Linux 
versions) when he can, but, is opening things up to the user community.



Well, would be nice if he would make it Open Source...


Sent from Mail  for 
Windows



Shudder., yuk... :(


Ralf
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Re: [Freedos-user] can't see DVD reader

[Ralf Quint]

Make sure you have the CD/DVD-ROM driver and a MSCDEX equivalent loaded
on startup. This might be happening during the installer, but might be
missing out of config.sys and autoexec.bat in your installed version...

There's a script that gets called from FDAUTO that tries several drivers
-- why wouldn't that work? And why did it work during install?

Are you saying I should throw out that script and load the driver
manually? How do I know which driver to use and where it's found?

I don't think that the installer is automatically adding the Cd-ROM 
driver and related files into the autoexec.bat/config.sys files, while 
the installer boots with those files. That might be something you need 
to add manually.


There is a generic driver with FreeDOS, but in worst case scenario, look 
for OAKCDROM.SYS on the web, that one works with pretty much everything 
and then just add SHSUCDX (which is an open source equivalent for 
MSCDEX) for the filesystem/drive mapping


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] can't see DVD reader

[Ralf Quint]

On 9/18/2022 10:30 AM, Glenn Holmer via Freedos-user wrote:

I installed FreeDOS 1.3 on a machine about ten years old. It
successfully read the DVD during installation, but doesn't recognize it
afterward when booted.

How can I diagnose this?


Make sure you have the CD/DVD-ROM driver and a MSCDEX equivalent loaded 
on startup. This might be happening during the installer, but might be 
missing out of config.sys and autoexec.bat in your installed version...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Ré : Networking FreeDOS 1.3 on QEMU

[Ralf Quint]

On 9/15/2022 10:09 AM, Jerome Shidel wrote:



On Sep 15, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Ralf Quint  wrote:

On 9/15/2022 2:44 AM, tom ehlert wrote:

It seems I have broken packages - got networking now but having a lot
of problems otherwise. Any easy way to square it all up again?

42


+1

Ralf

(and now, that doesn't make it 43  )

( Maybe... That will require some Deep Thought... I’ll get back to you on it in 
a few million years. )


Just don't forget your towel... ;-)

Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Ré : Networking FreeDOS 1.3 on QEMU

[Ralf Quint]

On 9/15/2022 2:44 AM, tom ehlert wrote:



It seems I have broken packages - got networking now but having a lot
of problems otherwise. Any easy way to square it all up again?


42


+1

Ralf

(and now, that doesn't make it 43  )



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Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/12/2022 7:21 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Hi,

On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 9:25 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:

And that version, just when the switch to Go32 was being made, should be
a good starting point for a 16bit compiler, generating 16bit Borland
Pascal compatible code. Not sure if there is enough info still around to
make it even TPU compatible. It would be different from the goal set
back then, and not sure if Florian would still have that source code
(that was well before SourceForge and Github).

You could always use FST Modula-2, it's 16-bit (host and target):

* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/modula2/fst/

I've been playing with it (again), it's not bad. It also has a smartlinker.

(But no sources available.)


I personally could care less about the source for FST available or not. 
I don't see the point in using any Modula-2 compiler, when I have the 
full package of Borland Pascal 7.


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/11/2022 5:33 PM, Rugxulo wrote:



Which makes me wonder if it would be
possible to do such a "back port" from the sources of one of the earlier
versions of FPK,at least those that started to be self-compiling, before
the more widespread adaptations of Delphi'isms :?

I highly doubt it. Free Pascal started by using  so-called "Go32v1"
[sic], aka bits from DJGPP, to be a 32-bit "Turbo" Pascal compiler for
DOS. The first public releases were 1995 or so.
I was using the very early version of FPK. It was written in 
Turbo/Borland Pascal 7, and the very first versions were just a BP7 
compatible compiler, 16 bit application, generating 386 code, while BP7 
could do 8086 and 80286 only. It took about 2 years before the compiler 
became a) self-hosting and b) memory structures were enlarged and it 
started using the Go32 extender.


And that version, just when the switch to Go32 was being made, should be 
a good starting point for a 16bit compiler, generating 16bit Borland 
Pascal compatible code. Not sure if there is enough info still around to 
make it even TPU compatible. It would be different from the goal set 
back then, and not sure if Florian would still have that source code 
(that was well before SourceForge and Github).


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/11/2022 5:02 AM, Liam Proven wrote:


There are at least half a dozen generations. Given the ones that have
been adopted outside Wirth's institutions and used in many countries,
there are things that we could call Pascal, Pascal 3 (Modula-2),
Pascal 4 (Oberon), and several different successors to Pascal 4.

There are also non-Wirth variants that had some adoption, including
Modula-2+, Modula-3,Turbo Pascal, Object Pascal, Delphi, Kylix and
FreePascal. All legit, all sold and were widely-used at some points in
time.


Well, real life fact is that Wirth, not once, was involved in developing 
a single, commercially available compiler, for any of his language 
"inventions"/developments. All of Wirth's (or his immediate minions) 
implementations were just sample implementations of his ideas how to 
promote and teach structured programming. That is in contrast with K 
for example, who's C compiler in fact was used to develop real world 
applications (like that thing called Unix :-) )...


In the real world, things sometimes take their own ways, and that was 
certainly the case for any Pascal (or Wirth's ideas) related. The 
University of California at San Diego (UCSD) picked up Wirth's rather 
easily (simple pass) to implement Pascal compiler and combined that with 
the p-System, a virtual machine that had already been developed  at UCSD 
to create what became know as UCSD Pascal. p-System, or p-Machine, stood 
originally for pseudo-System/Machine, as it implemented a virtual 
machine with a pseudo 16bit CPU that could be implemented easily 
cross-platform. Some people started to call it Pascal-System/Machine, 
kind of ignoring the fact that from early on, there also was a quite 
widespread FORTRAN IV compiler, and elusive BASIC compiler (beside the 
mentioning in some UCSD p-System documentation, I have seen it only 
once, on a computer fair in the early/mid'80s, and then never again) and 
apparently an early Ada implementation.
UCSD Pascal was then licensed through UCSD to several OEMs, with the 
most common implementation being Apple Pascal (for the Apple II and 
Apple III) and HP Pascal, and then IBM, for their new IBM PC. At the 
same time, several other compiler companies picked up on the increasing 
popularity of Pascal and offered their own implementations, though 
probably due to the licensing terms of UCSD, which gave pretty much an 
exclusive license to SoftTech (later sold to Cabot, UK, then Pecan, UK) 
for cheap and SoftTech then wanted to charge an arm, half a leg and your 
first born to license the system then from them, were doing all native 
code generation.
One of those was Anders Hejlsberg and his company PolyData, which 
produced Z80 native code, which then was bought by Borland to become 
Turbo Pascal 1.0. Digital Research did their Pascal MT+, also native Z80 
and link compatible with their C compiler (but not CBASIC). DEC did 
their own thing for their VAX/VMS PAscal (late DEC Pascal, then HP 
Pascal, which had no relation to the earlier UCSD based HP Pascal), and 
their are persistent rumors that the PDP-11 and VAX CPU instruction sets 
were "pilfered" from the p-Code from UCSD, but I never used the 
assembler on any of those, so I don't know for sure ;-)
Microsoft has early on their own Pascal, which produced code for their 
own p-Code implementation, the same one they used in their early COBOL 
and FORTRAN compilers, as well as in some applications like Multiplan, 
the predecessor to Excel. They bought a 3rd party Pascal compiler and 
sold it as QuickPascal for a (short) while in order to try and compete 
with Borland, but gave up on that one pretty quick, just like with their 
QuickC attempt, which all got cancelled along with their "full" Pascal 
and COBOL compiler, though Fortran lived a Fortran Powerstation for a 
little bit longer. And there were a few more compiler companies that 
tried (Prospero, Metaware, Metrowerks) but all of them rather failed as 
they either try to be "standards compliant" or were running behind the 
relative fast paced developments at Borland, beside not being able to 
compete on price.


GNU's GPC was just a crutch, a unwanted step-child, that didn't even get 
a fraction of the attention that it should have gotten early on. That's 
what resulted in Florian Klämpfl's early  Open Source implementation of 
FPK (Florian's Pascal Kompiler), which started as a (pretty well made) 
i386 generating Turbo Pascal compatible compiler, before following the 
path set by Borland/Inprise/Codegear/Embarcadero with their Delphi 
implementation of Object Pascal. Unfortunately, there seems to be very 
little interest in doing a backport of FreePascal into a 16bit , Turbo 
Pascal compatible compiler for DOS. The 8086 target version of FPC is 
still a cross-compiler with demanding resources which prevent it from 
running on (Free)DOS itself. Which makes me wonder if it would be 
possible to do such a "back port" from the sources of one of the earlier 
versions of FPK,at 

Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/10/2022 11:49 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 7:44 PM Ralf Quint  wrote:

On 7/8/2022 4:26 PM, Rugxulo wrote:

Turbo Pascal debuted in 1983 with support for CP/M and DOS via .COM
files (max. 64k size). When they dropped CP/M and .COM support in TP 4
(1987), then they were able to use separate "units" and DOS .EXEs for
larger code. (But TP 3 could still address 1 MB with the heap.) There
were other complications, too.

Not quite sure what you are trying to say here.

I think (?) I was mostly trying to say that Turbo Pascal's CP/M
support and 64k .COM output (even in 1986) didn't really help DOS
achieve its full potential. The Commodore C128 came out in 1985 and
could run CP/M. I've seen at least one YouTube video of it running
Turbo Pascal.
Rather to the contrary. You must realize that at that time, regardless 
of the size of programs (beside, as I mentioned, Turbo Pascal 3.0 could 
do overlays), it incredibly helped DOS to become more popular. It was 
multiple times faster than any other compiler and with $60, it was at 
least 5-6x cheaper than the next best compiler. Only DeSmet C was even 
remotely in the same price range, Mix/Power C was just becoming known. 
And in those early '80s, for most home users, PCs with less than 512KB 
of RAM where quite common. That only changed in the mid'80s and by that 
time,Turbo Pascal 4.0 was out. And Turbo C, Turbo BASIC, etc...



Never used Prospero Pascal

I'm not sure of the details, but AFAIK they were the main vendor
pushing "Extended" Pascal (ISO 10206), even for DOS. Instead of just
"level 0" and "level 1", their compiler also had "level 2"
(exceptions?) and "level 3" (classes?).

* http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Prospero_Pascal
I know/knew about it, but as I mentioned before, those Pascal standards 
were rather detrimental to the spread of Pascal. Hence it was of very 
little interest to me...

GNU Pascal's main claim to fame (besides "Borland Pascal 7" support)
was also supporting both ISO standards (7185, 10206). There are DJGPP
builds available. But GNU Pascal hasn't been maintained in many years.
Still, it works!

* https://www.gnu-pascal.de/gpc/h-index.html


That Borland Pascal "support" is more marketing than useful feature. And 
again, in practice, nobody was giving a hoot about those standards.



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Creating a minimal freeDOS bootable image that runs a single application

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/10/2022 2:46 PM, Nico via Freedos-user wrote:

hi,
I would like to create a minimal bootable image for a USB drive (or 
other formats, maybe even floppies, but USB is the focus) that boots 
into a single application (in my case, a custom minimal word 
processor, although freeDOS EDIT is a decent start for what I want) to 
create a kind of "typewriter on a USB drive", that will work on any 
hardware you throw it at and provide an environment for writing in. (I 
understand that this is very niche)


freeDOS seemed like an ideal platform for this to me, as it seems 
small, boots very fast, runs on all kinds of PC hardware, lets me 
develop my application in C without having to go bare-metal, etc.


I understand that freeDOS can be installed from a booted USB drive, 
but could I create a custom USB image that, instead of containing the 
installer, contains my small word processor which starts at boot? Or 
is freeDOS not a good base for this utility? 

Not quite sure what exactly your problem is?

Just create a basic bootable USB stick and start whatever application 
you like in the autoexec.bat...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/8/2022 4:26 PM, Rugxulo wrote:


Turbo Pascal debuted in 1983 with support for CP/M and DOS via .COM
files (max. 64k size). When they dropped CP/M and .COM support in TP 4
(1987), then they were able to use separate "units" and DOS .EXEs for
larger code. (But TP 3 could still address 1 MB with the heap.) There
were other complications, too.

Not quite sure what you are trying to say here.

Anders Hejlsberg  deliberately designed Compas Pascal/Poly Pascal (which 
was renamed to Turbo Pascal 1.0 on CP/M, then ported from Z80 assembler 
to x86 for CP/M-86 and DOS) as a 1-pass compiler, with minimal memory 
usage and also forgoing any real linking process, just combining each 
and every program with the same, complete run time library and just 
adding the actual program code behind that for the rest of the available 
memory.


He took the general idea of the UCSD Pascal menu for the new "IDE" (the 
predecessor of Compas Pascal, Blue Label Pascal, was just a command line 
compiler, but with the same concept of creating the resulting executable 
without link, just appending to the standard RTL) but because of the 
deliberate decision of the compiling process, there was no ""room" for 
including a modular concept.


Once Turbo Pascal reached v3, there was no further room to improvement, 
and hence it was decided to re-write the compiler for version 4. At that 
point, Hejlsberg made the decision to introduce the unit concept of UCSD 
Pascal, and as the goal was to produce native x86 code, dropped the .COM 
format and produced .EXE files, which lend themselves nicely to the unit 
concept. However, in order to allow for smart-linking, the units would 
not be compiled to .obj (which had no provision for the info of the 
interface section) but produced proprietary .TPU (Turbo Pascal Unit) 
files. That move was also more aided by the speed improvements in PCs 
CPUs rather than the available memory.


And as CP/M, in either form, was obsolete and got dumped, using memory 
mapped video output became a viable option (the early versions of Turbo 
Pascal could actually be used though a serial terminal still!), someone 
else at Borland (it wasn't Hejlsberg himself) came up with the full 
screen, windowed text UI IDE, which was pretty much unchanged (just 
adapted) used for the simultaneously released Turbo C 1.0.


Turbo Pascal 5.0 then (re) introduced overlays, 5.5 first steps in 
object oriented programming and an integrated debugger, while 6.0 
introduced real inline assembler (instead of inline() with inserting 
byte wise opcodes of assembly routines) and a vastly improved debugger.



Byte magazine (issue Dec. 1986) has a comparison of four Pascal
compilers. Modula-2 (with modules) was no stranger as their Aug. 1984
issue covered it extensively. But of those four Pascal compilers (MS,
UCSD, Prospero, MetaWare, with sidenote for TP 3):

64K-byte code/data limit? no, no, no, no, yes
Chaining? no, yes, yes, no, yes
Export abstract data types? no, no, no, yes, no
Modules? yes, no, no, yes, no
External routines? yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Include files? yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Overlays? yes, no, yes, yes, yes
Segmentation? no, yes, yes, yes, no
unit libraries? yes, yes, no, no, no

Keep in mind the obvious fact that TP compiles/links in about 2
seconds that which takes about a minute (60 secs.) on most other
compilers. Plus, TP was $70 (while most others, besides $100 UCSD,
were roughly $300, $400, or $600).
As for the speed, see my explanation above. Beside that, there are some 
errors in this list. Never used Prospero Pascal, but I did use Metaware 
Professional Pascal and UCSD Pascal, beside Turbo Pascal 3.0 (and 
Digital Research Pascal MT+ 86, and a little bit of Microsoft Pascal). 
Completely false for example is that UCSD would not have modules, as 
mentioned before, they are the ones that "invented" the unit concept. 
Also, there was a general overlay system common to all p-System 
compilers (beside Pascal, there was FORTRAN as well as a rather elusive 
BASIC compiler). And without looking at that article, I am not sure 
how/why they differentiate between modules and "unit libraries"...


There's a different article (same Dec. 1986 issue) about something
else entirely ("approximating integrals") that has unstructured BASIC
(GWBASIC??) code as an example. It's weird seeing so many competing
languages. There's even an ad for MS QuickBASIC compiler 2.0 bragging
about speed, EGA support, structured constructs (no GOTO required),
and "reusable modules" for $100.

My point is that everything "new" was getting obsoleted by everything
"newer" and then some. Things moved too fast, but progress was
definitely happening.


Well, that "progress" unfortunately might not always for a real world 
benefit. A lot of newer programming languages and programming paradigms 
do not really help solving real world (end user) problems. And a lot of 
"competing" languages was rather a good thing, as it helped to show 
which ones provided 

Re: [Freedos-user] DOS ASM resources

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/7/2022 2:58 PM, Rugxulo wrote:


DeSmet C and IA16-ELF (GCC) both work fairly well (but not necessarily
every memory model).

* http://desmet-c.com/


DeSmet C has only 2 memory models (small and large, the later from v3.x 
onwards)  and is also using its own object file format and thus linker. 
(Tough there is an o2obj converter, but that is only intended to link 
modules written in DeSmet C to other languages/compilers that use the 
standard .OBJ file format).



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Assembly Language and BASIC

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/7/2022 8:54 PM, dmccunney wrote:

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 8:30 PM Daniel  wrote:

I am unfamiliar woththe C languages,  but does it also allow one to mix both 
assembly in with the C source code?  Are there any other languages that allows 
mixing of assembly in with the language code?

Not in the manner you are thinking of.





A key point here was that programs were modular.  There would be more
than one C source file making up the completed program, so there
wasn't really a need for inline assembler.  If performance wasn't what
was hoped for, you profiled the C code to see where the problems were,
and rewrote the offending C code, or coded it in  assembler as needed.
Pretty much all actual C compilers I have worked with in the last 40 
years supported at least to some degree inline assembler to be used. The 
ways how to do that were however always implementation dependent and 
there never was some kind of standard on how to do that...


High level language development on DOS in BASIC or Pascal tended to be
in one big file, so being able to have Assembler inline was a boon.


Also not correct, by a long shot. First of all, BASIC was in most cases 
an interpreter, so yes, there was most of the time just "one big file", 
if you disregard things like CHAIN in most MS BASIC derivatives. Pretty 
much all BASIC compilers (at least on a "real" OS) allowed for separate 
development, compilation and then linking for those separate modules. 
The same goes for old style DOS compilers like FORTRAN or COBOL.


For Pascal, this is +95% wrong. The first widespread version of Pascal, 
UCSD Pascal, also sold for example under names like "Apple Pascal" (on 
Apple II/III) did introduce the concept of "units", which allowed not 
only for modular development, but also for code reuse, as well as basic 
data and code encapsulation, which are all part of the core 
functionality of object oriented programming (before that term and its 
use was totally perverted to today's levels). That was also introduced 
starting with Turbo Pascal 4.0 and is a staple of later Turbo/Borland 
Pascal versions as well Object Pascal implementations like Delphi and 
FreePascal.
The exception was kind of only the very early versions of Turbo Pascal 
(up to 3.0), which by the overall design of the compiler used "one big 
file" (though you could "include" many different source files). A lot of 
pther compilers, like Digital Research Pascal MT+ 86 or Microsoft Pascal 
allowed for development, compilation and linking of separate modules. As 
far as the various Microsoft compilers of the DOS days are concerned, 
,while observing a handful of rules, it was even possible to link for 
example FORTRAN, C, Pascal and assembler modules together to one program 
executable. Beside that a lot of compilers allowed for modular 
development and use of such modules via the use of overlays.



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS ASM resources

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/7/2022 9:59 AM, C. Masloch wrote:

On at 2022-07-07 09:39 -0700, Ralf Quint wrote:
Similar with NASM, where for some weird reasons, they made the 
assembler case-sensitive, which I would consider utter nonsense (also 
among my griefs with C(++)). And it really bites you if you are 
trying to link assembler modules with other programming languages. It 
also (deliberately) doesn't support some assembler instructions (as 
per Intel specs) just because it doesn't fit into their parser (LODS, 
MOVS, ...),


Fair enough on all the other points, but the support for string 
instructions is actually there. It just isn't done with explicit 
operands to the instruction to indicate the operand size and segment 
override (whereas I believe the symbol offset address you can specify 
to MASM is ignored). Instead, NASM supports eg lodsb / lodsw / lodsd, 
as well as segment override and a16 or a32 as prefixes. So for example 
you could have "a32 es lodsd". This syntax used to be documented in 
their instruction set reference, as forked by me. [1] 


As I mentioned, this is one of those changes that pretty much prevent 
you from assembling A LOT of older x86 source code from the early days 
of DOS (and x86).


Microsoft's MASM maintained full compatibility with Intel's own 
assembler, ASM86. And after all, Intel is the one entity that 
designed/defined x86. At least NASM  did not follow the stupid idea of 
AT (and gas, to me a typical Stallman idiosyncrasy, but apparently 
AT got on that trip before he got involved) to use a complete 
different syntax...


I would much rather use one of those Open Source assemblers (btw, which 
A86 is not!) like WASM/JWASM that stick to the Intel/Microsoft syntax 
and compatibility than to start converting each and every piece of 
assembly language source for DOS...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS ASM resources

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/2/2022 10:37 AM, Travis Siegel wrote:


Masm, Tasm, and others all have their own syntax which confuses me 
more than helping.


Well, that is not quite correct. And it would be obvious if you did x86 
assembler in the early '80s. MASM (and basically TASM (as in Borland 
Turbo Assembler)) is using the same syntax as Intel is in their own 
assembler and in all Intel documentation. And that is the de facto 
standard for DOS x86. TASM "Ideal" mode is purely optional, with some 
good and some bad sides.  I commonly use the .MASM51 directive in all my 
assembler files, as that is the format that is most compatible with 
other compilers.

And Turbo Debugger is hands down the best assembly language debugger, EVER.

I tried to look at A86, but that is now so long ago that I don't recall 
right now what it was that I didn't like. I don't think that I spend 
more than 2 or 3 days playing with it.


Similar with NASM, where for some weird reasons, they made the assembler 
case-sensitive, which I would consider utter nonsense (also among my 
griefs with C(++)). And it really bites you if you are trying to link 
assembler modules with other programming languages. It also 
(deliberately) doesn't support some assembler instructions (as per Intel 
specs) just because it doesn't fit into their parser (LODS, MOVS, ...), 
x87 registers are named differently
And there are a lot more stupid changes that make it almost impossible 
to just compile/assemble older DOS related assembler sources without 
investing some additional time to do (error prone) conversions...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] An idea for silent PC controlled by FreeDOS

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/26/2022 1:19 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:

Unfortunately, they’re no longer $9. :(


Yeah, chances to get such a machine for $9 are pretty slim


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Need help with networking

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/17/2022 9:34 PM, dogwallop1...@gmail.com wrote:


Hi all, brand spanking new to this mailing list, and I’m just setting 
up FreeDOS in a VMWare machine.


I would very much like to get the networking setup so that I can 
create shares to be able to exchange files with the host machine, but 
for some reason ‘net’ and related commands don’t seem to be present.


I’ve installed all of the network options from the CD, and it connects 
to the network just fine.  I can use lynx to do some very crude  
browsing, so there is connectivity there, so I must be missing 
something here.


Well, first of all, connecting to the Internet via TCP is not 
"connecting to the network".


How to do that, so you can access shares, well, that depends on a lot of 
different things. For one, what is your VM host network and what kind of 
network shares are you trying to access. There is certainly no Microsoft 
"net" command with FreeDOS, though I am not sure if there is such a tool 
with any Samba client included. Also, most likely you can connect with 
any such Samba client only to SMB 1.x enabled hosts, and that is for 
years now usually disabled on modern hosts due to vulnerabilities..



Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Fonts

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/15/2022 10:30 AM, Daniel wrote:

Is anyone familiar with how DOS fonts work?

There are some .com files that will change the original font with 
another and ya can create your own.  I created a TI-99/4aA font to use.


So how does it work?  Is the hardware font cached and the cache is 
changed?  Some programs will revert back to the original font when 
exiting back to DOS.


Is there a location where one can read/write the font information?


There is no such thing as a "DOS Font". Seriously!

Any font functionality is totally dependent on the graphics card being 
used. Any attempts to (kind of) standardize the use of fonts (incl. 
modification) might be found in the description of INT 10h functions 
(BIOS Video interrupt) but pretty much all of those, beside some VERY 
BASIC stuff common on VGA adapters) is totally manufacturer dependent...



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Limit text output to specific area

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/14/2022 3:18 PM, Zbigniew wrote:

Googling around gave no result. It seems it doesn't exist „ready for
use”, so just to make sure:
does DOS/BIOS offer any possibility to set active screen output
„window” — I mean something like BIOS int 10h/06-07 — but trapping
cursor inside?
What I mean is using all the ordinary functions that do character
output and having wrapping/scrolling on automatic (no counting
characters necessary, not managing cursor position „manually” etc.)


NT 10h has only some window scrolling/clearing functions. And you can 
query/position the cursor. Beyond that, you are on your own. Or use some 
libraries for the compiler of your choice that will do all the window 
managing for you. What you need to remember is that DOS in its basic 
form is still (should be) capable of running on a serial terminal 
attached to a computer. And very few were back in those days "windowing 
capable".


That windowing function that Jim referenced in his little sample program 
is one that does the basic window management for you. But this will only 
work if you are using library functions for the compiler that are aware 
of the selected window coordinates, it will not work for a simple 
printf()/puts() etc.



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Super Charging Windows 3.1 ?

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/9/2022 8:55 AM, Roderick Klein wrote:

He Martin,

Small world. I have also been looking for websites on that topic.
I have also not been able to find any information for fixes for 
Windows 3.1 Microsoft released.


I do not know if Microsoft released patched for Windows 3.1 and Y2k 
compability. I think IBM for WIN/OS2 did. 


Well, you all are chasing unicorns here.

Yes, Microsoft did release a Y2K patch for Windows 3.1x. In 1997. But...

Microsoft has set the end of support for Windows 3.1x for December 31st, 
2001. That is 21 years ago. Support for a special (non-retail) embedded 
version of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ended 2008, still 13 years ago.


All references and possible downloads for anything DOS and Windows <= 
3.11 has been removed from Microsoft's web site(s) at least 10 years 
ago. By that time, pretty much all application and driver support from 
3rd parties has evaporated as well.


There might be bits and pieces around the interwebs still, like old 
SimTel and/or Garbo mirrors. The before mentioned Y2K patch 
(practically, a new Windows File Manager) for example can be found at 
VetusWare

https://vetusware.com/download/Win3.13.11%20File%20Manager%20Y2K%20update/?id=4446

If someone seriously wants to dabble in Windows 3.1x, you need 
definitely hone your Google-Fu skills. As I said, you're chasing 
unicorns... ;-)


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Shared folders in VirtualBox

[Ralf Quint]

On 4/26/2022 3:56 AM, Eduardo Casino wrote:



Very terse. Me gusta mucho. :-)


I'm sorry, I did not mean to be rude.

OK, so I think I was not technically wrong, VMware does not, *but*
there is a way round it?


It is correct that VMWare does not provide guest additions for DOS, 
that is why I developed vmsmount, which implements just the shared 
folders interface.


Well, not to forget that the question as per subject refers to 
VirtualBox, not VMWare



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] GNU Cobol in the FreeDOS ...

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/18/2022 4:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Mon, 14 Mar 2022 at 01:10, Everaldo Bernardo Cunha
 wrote:

I would of to install GNU Cobol in the FreeDOS 1.3. Someone here can help me 
that work??? I'm using the FreeDOS in a virtual machine DOSBOX-X, in the Debian 
11.2 LXDE 64 bits ... I'll await future contact.

By the way, in the course of research for an article on free COBOL
compilers, I have found some for DOS. I thought they may be of
interest to you.

3 of them are here:
http://www.manmrk.net/tutorials/cobol/index.htm

More info here:
https://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cobol.shtml

COBOL650 as described above can be found here:
http://www-ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/programming/

I hope this helps.

All of those compilers are very limited in their capabilities and are 
pretty much dead. Beside that the manmrk.net site links the mcobol and 
ucobol downloads to the same file (MCOBOL.RAR).


COBOL650 at some point had the greatest potential to be remotely useful, 
but that package is now 32 years old (1990) and the author was 
supposedly dying of aids at the time of release. The source code was 
supposed to be available on an Atlanta BBS of a friend of his, but that 
never saw the light of day and has to be assumed lost...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] GNU Cobol in the FreeDOS ...

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/14/2022 10:22 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Mon, 14 Mar 2022 at 18:12, Ralf Quint  wrote:


[2] Is there a version of GNU COBOL for DOS? I can't find any mention
of this on Google.

This is the real issue at hand here, and the reason why the OP should
rather contact the GNU COBOL
folks about installing this on DOS (any DOS).

Yes, I agree.


The main problem is that you will need the whole GCC tool chain for this to 
work...

I did not know that GNU COBOL compiled to C when I answered, but yes,
I agree, ultimately this is the
problem.

But a shorter answer, missing the core problem but still answering the
question, is:

No, GNU COBOL does not run on DOS.

The compiler does not run on DOS, the tools the compiler needs don't
run on DOS, and they don't target
DOS either.

What this means is:
Well, there used to be a couple of open source/free COBOL projects that 
kind of got merged into GNU COBOL years ago, when the original authors 
abandoned it. Open COBOL is one of them, there was at least one more, 
though the name back then escapes me right now. And at least one of 
those projects, working the same way, by using a C compiler as a 
backend, was able to use DOS based compilers ((Open)Watcom was one of 
them IIRC), before they all went "the way of the devil".


Thus it would simply an issue that should be taken up with those GNU 
COBOL maintainers, and not a FreeDOS specific one...



Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] GNU Cobol in the FreeDOS ...

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/14/2022 6:10 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2022 at 01:10, Everaldo Bernardo Cunha  >  wrote: >> >> I would of to install GNU Cobol 
in the FreeDOS 1.3. Someone here >> can help me that work??? I'm using 
the FreeDOS in a virtual >> machine DOSBOX-X, in the Debian 11.2 LXDE 64 
bits ... I'll await >> future contact. > > 2 questions. ...
[2] Is there a version of GNU COBOL for DOS? I can't find any mention  > of this on Google. This is the real issue at hand here, and the 
reason why the OP should rather contact the GNU COBOL folks about 
installing this on DOS (any DOS).


The main problem is that you will need the whole GCC tool chain for this 
to work...




Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] Looking for easy to follow instructions on how to connect to Samba share

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/3/2022 9:43 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure linux does have locking in various 
increments.  File locking being the easiest, then access to portions 
of said file.  You may need to use various interfaces to accomplish 
the tasks, but there are several programs I use regularly on linux 
that couldn't function properly without some form of locking/sharing.  
You may need to do some research into how linux handles such things, 
but I'm positive such apis/includes exist. It's kind of required 
considering the multitasking nature of the os.


I'd be extremely surprised if MacOS didn't have something similar, 
considering it's based on Free BSD, and like linux, BSD almost has to 
have such facilities, just because of it's very nature. Perhaps you're 
not looking in the right places for documented information on such 
things, or perhaps I misunderstood the issue, and if so, I apologize 
for the confusion, but I can't imagine any way linux and MacOS don't 
have locking/sharing as part of the os in some way. 
As I mentioned, I am dealing with this for a larger (commercial) 
programming project. Again, neither Linux nor macOS properly support 
record locking (yes, there is a very rudimentary file locking in both of 
them, but that is no solution when requiring record locking in 
applications that share a common database but do not require a dedicated 
file server).
This was added to DOS (and mostly, but not completely supported by 
Windows) back in DOS 3.0, when first networking was introduced, in a 
rather simple to use and effective way.


Yes, it is surprising that this doesn't exist in Linux (macOS gives a 
rodents posterior regarding server use to begin with), but there has 
been the trend to work in a client-server setup, where such a server, as 
a single task/entity/application is in control who can read and/or write 
what contents and what time.


If you have a viable API, that works across at least a wide range of 
distros, if not all of them, then please share your wisdom. I would be 
glad to make use of that and reduce the amount of conditional program 
depending on the OS compiled for necessary...


Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] Looking for easy to follow instructions on how to connect to Samba share

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/3/2022 3:36 PM, Eric Auer wrote:


I don't believe that solution supports multiple node access to the 
same folder.

SMB (i.e. MSCLIENT and Samba) were designed for this use case.


What makes you think so? Concurrent access to files is something
already handled by SHARE even in non-networked DOS contexts, so
it would not be surprising at all if DOSEMU2 supports this :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE.EXE


Actually the question is more exciting than I thought:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1446891/record-locking-problem-between-linux-and-windows/65039196#65039196 



Thanks to Stas for the pointer to this Stackoverflow thread :-) 


Well, the short and gritty is that there is no OS beside DOS and (to 
some degree) Windows have proper record locking, on both Linux and 
macOS, it is pretty much non-existent, in any universally usable 
approach. I am currently dealing with a programming project of mine 
where I have to pretty much change all my record locking code even for 
Windows and completely omit it in the Linux and macOS versions.


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Looking for easy to follow instructions on how to connect to Samba share

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/27/2022 3:25 PM, Sean Warner wrote:


I have enabled SMBv1 in Win 10 and enabled file and printer sharing.

Also in Win 10 Function Discovery Provider Host and Resource 
Publication are both enabled and running.


That simply might not work. I have similar problems were for a while 
still, I have to support a Windows 2003 server in an environment where 
all user workstations are on Windows 10 Pro. It is kind of random if 
those clients are able to access a SMB 1. share on that Windows 2003 
server or not. I have spend literally days trying to come up with 
working solution, NOTHING that I have found in regards to enable SMB 1.x 
on Windows 10 or newer (Windows 11, Server 2016/2019,...) is working 
reliably...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Total newby question

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/18/2022 10:01 AM, Jim Hall wrote:


My thoughts:

I run FreeDOS in a virtual machine. That's probably the easiest way
for most people to run FreeDOS today. (Obviously everyone is
different, especially for those who prefer to run on actual hardware -
but I'm talking about "most people" here.)

I use QEMU and VirtualBox to boot FreeDOS. I find I get better
performance in VirtualBox for some things, and better performance in
QEMU for some other things. I think QEMU provides better hardware
emulation - for example, VirtualBox doesn't emulate the PC speaker,
while QEMU does.
Hyper-V is Micro$oft's internal/"native" hypervisor/virtual machine, 
that comes in a number of higher end Windows 10+/Windows Server versions 
by default (at least in a limited #of concurrent guests version).


It is just like a lot of Microsoft products very "MIcrosoft centric", so 
compatibility with something older like DOS might be limited. I 
personally just have never bother to play with it for all those years...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Total newby question

[Ralf Quint]

On 2/17/2022 3:27 PM, Joseph Kelchner wrote:


Hello,

I’m wondering if Freedos could be used as my operating system on a 
Windows 10 pro Hyper-V Virtual Machine?


Thanks!

Joe

Your question is rather ambiguous. If you are asking if you can run 
FreeDOS in a guest OS in a Hyper-V host, then the answer is likely a 
"maybe", at least it should work if any other DOS works as  Hyper-V 
guest. (I have successfully stayed away from Hyper-V, at least as far as 
I could throw the computer running it)


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Interesting comment by Walter Bright

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/29/2022 8:37 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:
He claims "The DMC++ compiler is far and away the best C++ compiler on 
DOS."


https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30127615


Well, he had a good head start on pretty much all the other major 
players, both as a commercial C, then C++ compiler, sold throughout 
history first as Datalight, C, then Zorland C, Zortech C(++) and 
Symantec C++, before he got the rights to the compiler back and now is 
for at least two decades available under the name of Digital Mars C++...


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/30/2021 2:22 AM, JR wrote:

Hi there
I have a really basic question regarding the date format.
After decades, I decided I would like the date format to be -mm-dd 
instead of mm-dd-yy 
As this thread has drifted off into a completely different topic, here's 
a bit humor to get back on the issue at hand (though I am not sure a lot 
of US folks immediately understand ;-) )


https://xkcd.com/2562/

Happy New Year!

Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/31/2021 2:37 PM, tom ehlert wrote:

At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by
default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32.

FAT has a limit of 4GB.

it's DOS that limits this unless you indicate at DosOpen that you understand
the difference between signed and unsigned (2GB and 4GB) offsets for
file systems. so the limit for NT was 4GB, not 2 GB (or at least
should have been)

Well, it really would bode you well if you were a bit less arrogant at 
times.


This was a simple typo...

Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/31/2021 8:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 at 21:04, Deposite Pirate  wrote:

Windows XP can indeed officially be installed and boot from FAT32.

https://kb.iu.edu/d/ajqm

AFAICS that page is inconclusive and merely says that XP supports
FAT16, 32 and NTFS, which was never in doubt. But I checked and you're
right. It's a long time since I installed XP!

Actually, since Windows 2000, the default installation option will 
always create and install on a NTFS partition, though you could install 
on a FAT[16/32] partition optionally. I think this option has been 
removed with one of the service packs for Windows XP (SP2?), as it 
creates a problem when the computer you use as your host has more as 2GB 
of physical RAM.


At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by 
default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32.


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/26/2021 12:29 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:


There seems to be some population of newer or obscure BIOSes that will 
misreport IDE drives and BIOS booted HDD formatted USB drives as being 
non fixed disks which FD FDISK requires to be able to interact with them.


This isn't "obscure" at all in regards to any newer (post mid-90s) BIOS, 
as this would be required to support plug'n play of USB drives...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Video complains that DOS should not be maintained

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/24/2021 11:06 AM, Travis Siegel wrote:
Someone really should tell these guys that dos is still widely used in 
industrial processes today, wonder what they'd say about that. :) 
That's part of the problem, those are university goons, they don't live 
in the real world... >:)


Ralf ;-)



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Re: [Freedos-user] Video complains that DOS should not be maintained

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/24/2021 9:53 AM, Parodper wrote:

O 24/12/21 ás 18:30, Ralf Quint escribiu:

On 12/24/2021 4:48 AM, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:
The comment against open-source DOS is at the end of this 
discussion. See after 26 minutes.

https://youtu.be/Opqgwn8TdlM

I really wonder how that would effect DOS, after all there is no web 
interface, nor any Java in (Free)DOS. So (without having watched this 
rather long video yet), any such conclusion seems to be a bit far 
fetch IMHO...


Ralf



They only mention MS-DOS as an example, at the end. Quote from 24:13 
to 24:50:


> [Talking about open source projects being maintained by only one or
> two people]
> You could see, for example, bits of software that really should be
> allowed to die. But, [for example] let's suppose that MS-DOS was open
> source. You can guarantee that there would probably be a community of
> people still maintaining MS-DOS today. We probably don't want bits of
> software like MS-DOS still being maintained. They're interesting
> historical curiosities, [but] they're not software that should be used
> today. And that's the danger, that the software exists beyond its sell
> by date, because anyone can maintain it and it still looks useful. 
Yes, I saw the video now, but given the subject of that "discussion" in  
the video, that dude was just blowing hot air.


It would be extremely hard to even intentionally create a vulnerability 
like Log4j/JNDI, as DOS is a single tasking, single thread OS to begin 
with. Just show me a single practical use case where a remote execution 
exploit would be really possible...


The real threat of things like the Log4Shell stuff is because specially 
in Java (but also in languages like C++ or C#) too many lazy programmers 
are just inheriting the crap out of existing classes/methods so that 
nobody really knows what all is happening along the way in a call to a 
function. In DOS, and really DOS applicable languages (language 
implementations), due to the size constraints, this isn't really  the 
case. Unless someone, like a lot of people in recent years, don't take 
DOS for being DOS anymore, but try to use "modern" concepts/libraries, 
just to do a quick job and don't care (even know) about such constraints 
anymore. And a reason why I am always rather critical when people try to 
use in FreeDOS tools and do things like, for example, in Linux...


Ralf

Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] Video complains that DOS should not be maintained

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/24/2021 4:48 AM, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:
The comment against open-source DOS is at the end of this discussion. 
See after 26 minutes.

https://youtu.be/Opqgwn8TdlM

I really wonder how that would effect DOS, after all there is no web 
interface, nor any Java in (Free)DOS. So (without having watched this 
rather long video yet), any such conclusion seems to be a bit far fetch 
IMHO...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS virtual get-together this weekend (social time!)

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/17/2021 2:32 PM, Jim Hall wrote:

Hi everyone!

Every month, we do a virtual get-together. It's a great opportunity to 
see each other "in person" and get to know each other a little better.


The virtual get-togethers are on the third Sunday every month. And 
that's this coming Sunday, 21 November, at 11am US/Central. (Use your 
favorite timezone converter to find your local time.)


We alternate the topics every month, switching between "technical" 
topics one month, and "social time" the next month. For November, it's 
social time. Join us on the virtual get-together to hang out and catch up!


I'll share the link on Sunday when the meeting starts up. I'll also 
post it on Twitter, on Facebook, and on the website.


Any possibility to post that link a few minute before the planned start 
of the meeting? For some reason, it always takes me 5-10 minutes to 
actually connect... :(


thanks,

Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] reminder reminder?

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/1/2021 2:12 PM, John Price wrote:
Looks like my server had a hard time delivering to the mailing list. 
Attempted 6 times. Mystery solved. :)




Thanks for checking!


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] reminder reminder?

[Ralf Quint]

On 11/1/2021 7:24 AM, Jim Hall wrote:


Interesting. So far, Eric, Bryan, Angel, and Bonaventure received 
multiple copies (I'm assuming 3 for freedos-user and 3 for 
freedos-devel?) but I only received one.


Any Gmail users out there who received multiple copies? My email is 
hosted by Gmail - I checked my Spam and didn't see anything, but I 
wonder if Gmail detected multiple copies sent and only delivered one 
to my Inbox.


Nope, Gmail user here and got only one reminder, as usual...


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] changing keyboard layout after booting from CD-ROM

[Ralf Quint]

On 10/1/2021 6:58 AM, Harry wrote:

Hello Eric,

thanks for the continued help!

I booted the PC with FD13LGCY.iso (CD-ROM) and afterwards selected
"No - return to DOS"

A:\>MKEYB SG (and hit enter)
Bad command or filename "MKEYB"


Am I doing something wrong? 


You probably don't have a proper PATH for DOS to find the MKEYB program...

Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] New FreeDOSers Monthly Reminder

[Ralf Quint]

On 8/1/2021 2:05 AM, David Gifford Sr. via Freedos-user wrote:

Great, back in Kindergarten.
I haven't seen any problems. You just come out and get all butt hurt 
about nothing?  Get a life.

There no swearing yet. Don't want you to $hiit yr pants.


Looks like you need to get back into Kindergarten yourself.

This is an automated monthly reminder that is send out in this form for 
more than a decade (maybe two by now)...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Re : Upgrading the BIOS with FreeDOS

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/28/2021 11:42 AM, Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user wrote:



>https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=tjgkp=w764=optiplex-3020m-desktop


>
>the page says: "This file format consists of a BIOS executable
file. The Universal (Windows/MS DOS) format can be used to install
from any Windows or MS DOS >environment." but it is a PE file:
>paul@kasparno:~/Téléchargements$ file
~/Téléchargements/OptiPlex_3020M_A15.exe
>/home/paul/Téléchargements/OptiPlex_3020M_A15.exe: PE32
executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows


That's a bad example I guess... it does indeed run under DOSEMU2 ... 
but make DOSEMU2 crash:
ERROR: general protection at 0x7f1952c6d798: 2e while collecting 
information.


That is to be expected. As there isn't really a Dell BIOS to update 
under DOSEMU, that should be common sense. You are trying to gain write 
access to a piece of memory that is simply protected by the OS (and/or 
DOSEMU)...


Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] Print

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/20/2021 9:02 AM, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:

Thanks, Ralf:


If you have mapped LPT2 to the network printer then you *must* print
to LPT2. Sending to PRN or LPT1 won't do anything because there's no
device there.

I will henceforth direct printing to PRN.


On the FreeDOS PC, in C:\MSNET>, I have edited LOGON.BAT. That now 
says the following.

"net use PRN: \\%SERVER%\%PRINTQUEUE% %PASSWORD%"

The easy way to print to any port is just to copy or echo a file to 
that port.

I have entered this:
* "copy readme.txt prn".
3.4 lines print. 


That doesn't make any sense. There must be something else in play for 
that to work. PRN: is an alias to LPT1:

I wanted to simplify usage, hence the above.

There should be no printout what so ever of you would send data to 
PRN: and have the network printer assigned to LPT2:
As above in the mean time I have assigned printing to PRN (no longer 
to LPT2).


OK, but that means your setup you have is different than the one you 
mentioned many times before. :(


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] Print

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/20/2021 7:06 AM, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:



If you have mapped LPT2 to the network printer then you *must* print
to LPT2. Sending to PRN or LPT1 won't do anything because there's no
device there.

I will henceforth direct printing to PRN.

The easy way to print to any port is just to copy or echo a file to 
that port.

I have entered this:
* "copy readme.txt prn".
3.4 lines print. 


That doesn't make any sense. There must be something else in play for 
that to work. PRN: is an alias to LPT1:


There should be no printout what so ever of you would send data to PRN: 
and have the network printer assigned to LPT2:


Ralf



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Re: [Freedos-user] game compatibility CD/DVD drivers: comparing UDVD2 to OAKCDROM and DOSBOX

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/8/2021 9:18 AM, Jim Hall wrote:

This is an interesting analysis and comparison between Oak
Technology's OAKCDROM (proprietary) and Jack's UDVD2 (free with
sources).

Have you shared this with Jack? I think he would want to see this so
he can improve compatibility in his driver.


Are you sure about this? Doing just that, is what got him all pissed off 
the last time around... :(


Ralf


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