Re: [Freedos-user] Why I use FreeDOS

[Zbigniew]

2011/6/5, Rugxulo:

 Neither XP nor light Linuxes typically run well (if at all) in even
 128 MB of RAM

Depends on what distribution - and version (even more important) -
you'll choose. If you'll use - say - SuSE-Linux 5.3, it'll be running
quite OK with its KDE 1.0 on 16 MB RAM (and with just fvwm2 instead ok
KDE it'll be running perfectly). With no graphic even 8 MB RAM will
do.

Of course, the distros of today became very bloated.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] Soundcard Audigy 2 works in MPXPLAY but nowhere else.

[Zbigniew]

Tried several times to use ordinary Soundblaster Live! under DOS -
and _never_ was able to make any use out of this card under DOS.

Maybe someone of you managed to configure this card for DOS? Just out
of curiosity, since I've got ISA cards, that I'm using with no
problems whatsoever - but I'm wondering, was it possible at all? That
dos utility, which I've found on CD shipped with card, doesn't work as
expected.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Soundcard Audigy 2 works in MPXPLAY but nowhere else.

[Zbigniew]

2011/6/22, Eric Auer:

 Note that SB Live! is not a SoundBlaster in the sense that SB 1.0,
 SB 1.5, SB Pro, SB 2.0 or SB 16 are, it is not compatible to any
 of those DOS game compatible cards. However, I seem to remember
 that SB Live! comes with a quite good virtual simulated SB16 in
 DOS style driver, so as long as you run that, your games might
 be just fine.

The problem is, that during past years tried it several times - on
various boards, using various settings - and it _never_ wanted to
work. That's why I was wondering, if there is just anybody at all, who
was successful in using that driver.

 I think the driver needs EMM386 to be present and
 some of the FreeDOS EMM386 / JEMM386 / JEMMEX variant versions
 need a special command line option to allow the SB Live! driver
 to do some strange things that it needs to do to simulate SB16.
 This is of course documented in the EMM driver docs then... :-)

Although I didn't try it under FreeDOS, but using various past DOS-es,
I'm afraid, the problem isn't related to memory managers.

 Talking about which, ISA slots are very rare now,

That's why I kept a few old computers. :)

 but as compromise:
 have experience with the new GigaByte AM3+ GA-870A-UD3 mainboard yet?

I've got very similar board: it's GA-M56S-S3, which works well with
Windows, Linux, BSD-s, ForthOS, and even can be used to prepare
Hackintosh in case of need (although I did'nt tried FreeDOS with
this one... maybe it's time? ;). Has several PCI slots, so the cards
collected during the years can still be used. In fact, I bought two
such motherboards, to have spare one, since most probably it isn't
manufactured anymore - but it's working so well.

-- 
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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] Will Freedos support more modern hardware?

[Zbigniew]

2011/8/20, Michael C. Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com:

 I'm thinking of modern video cards and multiple core processors.
  [..]  I'm thinking that Freedos should be able to support
 multiple processing cores and other modern hardware.  OpenGem should be
 upgraded to work on 32 or 64 bit systems.  Another consideration, a 32
 bit or 64 bit variant of Freedos should protect the hardware. [..]
 I'm thinking the goal for protected mode Freedos that is 32 or 64 bit
 should be providing a hypervisor to run multiple instances of 16 bit
 Freedos or even Linux instances.  I think 32/64 bit Freedos should be
 the minimum that is needed to provide hardware protection, memory
 management, etcetera.

And I'm thinking, you're just looking for Linux - or Net/Free/OpenBSD.

 After all, DOS systems are supposed to be simple, light, and really fast.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm afraid, that the system, which is supposed to
be simple, light and really fast, just cannot have any protection
layers - and _should_ allow direct access to hardware (unlike all
those Unix-variants).

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Re: [Freedos-user] Will Freedos support more modern hardware?

[Zbigniew]

2011/8/20, Michael C. Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com:

 ReactOS is possibly a decade out from being stable.  I probably can't
 even compile an installable ISO right now.  It isn't entirely clear why,
 but the ReactOS project is hitting some major show stoppers.

I'm afraid, that the major stopper is the fact, that ReactOS is a
moving target. At first the team wanted to write Windows NT
compatible system - now their goal is something XP-compatible...

 An advanced Opengem that can run a modern web browser which has drivers
 for modern network chipsets and printers really might be nice where
 making opengem 32 bit with drivers for modern hardware should be easier
 than say cloning Windows 3.11 for workgroups.

Maybe take a look at http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/ then? Is it
what you need?

-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Will Freedos support more modern hardware?

[Zbigniew]

2011/8/20, Michael C. Robinson:

 A thought experiment, could a 32 bit version of Freedos with a version
 of Opengem that can support modern hardawre run on one processor
 core while dos command lines that are actually full blown dos run on
 the other processor cores? [..]

 It would be nice if viewing JPEG images, photos, was possible in
 Opengem.  There used to be an app in Slackware that lets you view
 JPEG images from the command line called seejpeg.

...or, for example, Pho: http://www.shallowsky.com/software/pho/

 There apparently used to be a version of DOS called concurrent dos that
 actually attempted or was capable of multitasking.  Multitasking in the
 multiple core era should be more interesting where Linux is a great
 system, but it might be possible to squeeze more performance out.

 Figuring out what to use multiple cores for is a problem in today's
 world. [..]

That's why I was suggesting some of the well-known Unix-like OS-es,
reading your requirements. Actually, why should it be DOS, when you
prefer to _not have_ direct access to hardware?
If you're looking for something lightweight for the desktop, maybe
NetBSD can be right choice? It has its advantages/disadvantages, but
it seems to me, that it can be about what you're looking for
(something more lightweight than Linux), fulfilling your
requirements.

If you're using Slackware already, you should feel quite familiar on
NetBSD - but, from the other side, Slackware itself isn't that heavy
(I'm using Slackware64) anyway, so why should you bother...
-- 
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[Freedos-user] freedos.org unreachable

[Zbigniew]

I noticed, that the main site is visible as www.freedos.org - but
not as freedos.org (without www). Maybe a little correction is
needed?

-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] desktop2 in freedos

[Zbigniew]

2011/8/27, Michael C. Robinson:

  menuetOS Syllable Visopsys ReactOS Linux Windows7

 Can you mention some pros and cons, in particular of the lesser
 known first 3 items on the list?

 Okay, menuetOS was mentioned by someone else and I've heard of it, but I
 don't know much about it.

A fork of Menuet is Kolibri: http://www.kolibrios.org/

But when talking about that OS-es for ordinary people, IMHO more
popularity gains Haiku http://haiku-os.org/ and Icaros-Desktop
http://www.icarosdesktop.org/ (based on AROS
http://aros.sourceforge.net/ ).

But still these are niche OS-es presently.

 Linux, various flavors, is the premier free operating system.  Add
 wine to Linux and gain access to a fair number of Windows applications.
 Linux has been slowly gaining on the Desktop.  There are many user
 groups to help you use Linux effectively.  The application list is
 growing.  Linux, unlike Syllable, Visopsys, MenuetOS, and ReactOS is
 stable and mature.  Linux, unfortunately, is not light weight requiring
 almost as much processing power as Windows 7 depending on what you are
 doing with it.

No, it's not that heavy - if you choose the lightweight distro,
and when you select the installed packages sane way.

 Linux is what you install if you have a Pentium 4 or
 better, Pentium 3 is possible for a server.

For desktop Pentium III/700 with 768 MB RAM still can offer pleasant
user experience in most cases. Of course, not when you choose Ubuntu
or SuSE (these are examples of quite heavyweight distros).

...and still you can work quite normally even using Pentium II/400
with 256 MB RAM. I agree: it will work slower than using dual-Athlons
of today, or other multicores.

For the Windows (or OSX) users quite interesting can be somewhat less
known distribution: Gobolinux ( http://gobolinux.org/ ), because of
its modern filesystem hierarchy structure, similar to the one used in
OSX
( http://www.osnews.com/story/20195/GoboLinux_and_Replacing_the_FHS )

Needless to say, Gobo is lightweight as well.

Well, there are also several BSD-like OS-es: NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD,
DragonFlyBSD... - with much lesser desktop importance.
-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] freedos.org unreachable

[Zbigniew]

2011/9/4, James jh...@freedos.org:

 Both working here, too.

With - AND WITHOUT - www prefix?

-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] desktop2 in freedos

[Zbigniew]

2011/8/27, Jeffrey ellsn...@aol.com:

 I use lxde on ubuntu 11.04 and it seems fairly lightweight. There is
 also damnsmall linux which can run firefox on a pentium.

Out of curiosity just downloaded Icaros Desktop Light 1.3.0 - in its
manual one can read:
#v+
AROS doesn't need great horsepower [..] Although AROS can run on
low-power and low-end processors, like old 500-1000 MHz ones, you
probably like to choose a faster one. [..] To enjoy a good Icaros
experience, please choose a 1600 MHz processor or a better one [..]
#v-

Not tried that new Icaros yet (tomorrow...), but if good Icaros
experience requires 1,6 GHz Athlon, then Linux can still be described
as lightweight... :)
-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] desktop2 in freedos

[Zbigniew]

2011/9/6, Jeffrey ellsn...@aol.com:

 Where did you get the manual?

 I downloaded the pdf from their website, but it was encrypted and required a
 password.

No, not at all - downloaded the manual exactly from the website:
http://www.icarosdesktop.com/icarosfiles/IcarosDesktop_manual.pdf

Maybe try another PDF-reader?
-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Heads up: DOS ain't dead forum is closing

[Zbigniew]

2011/9/14, Michael C. Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com:

 [..] I'd say that Freedos has it's
 uses, but without active development on a variant that can take
 advantage of multiple cores and modern hardware, there are probably a
 dwindling number of uses for it.  Without hardware protection and memory
 protection, Freedos is certainly fast but probably not acceptable to
 everyone.

I'd say, that FreeDOS with hardware protection and memory protection
no longer would be DOS-clone, and that everyone, who needs advantages
of multiple cores and modern hardware - and hardware protection and
memory protection as well - has a rich choice of other OS-es freely
available, with the requested features already included.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Heads up: DOS ain't dead forum is closing

[Zbigniew]

2011/9/14, Michael C. Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com:

 [..]  One interesting option on say a quad
 core system is to have the 32 bit OS partition the memory, the monitor,
 the hard disk, and the cpu cores so you can have multiple concurrent 16
 bit Freedos instances.

Something similar have been done even at 386-times. Ever heard about PC/MOS-386?

 Since you are running the equivalent of DOSBOX concurrently,

Most probably you can run on your multicore machine concurrent
sessions of DOSBOX (or DOSEMU).

 modern hardware can emulate older hardware.  Now you have
 a clean means of supporting modern hardware for people using old DOS
 applications.  Want your multi function printer to appear as a standard
 printer, fax machine, and scanner?  No problem.

I'm not that sure - but someone of FreeDOS developers will surely know
better, if it won't be any problem.

But, actually, why you want another DOSBOX to be created? You've got
already DOSBOX and DOSEMU... it's not enough?
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] PCI Sound cards drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/2/15, Trina Hanson trina.hanso...@gmail.com:

 I am trying to find Sound Blaster DOS divers for my Sound Blaster Live PCI
 card.  I have found a few drivers with no luck.  Does anyone know where to
 find drivers for this card?

During past years I tried to make SB-Live work under DOS many times -
with no luck at all. Fortunately, I bought recently AOpen Cobra
AW744 PCI card (looks like this one:
http://img.neoseeker.com/v_image.php?articleid=1292image=3 - but has
no SPDIF connector, and no connector for that additional small
connector-board, since mine isn't deluxe). One can download DOS
drivers from AOpen's site, at http://download.aopen.com.tw/

Great advantage of this card it, that it has real OPL-3, instead of
any emulation; therefore out-of-the-box I've got FM-sound in many
old games. Additionally its configuration manager should set it to
pretend as Sound Blaster and General MIDI, but still no luck; their
controls are grayed out and inaccessible. In the attached docs I've
found:

#v+
3. Depending on the environment in which the DS-XG is used, all Sound
Blaster items may be grayed out and cannot be modified. This indicates
that Sound Blaster cannot be used on your PC.

4. Depending on the environment in which the DS-XG is used, INTA# IRQ
may be grayed out and not modifiable even if you set the IRQ MODE to
INTA#. This is because the same INTA# IRQ is shared by the DS-XG and
by devices other than the DS-XG. Please move the DS-XG to a different
slot, and execute SETUPDS.EXE once again.
#v-

Well, that's the case: the settings mentioned above are grayed out
and inaccessible. Even, when I set in BIOS explicitly, that the PCI
slot has - say - interrupt 5 (and not auto), and BIOS reports, that
no other peripheral is using this interrupt, I can't activate INTA
nor SB settings.

Maybe someone is using this card, has been lucky with setting, and
could make a tip?

Even in present situation still it's better to have at least the
sounds of good old AdLib using (still) quite modern mobo, like my
GA-M56S-S3 - and not retro with obligatory ISA-slot - than nothing
at all. I think, it's much better card for DOS/Win(95,98,2000,XP) -
and perhaps even for Linux (didn't test it under Linux yet) - than
SB-Live. It gives sound of better quality, and - remember - SB doesn't
have OPL-3 chip on-board.
-- 
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[Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

While doing exercises with Forth - using DX-Forth (
http://www.netbay.com.au/~dxforth/ ) - I noticed, that its ms word
delays _exactly twice_ the given number of milliseconds.

Several tries revealed, that this word works correctly only when both
XMGR memory manager is used (not JEMMEX, for instance), and as a shell
command.com is chosen, not 4DOS. It's enough not to fulfil one of
these conditions, and again the delay is two times longer, than
expected.

Any ideas, what actually can be wrong? And should it be corrected in
JEMMEX/4DOS - or in DX-Forth rather?

If I correctly found the relevant sections of DX-Forth's kernel.asm
(it's included in the package), the word is defined the following way:

#v+
[..]
;   runtime for deferred words - equiv to @ EXECUTE

dodef:  pop bx
jmp [bx]
[..]
;   MS  ( ms -- )
hdr 1,'MS'
ms: calldodef
dw  ms0
;
[..]
#v-

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Re: [Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

Yesterday I've found another related thing: while trying to test my
soundcard with several games, I discovered, that Civilization has
quite the same issue with FreeDOS: when ran under configuration
JEMMEX + 4DOS it works very slowly (I'm using Sempron 2 GHz as CPU),
playing the background music at about half a speed, and playing its
animations so slowly, like it were run on 386SX16 or so. When switched
to XMGR + COMMAND.COM, it's playing the music quite normally, and
the game animations (moving unit icons from tile to tile etc.) are
fast, as can be expected while using 2 GHz CPU.

I've got a feeling, there is something worthy a fix.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/11, Ralf A. Quint free...@gmx.net:

 Still not sure why 4DOS would be causing it (if using that alone,
 without JEMMEX),

OK, I'll check it out again; maybe I made some mistake, since indeed
also I can't see any connection... will repeat the tests, then let you
know.

 but as I suggested in a off-list reply to a question
 that Eric Auer send me, the fact that sound output is effected as
 well, this seems kind of confirm my suspicion on how JEMM is handling
 IN/OUT statements when in protected mode, or something along those lines...

Then indeed there's something in a need for a little improvement?
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[Freedos-user] mouse.exe driver - can it be made auto-resettable?

[Zbigniew]

Its doing fine, with a little exception: when using KVM switch,
sometimes mouse goes mad. As I found out, the Linux mouse driver can
somehow detect such misbehaviour, and makes a correction by itself:

#v+
psmouse.c: Wheel Mouse at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost synchronization,
throwing 3 bytes away.
psmouse.c: resync failed, issuing reconnect request
#v-

Could be possible to improve FreeDOS' mouse driver to make it work
similar way? Actually, it doesn't even have to reconnect on
automatic, if this would be too much work, but - for example -
ability to reset somehow mouse driver still while working with
application (e.g. by pressing two its buttons at the same time, or
even with Shift pressed in addition) would be helpful in such case.
Could be even optional, not switched on by default.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/11, Bernd Blaauw bbla...@home.nl:

 Please let us know if/when you're able to pinpoint a culprit.
 You might want to start with a MSDOS/Win9x bootdisk (www.bootdisk.com)
 to eliminate FreeDOS components as the culprit, and to have a proven
 reference platform.

Tried it yesterday under DOS 6.22 - there were no problems (on 386SX25).

 Once that works, try 4DOS but keep MSDOS's memory manager.
 Independently, also try JEMMEX (and/or XMGR and/or HIMEMX with/without
 JEMM386). [..]

OK, I'll try to use the mentioned configurations, then I'll send a report.

Checked again 4DOS/COMMAND.COM: no idea, how this can be dependent on
the shell - but _yes_, it's enough to replace command.com with 4DOS as
shell in fdconfig.sys, and there is that slow-down again. I think,
it'll be easy to reproduce.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/11, Bernd Blaauw bbla...@home.nl:

 Please let us know if/when you're able to pinpoint a culprit.
 You might want to start with a MSDOS/Win9x bootdisk (www.bootdisk.com)
 to eliminate FreeDOS components as the culprit, and to have a proven
 reference platform.

Just finished first tests: under original DOS 6.22 there are no
problems neither when using EMM386 as memory manager, nor with HIMEM.

However there _are_ problems, when using 4DOS (tested newest 8.0
version) as a command shell, instead of DOS' original command.com.
Then in my opinion it's a proof, that 4DOS is (at least in certain
situations) doing something bad.

BTW: the machine had no sound hardware; the problem arose although I
choose No sounds, please option. DX-Forth also made twice as long
delays, when 4DOS was chosen.

More test results follow soon...
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[Freedos-user] Update

[Zbigniew]

After Eric's suggestion I made additional tests: still on original
MS-DOS 6.22; I used JEMMEX this time:

1. JEMMEX + 4DOS means problem, but...
2. ...JEMMEX + command.com didn't make any problem! Neither to the
game, nor to DX-Forth.

I'm always using X=TEST I=TEST parameters.

The test under FreeDOS - tomorrow.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Update

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/13, Ralf A. Quint free...@gmx.net:

 So far, this rather looks like a problem with 4DOS, not with JEMM as
 I initially suspected... :?

Under FreeDOS problems were with JEMM or 4DOS - either of both was
enough to cause mentioned slow-down (or both together, of course).
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Re: [Freedos-user] New 7-Mar-2012 UIDE, Etc. -- UIDE2 Under 7K!

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/14, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 The UIDE2 driver, for faster speed with a protected
 mode system (JEMM386/JEMMEX etc.)

I don't know, how for the others - but for me no UIDE* driver works
together with JEMMEX 5.75 (it breaks immediately at the very start).
Not sure, should it work with XMGR - it won't break, but mem /c/p
reveals nothing with name UIDE* in memory.
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Re: [Freedos-user] New 7-Mar-2012 UIDE, Etc. -- UIDE2 Under 7K!

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/14, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 Can you be more specific about how the driver breaks??   Does it
 display its title message and controller/device data, or does it
 simply crash??   Let me know.

After the message: Kernel: allocated 48 Diskbuffers = 25536 Bytes in
HMA there is immediately error message below: Jemmex: exception 06
occured at... blah, blah... (many interesting codes) - then Press
ESC to abort program.

This happens only when I'm trying to use any of UIDE*-s. I was using
UIDE2.SYS with no additional parameters in fdconfig.sys line.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Update

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/13, Ralf A. Quint free...@gmx.net:

 So far, this rather looks like a problem with 4DOS, not with JEMM as
 I initially suspected... :?

Yes, you were right: I'm terribly sorry, but my former reports were
somewhat misleading. Just finished another couple of tests, and
indeed: it's 4DOS who is the culprit. No idea, how could it happen;
maybe too many things done at the same time, maybe a bit of
auto-suggestion (or both) - or maybe too many lines in my
fdconfig/autoexec files - but just found out, that neither JEMMEX nor
any other memory manager (JEMM386, HIMEMX) should be blamed for
described problem. Be it FreeDOS or MS-DOS - contrary to my
yesterday's report. Sorry. :(

Then there is some strange issue just with 4DOS as command shell.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Update

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/15, Ralf A. Quint free...@gmx.net:

 Do you use 4DOS with any special parameters on startup?

SHELLHIGH=c:\fdos\bin\4dos.com  c:\fdos\bin /E:1024 /P=C:\autoexec.bat

That's my fdconfig line.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

Problem (seems to be) solved.

Formerly I was using a line:

INSTALLHIGH=C:\FDOS\BIN\UIDE2.SYS

...and this made problems. When I replaced INSTALLHIGH with DEVICEHIGH
- there are no problems anymore.

I thought, that INSTALL and DEVICE keywords are synonyms for
fdconfig.sys file, since I was very long time using various
combinations, like e.g.:

DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\JEMMEX.EXE (DEVICE for EXE-file)
INSTALLHIGH=C:\FDOS\BIN\XMGR.SYS (INSTALL for SYS-file)

...and it just works with no problems whatsoever - unfortunately,
not in UIDE*-s case.

But now I see, there must be some difference indeed., and for *.SYS
files should be DEVICE, and for COM/EXE - INSTALL. The opposite can
work, but doesn't have to.

Sorry, if I made some more confusion.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/15, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 Why, after using UltraDMA and caching,
 would anyone ever WANT to unload such a driver??!!

Well, yes, this is the question.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

But personally I can't see a reason to dispose of such low footprint
driver on the fly; that's why I wrote this is the question.

Yes, I'm going to use UIDE2 rather than LBACACHE exactly because it
takes less memory. BTW: there are many (of course, it's very good to
have a choice :) drivers for similar purposes available for FreeDOS
now;  it would be useful, if the creators made one day some kind of
comparison table, which one of them can do better for in which
situations. E.g. JEMMEX - or HIMEMX/JEMM386? If the latter - when?
Etc.

 Just tell them you know a Sorcerer!

Wizard is a better fit ;) - Sorcerer means the evil kind.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/15, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 Now that JEMMEX is available, HIMEMX + JEMM386 and XMGR + JEMM386 are
 historical curios only, and JEMMEX should be preferred.

That was my guess: maybe some of them can be even seen as 'obsolete' by now.

 As to the caching drivers, LBAcache may still be a hair faster than even 
 UIDE2,
 since LBAcache has all its tables in real memory, while UIDE2 still
 has its main cache-data table in XMS (LBA address, unit number, block
 count for each cache block).   LBAcache and UIDE/UIDE2 all use Write
 Through caching (no delayed writes) and thus are small.   A Write
 Back cache such as SMARTDRV or Norton NCACHE2, does do writes with a
 delay, so that if the same block is written 2 or 3 times in sequence,
 as with compilers and data-bases, the cache saves time by writing the
 last data over a 0.5 to 1-second time frame to the disk.   They are
 FAR more complicated, as they need hooks on more of the DOS system!

Actually, it was a bit surprising to me, that I still need a software
cache, while using hardware, which - like for DOS requirements - is
really very fast. Unfortunately, using no caching at all, I noticed
pauses (3-4 seconds), that occur although not to often, but frequently
enough to be irritating (the controller's LED is on at that time).
Well, perhaps the NVIDIA SATA isn't the best fit for DOS.

 For most of us, I feel UIDE with its 1400 bytes of extra logic beyond
 the actual driver, 800 for UIDE2, is a more reasonable caching idea
 and provides fully-adequate speed, especially as both can do UltraDMA
 directly to/from the actual XMS cache buffers!   That saves time that
 a Write Back cache, with separate drivers, might not be able to do!

I agree, thanks for providing such nice thing. :)

 Just tell them you know a Sorcerer!

 Wizard is a better fit ;) - Sorcerer means the evil kind.

 Not always:  King Arthur's Merlin the Magician is usually portrayed
 as a Good Guy, and it is him I usually have in mind.   If I want to
 be seen as a bit more evil, I say Witch Doctor or Hoodoo Man!!

Just out of curiosity ;) , made a quick search on this subject; some
specialists wrote about this:

- “Merlin wore many hats: he was a wizard or sorcerer, a prophet, a
bard, an adviser and a tutor,” (
http://claricemoran.wikispaces.com/Merlin )

...but some other authority prefers to see him as a wizard rather:
http://www.castles.me.uk/merlin-the-wizard.htm

- anyway, the other one described the difference:

What makes a wizard different from an enchanter, a magician, a
sorcerer, a thaumaturgist, etc.? Well, sorcerers are sometimes evil,
`black magicians' (i.e., practitioners of black magic)... But in
general, not a lot, although fantasy authors and FRPGs might use the
names with narrower meanings. [..] Another example: `The difference
between a wizard and a sorcerer is comparable to that between, say, a
lion and a tiger, but wizards are acutely status-conscious, and to
them, it's more like the difference between a lion and a dead kitten.'

( http://galatea.meccahosting.com/~a0006753/wizards%20world.htm )

In conclusion: wizard writes extraordinary drivers - sorcerer
creates e.g. very interesting... viruses. ;)

 Forgot to mention in my last post that if you do run
 UIDE2 in HMA space with /H, you must limit the cache [..]

Thanks, I think, that it could be worthy to add this comment to UIDE-s
readme.txt.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/15, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:

 DOS doesn't use SATA anyways (AFAIK), only IDE compatibility mode.

It's still much faster than the hardware, that I was using at - say -
1991. The HDD itself has quite large hardware cache (16 MB -
incredibly large space compared to 640 KB).

 But actually even DOS software gets slower and bloatier over time.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my writing: that pauses occur, for
example, even when I've got to save just edited autoexec.bat - then
we're talking about 2 KB (or so) text file.

Not sure, but my guess is hardware problem.
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/15, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 Now, under $100 can
 get me about 250-GIGABYTES with at-least a 16-MB write cache!   Most
 IDE commands used in 1994 can still be used, only a few were added
 since then to support 48-bit LBA addressing (not 28-bit, like then).

Right - and, of course, I set the controller to use IDE-compatible
mode, not to AHCI.

 Maybe not:  I still use a 1986 WordStar editor, the only one I ever
 had time to learn well.   It is VERY slow at the end of an edit, my
 guess being that only THEN does it rename my previous file with the
 .BAK suffix, then finishes output of my NEW file, then it deletes all
 its temporary files!   Perhaps your editor does a LOT of such work,
 whenever you finally output a new edited file.

I noticed that pauses while using edit shipped with FreeDOS - can it
really be that slow when saving edited file?
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Re: [Freedos-user] zbigniew system stability with different shells, kernels and drivers

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/16, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:

 It shouldn't pause at all if using a generic hard drive, but perhaps
 yours is flash-based, e.g. USB or SSD?? If not, then it's some other
 conflict.

No, STM3320418AS is just common internal HDD, got it attached to
on-board controller. That's why I was surprised by these delays.
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[Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement

[Zbigniew]

There are various tools for Windows/Linux, which can display actual
CPU workload. Since DOS doesn't do multitasking, my guess is, that
here external utility won't be of any use. But DOS-program could
have it built-in. Could someone tell me the basic algorithm, which
could be used in DOS applications, to build such CPU-load-display
directly into program?
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Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/28, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de:

 Actually you can use FDAPM for that: While the APMDOS
 function is active, FDAPM keeps MSDOS POWER compatible
 statistics of which percentage of the timer tick time
 slices contains signs of DOS and the apps being idle.
 In such situations, the cpu is halted with HLT and/or
 BIOS APM calls until the next IRQ (next timer tick or
 any other IRQ based event that happens eariler). [..]

Never before did anything like that. If/when you'll find some free
time, maybe could you, please, paste some example procedure - can be
in plain C (KR, rather not C++)? Could be also assembler, if it
can be better fit.

I would to use such module in my DX-Forth exercises, since it'll give
me information, is my program about optimal, or in a need for further
polishment.
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Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/28, dmccunney dennis.mccun...@gmail.com:

 While it *can* be done, I'm not sure why you want to.

 On a multi-tasking OS like Windows or Linux, I'll use Process Explorer
 (Win) or top (Linux), to get an idea of which programs are hitting the
 CPU.

This time I would compare, how much CPU time will my toy program
need on different machines. I would to make it show, how many percent
of CPU time was needed, if this can be possible.

Why? Because I'm not going to make it as fast as possible - max. 50
frames per second will do, and there's no need for more - but still
I'm interested, how much processing power it'll need to achieve these
50 frames. And how much will be still left for me (DX-Forth has
multitasking support). I would to test it on my Sempron 2 GHz, and
on... very old 386SX25.

  But I'm usually interested in more than CPU load.  Most PCs are
 I/O bound, not compute bound, and the CPU spends a lot of time in an
 idle loop waiting on something.

You're right - but I've got to start with just something, and it can
be then developed further.
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Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/28, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de:

 You do not have to explicitly program anything for this:
 Just run FDAPM APMDOS at some time, e.g. in your autoexec
 and then run FDAPM STATS to see how much of the time the
 CPU was idle - to be exact, which percentage of the time
 slices contained any idle time, so idle-ness is always
 over-estimated. Example:

 C:\fdapm stats
 Performing action: STATS
 Found resident FDAPM / POWER driver version 1.0
 Savings mode: BIOS APM plus interrupt hooks (MAX setting)
  CPU was idle 99% of the time

Thanks, it's worthy to know it - but...

 So just getting the answer to how much of the time was
 the CPU idle since I loaded FDAPM by typing a command
 at the prompt is very easy. But you say that you wanted
 to display real-time information about how busy you are
 inside your program.

...yes, that's the thing I'm looking for in this particular case.

 For that, you can add some queries
 to FDAPM to your app. A good example would be a game as
 Chess or Go: Sometimes you do heavy calculations, while
 at other times, your software just sits there and waits
 for the player to make the next move. You could display
 information about this as part of the game...

 If you want, you can also query the stats in your apps: [..]

Thanks: I'll start with your clues. Fortunately, every Forth has
assembler built-in.

 Maybe you could tell more about your project :-)

Well, this time it'll be just Forth programming exercise. DX-Forth has
BGI graphics driver, and I'm going - as weekend fun project - to
translate Polyhedra script ( http://wiki.tcl.tk/14283 ) from TCL
into Forth. Of course it has to be done smart way - not mechanical,
direct translation. I'm curious, whether am I able to create s.c.
good Forth code. ;)

Hope weekend will be enough for this.
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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS and timing...

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/28, Michael Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com:

   Since DOS environments typically don't multitask, there's no need to
 time applications as they consume CPU resources and preempt them to let
 other applications run. [..]

Ability to detect heavy CPU load can be important information for me,
that e.g. I did something wrong (for example, some loop has to be done
differently).

As for multitasking: no, Forths - at least the ones for DOS - don't do
preemptive, but cooperative multitasking. Then still I would to know,
how many % of CPU time will be left unused, when the graphics - corpse
rotation in this particular case - has been done. It'll tell me, what
else can I do without slowing down the display; do I have spare
CPU-power, or not.
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Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement

[Zbigniew]

You know: graphics is one thing - this is just actual fun project -
but being able to detect instantly the weak place in program, which is
causing unnecessarily high CPU load (say: looping for a key without
any pause 10 ms), is the other useful thing. Then actually I'm
looking for something of more general nature, that can be then used
also in program, that has quite nothing to do with graphics.
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Re: [Freedos-user] DOS and timing...

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/28, Bernd Blaauw bbla...@home.nl:

 In-app profiling, or using a debugger maybe, could help.
 Otherwise, run DOS and your program inside an emulator
 (QEMU/Bochs/DosEMU) and get detailed output (timestamped logfiles) from
 that.

But of course using debugger I can check this in its every detail. But
having such little CPU monitor built directly into application for
most cases could be quite enough, as kind of rough check. Besides:
here we are on opposite pole of the subject; remember: I need it not
just as a detector for programming mistakes, but also as kind of
graphics system efficiency meter.

Both applications for this are equally valid.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Programming languages in FreeDOS

[Zbigniew]

2012/4/6, Alex alxm...@gmail.com:

 Just to be clear, which is the best Pascal version available to date
 for FreeDOS?

Perhaps TP 3.0 - maximal effect taken out of minimum of code?

#v+
Turbo Pascal 3 for MS-DOS was released in September 1986. Being
version 3, there were lesser releases prior to it and flashier ones
after, but 3 was a solid representation of the Turbo Pascal
experience: a full Pascal compiler, including extensions that it made
it practical for commercial use, tightly integrated with an editor.
And the whole thing was lightning fast, orders of magnitude faster at
building projects than Microsoft's compilers.

The entire Turbo Pascal 3.02 executable--the compiler and IDE--was
39,731 bytes. How does that stack up in 2011 terms? Here are some
things that Turbo Pascal is smaller than, as of October 30, 2011:

The minified version of jquery 1.6 (90,518 bytes).

The yahoo.com home page (219,583 bytes).

The image of the white iPhone 4S at apple.com (190,157 bytes).

zlib.h in the Mac OS X Lion SDK (80,504 bytes).

The touch command under OS X Lion (44,016 bytes).

Various vim quick reference cards as PDFs. (This one is 47,508 bytes.)

The compiled code for the Erlang R14B02 parser (erl_parse.beam, 286,324 bytes).

The Wikipedia page for C++ (214,251 bytes).
#v-

http://prog21.dadgum.com/116.html

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Re: [Freedos-user] Programming languages in FreeDOS

[Zbigniew]

2012/4/6, Alex alxm...@gmail.com:

 What, in your view, are the best production-ready languages currently
 available to FreeDOS users?

Don't forget various Forth variants.

 By production-ready I also mean that they must have a minimal set of
 libraries...

Depends, what actually you mean by minimal set of libraries.
Something minimal for one can be superfluous for the others.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Strange timer-related issue

[Zbigniew]

2012/3/11, Bernd Blaauw bbla...@home.nl:

 Please let us know if/when you're able to pinpoint a culprit.
 You might want to start with a MSDOS/Win9x bootdisk (www.bootdisk.com)
 to eliminate FreeDOS components as the culprit, and to have a proven
 reference platform.

With a help of Ed (DXForth creator) the problem is recognized; Ed wrote:

#v+
  4DOS (or something associated with it) is setting PIT timer 0 from mode 3 to
  mode 2 - which in turn is causing MS in DX-Forth to run slow.
#v-

Playing with the timer seems to be origin of the problem in Forth, and
in the game. Is it possible to change this action?
-- 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Best GUIs for DOS

[Zbigniew]

2012/4/6, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de:

 The most comprehensive GUIs are probably Windows (3.0, 3.1 or
 Windows for Workgroups 3.11, all non-free, 3.x standard mode
 works okay, WfW and 386enh mode can be hard, too much RAM as
 well) and GEM. There is a free GEM distro by Shane, see also:

There is also Geoworks Ensemble (still didn't try it yet):
http://www.breadbox.com/

The light version available to download at no cost.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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[Freedos-user] 4DOS is playing with Timer 0... can it be changed?

[Zbigniew]

The problems, that I was writing about lately, are caused by 4DOS'
tinkering with Timer 0. Ed (DXForth creator) sent to me a little
utility to check out; it's short Forth listing, but most is assembler:

#v+
\ Check current mode of the 8253/4 PC tick timer
\
\ Compile with  DX.EXE - INCLUDE GM.F BYE

empty  also forth definitions  decimal  application

cr .( Compiling Getmode )

macro IODELAY  $EB c, 0 c, endm   \  jmp *+2

\ read Timer 0 count, result in BX
label READTIMER
  pushf  cli\ disable interrupts
  al al sub  al $43 # out   \ send command

  iodelay  ( iodelay  iodelay  iodelay  iodelay )
\  1 $ ) call \ ** alternate delay method

  $40 # al in  al bl mov\ get low byte

  iodelay  ( iodelay  iodelay  iodelay  iodelay )
\  1 $ ) call \ ** alternate delay method

  $40 # al in  al bh mov\ get high byte
  popf  \ enable interrupts
1 $:  ret
end-code

code GETMODE ( -- mode )
  3 # dx mov\ assume mode 3
  500 # cx mov  \ ** retries (Turbo-C uses 100)
1 $:
  cx dec
  2 $ jcxz  \ done, count always even = mode 3
  readtimer ) call  \ read current Timer 0 counter
  1 # bx and\ test bit 0
  1 $ jz\ loop if count even
  dx dec\ count was odd - must be mode 2
2 $:
  dx push   \ return with mode on stack
  next
end-code

: GM ( -- )  dos-io
  cr . Getmode cr
  cr . Getting PC tick timer mode (8253/54 Timer 0)
  cr . press any key to stop ... cr
  begin  getmode .  10 ms  key?  until  key drop ;

cr .( Save to disk? )  y/n [if]
  turnkey gm GM
[then]
cr cr .( Type GM to test )  cr
#v-

It's checking timer mode in a loop, displaying 2 or 3. When I ran
it from command line:

1. When used 4DOS as a command shell, it's displaying both 2 and 3
in proportion about half-to-half.

2. When used FreeCon, it displayed only 3s - and not a single 2.

Watched its output about half a minute in both cases.

Actually, why 4DOS is touching this timer at all? Does it really need
to change mode of operation of Timer 0? Maybe something can be done
different way, by not causing problems for programs/games, that are
using this timer?
-- 
Z.

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[Freedos-user] ...and about FreeCon this time

[Zbigniew]

1. Its history records empty lines (e.g. when one hits Enter) -
I think, there's no need for that. It should record a line only in
case, when after eliminating blank characters (CR, LF, space...) from
both ends, its length still remains  0.

2. Could it be made to use slash as separator in pathnames, just like
4DOS allows both slash and backslash? Every Linux/BSD user will
appreciate that.

P.S. On the contrary: to 4DOS could be added line completion, which
works nicely in FreeCon.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] ...and about FreeCon this time

[Zbigniew]

2012/4/11, Tom Ehlert t...@drivesnapshot.de:

 2. Could it be made to use slash as separator in pathnames, just like
 4DOS allows both slash and backslash? Every Linux/BSD user will
 appreciate that.
 whats supposed to happen on

C:DATE/T
 /T is probably an option

DATE\T
 probably some program in subdirectory DATE shall be executed

My personal vote would be for bringing a little more order, I mean: to
suppress recognizing such input as option, if slash is directly after
some string of characters - in such case path recognition should be
assumed.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

I noticed another issue while using Turbo C 2.01:

If in the fdconfig.sys there is uide.sys used (or uide2.sys used for
HDD) - the compilation is incredibly slow (100x or 200x times slower).
But it is enough to _not_ use this driver, or to use uide2.sys with
parameter like /D:CDROM, to have Turbo C compiling at its normal
pace.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-19 1:05 GMT+02:00, Louis Santillan lpsan...@gmail.com:
 The uide drivers gets updated rather frequently.  Find the latest here 
 http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/ellis

Well I used the latest one - and it turned out, that older uide2.sys
is more Turbo C compatible than newest uide.sys. But only when used
for CD-ROM, not main HDD.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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[Freedos-user] Freeware BGI Drivers and Turbo C 2.01

[Zbigniew]

Anyone of you was successful in using the improved BGI drivers from
http://www.von-bassewitz.de/uz/bgi.php with Turbo C 2.01? I have
trouble with this - but maybe I'm missing something simple?

The demo program svgademo.exe (precompiled binary included in the
package) works OK - but still no luck while trying to use svga.bgi
driver with programs compiled on my own, although I'm following the
docs. Anyone tried these? If so - what was the result?
-- 
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Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Fwd: Re: FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-23 0:03 GMT+02:00, Rugxulo:

 So, just to be clear, this is the TC 2.01 IDE only? So non-IDE cmdline
 compilation (tcc + tlink) is normal speed?

Actually you're right: while compiling from command line, there's no
(noticeable) difference.

 Have you tried other TC versions, e.g. TC++ 1.01?

Sorry, not tried.

You can easily reproduce this one by installing TC 2.01, and trying it
described way.
-- 
Z.

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[Freedos-user] Software List » DEVEL - recommendation (Forth)

[Zbigniew]

Browsing the list, I can't see any Forth compilers! I would to
recommend listing at least 3 of them, actively developed:

- DX Forth - http://www.netbay.com.au/~dxforth/
- 4th - http://thebeez.home.xs4all.nl/4tH/
- CHForth - http://www.forth.hcc.nl/w/Producten/CHForth

I think, the three mentioned above are most interesting and useful for
DOS-programmers. Although there are quite a few older, but still
functional Forth compilers too.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Software List » DEVEL - recommendation (Forth)

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-25 8:23 GMT+02:00, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:

 I'm not sure of the exact list of people who can import an .LSM into
 the FreeDOS Software List, but it's a very very small group. At least,
 I've never done it (yet).

Well, it's worthy. See how concise Forth can be, on an example:

1. Fibonacci series in C:
   http://www.programmingsimplified.com/c-program-generate-fibonacci-series

2. And now the same in Forth:

: fibonacci ( max -- )
  r 1 1
  begin dup dup . -rot + dup r@  until
  r drop 2drop ;

Looks somewhat cryptic? Maybe - but were C programs clear and
comprehensible even before you learned C?
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Software List » DEVEL - recommendation (Forth)

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-25 17:38 GMT+02:00, Jim Hall jh...@freedos.org:

 Of the three Forth compilers you mentioned, I appreciate that 4th is free
 software (GNU GPL v3) and appears to be updated. DX Forth seems to have a
 vague license disclaimer; the intent seems to be public domain, but the
 author acknowledges other contributions in the package may be subject to
 copyright by their respective owners. [..]

No, nothing vague about that; just the DX Forth package may contain
also a few libraries or programming examples done by the others, not
just by Ed (DX Forth creator), and he added it for user's convenience
while keeping original licence (if there was any). It's enough to take
a look onto a Forth source code of selected program, whether there is
any licence mentioned. But if I'm correct, presently there's just one
tool there in dxfth397.zip distribution archive, which isn't from
ground up Ed's creation: the screen editor (Forth code), which
probably is public domain.

What makes DX Forth particularly interesting, may be:
- it's written completely in assembler
- it has turnkey facility (it can generate binaries, to run them
just like other DOS program)
- it interfaces to two different graphics systems: BGI driver (which
has been released as freeware years ago by its autor Ullrich von
Bassewitz), and to commercial Fastgraph (Ted Gruber Software - they
allow to download Fastgraph/Light which is licensed as shareware)

 I couldn't find a license statement in CH Forth, although it might be included
 post-installation (I didn't install it).

Indeed, I can't find any explicit licence either. Well, I didn't grep
all its files for licensing term neither similar.

CHForth also has turnkey facility, and - if I'm correct - in its
larger part it's written in assembler too.

 So I'll add an LSM entry for 4th in DEVEL.

Very interesting capability of this one is ease of porting created
applications among all platforms 4th supports. 4th also has very nice,
detailed manual. But it's not quite traditional Forth:

#v+
Like Forth, 4tH is a compiler and a interpreter. Unlike Forth you
cannot switch between the two. Like Forth, 4tH runs Forth-programs.
Not all of them but some. But in a quite different way.
#v-

 Adding a Forth compiler in the DEVEL list doesn't mean programmers should
 expect programs written in Forth to be accepted into the FreeDOS BASE. The
 BASE software is core to FreeDOS, so these programs should be widely
 maintainable, using a programming language that most other FreeDOS BASE
 contributors are likely to use. We prefer BASE programs to be written in
 either C or ASM. The preferred compiler for C is OpenWatcom, and the
 preferred assembler is NASM. (See
 http://www.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/FreeDOS_Spec)

4th interfaces to C easily (although I didn't try to do it yet by
myself) - from the docs:

#v+
The allocation of variables is totally transparent to the
C-programmer. He can also transfer C-variables to the user-program
(application variables). These variables can be used like any other
variable.

Combining return- and data-stack means the C-programmer only has to
worry about the size of the stack and not the sizes of both stacks,
thus allowing a wider range of user-applications with different
requirements.
[..]
A minimal compiler would take only a few lines of C-code. The
C-programmer can send C-variables to the interpreter, just like
strcalc().

E.g. a compile takes a string-pointer as argument and returns a
pointer to H-code:

object = comp_4th (source);

Executing H-code is easy too:

ReturnVal = exec_4th (object, argc, argv, 3, Var1, Var2, Var3);

Which would preload variables Var1, Var2 and Var3. You must specify
how many variables are preloaded. Also argc and **argv are available
from the 4tH program.

The value returned by exec_4th() and stored into ReturnVal is the
value of the 4tH variable 'OUT', which initially contains CELL_MIN. If
an error occurs exec_4th() will always return

CELL_MIN, regardless the value stored in 'OUT'.
#v-

-- 
Z.

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[Freedos-user] EMODE - translation from Pascal to C - what I screwed up?

[Zbigniew]

As a little exercise I translated a small EMODE utlity from German
c't magazine. The listing you can see here:
http://tinyurl.com/meyq7yb

Unfortunately, my version doesn't work as expected; it seems to try to
change the text mode of VGA card, but reports Abnormal program
termination in the end. Maybe someone of you could suggest, what has
to be fixed? Here's my listing tried with Turbo C:


#include stdio.h
#include dos.h

#define VIDEO 0x10


int VGAvorhanden(void) {
  union REGS regs;

  regs.x.ax = 0x1a00; /* infobajt */
  int86(VIDEO, regs, regs); /* VGA z monitorem VGA ? */
  return (regs.h.al == 0x1a)  ((regs.h.bl == 0x07) || (regs.h.bl == 0x08));
}

void VGAaus(void) {
  __emit__ (0xfa);/* CLI - blokada przerwania */
  outportb(0x3c4, 0); /* sequencer off */
  outportb(0x3c5, 1);
  outportb(0x3d4, 23); /* CRTC - reset */
  outportb(0x3d5, inportb(0x3d5)  127);
  outportb(0x3d4, 17); /* CRTC - register 0-7 freigeben */
  outportb(0x3d5, inportb(0x3d5)  127);
}

void VGAein(void) {
  outportb(0x3d4, 17); /* CRTC - register 0-7 sperren */
  outportb(0x3d5, inportb(0x3d5) | 128);
  outportb(0x3d4, 23); /* CRTC - reset freigeben */
  outportb(0x3d5, inportb(0x3d5) | 128);
  outportb(0x3c4, 0);  /* Sequencer on */
  outportb(0x3c5, 3);
  __emit__ (0xfb);  /* STI - zezwolenie na interrupt */
}

void VGA94spalten(void) {
unsigned char dummy;

  outportb(0x3c2, (inportb(0x3cc)  0xf3) | 4); /* 720 PEL waehlen */
  outportb(0x3c4, 1); /* 8-dot-mode anschalten */
  outportb(0x3c5, inportb(0x3c5) | 1);
  outportb(0x3d4, 0); /* Horizontal total-5 */
  outportb(0x3d5, 108);
  outportb(0x3d4, 1); /* Horizontal display enable end - 1 */
  outportb(0x3d5, 93);
  outportb(0x3d4, 2); /* Start horizontal blanking */
  outportb(0x3d5, 94);
  outportb(0x3d4, 3); /* End horizontal blanking */
  outportb(0x3d5, 128 + 15);
  outportb(0x3d4, 4); /* Start horizontal retrace */
  outportb(0x3d5, 98);
  outportb(0x3d4, 5); /* End horizontal retrace */
  outportb(0x3d5, 128 + 14);
  outportb(0x3d4, 19); /* Logical line width */
  outportb(0x3d5, 94 / 2);
  dummy = inportb(0x3da);  /* Horizontal PEL Panning */
  outportb(0x3c0, 19);
  outportb(0x3c0, 0);
  outportb(0x3c0, 32); /* Attribute controller */
  outportb(0x3c0, 32); /* reaktivieren */
}

void VGA480rasterzeilen(void) {
  outportb(0x3c2, inportb(0x3cc) | 192); /* Sync-polaritaet setzen */
  outportb(0x3d4, 6); /* Vertical total */
  outportb(0x3d5, 11);
  outportb(0x3d4, 7); /* CRTC Overflow */
  outportb(0x3d5, 62);
  outportb(0x3d4, 9); /* Maximum scan line */
  outportb(0x3d5, 79);
  outportb(0x3d4, 16); /* Start vertical retrace */
  outportb(0x3d5, 234);
  outportb(0x3d4, 17); /* End vertical retrace */
  outportb(0x3d5, 140);
  outportb(0x3d4, 18); /* Vert. display enable end */
  outportb(0x3d5, 223);
  outportb(0x3d4, 21); /* Start vertical blanking */
  outportb(0x3d5, 231);
  outportb(0x3d4, 22); /* End vertical blanking */
  outportb(0x3d5, 4);
}

void VGAzeichenhoehe(unsigned char size) {
  pokeb(0, 0x485, size);  /* mem[0:$485] := size; BIOS Informieren */
  outportb(0x3d4, 9); /* Maximum scan line */
  outportb(0x3d5, (inportb(0x3d5)  0xe0) + size - 1);
  outportb(0x3d4, 10);
  if (size = 12)
outportb(0x3d5, size - 2);
  else
outportb(0x3d5, size - 3);
  outportb(0x3d4, 11);  /* Cursor End */
  if (size = 12)
outportb(0x3d5, size - 1);
  else
outportb(0x3d5, size - 2);
}

void VGAmodus(unsigned char zeilen, unsigned char spalten) {
union REGS regs;

/* 350 oder 400 zeilen waehlen, bei 480 zeilen vorerst nur 400 */
  regs.h.ah = 0x12;
  regs.h.bl = 0x30;
  regs.h.al = (zeilen == 43) ? 1 : 2;
  int86(VIDEO, regs, regs);
/* 40 oder 80 Spalten waehlen, bei 94 Spalten vorerst nur 80 */
  regs.h.ah = 0;
  regs.h.al = (spalten == 40) ? 1 : 3;
  int86(VIDEO, regs, regs);
/* Passenden zeichensaetz in Video-Ram kopieren */
  regs.h.ah = 0x11;
  regs.h.bl = 0;
  switch (zeilen) {
case 25: regs.h.al = 4; break; /* 16x8 Pixel */
case 30: regs.h.al = 4; break; /* 16x8 Pixel */
case 34: regs.h.al = 1; break; /* 14x8 Pixel */
default: regs.h.al = 2;/*  8x8 Pixel */
  }
  int86(VIDEO, regs, regs);
  VGAaus();  /* Jetzt geht's an die register */
  if (spalten == 94)
VGA94spalten();
  if (zeilen == 30 || zeilen == 34 || zeilen == 60)
VGA480rasterzeilen();
  switch (zeilen) {
case 25: VGAzeichenhoehe(16); break;
case 30: VGAzeichenhoehe(16); break;
case 34: VGAzeichenhoehe(14); break;
default: VGAzeichenhoehe(8);
  }
  VGAein();  /* Alles wieder normal */
/* BIOS ueber die Bildschirmgrosse informieren */
  pokeb(0, 0x44a, (long int)spalten);
  pokeb(0, 0x484, (long int)zeilen - 1);
}

void holeParameter(unsigned char *pzeilen, unsigned char *pspalten,
char *argv[]) {
  int sp_allowed[] = {40, 80, 94, 0};
  int ze_allowed[] = {25, 30, 34, 43, 50, 60, 0};
  int *arrptr;
  unsigned char tmp;

  /* Zeilen und Spalten aus der Kommandozeile holen */
  sscanf(argv[2], %u, tmp);
  arrptr = sp_allowed;
  while 

Re: [Freedos-user] Sudoku on a 8086 (or anything newer)

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-28 9:11 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 About VGA - simply because I needed 256 colors to make sudoku86 look
 pleasent. But I do plan implementing CGA support soon (but it will be
 deadly ugly).

Not much sense. Probably no one but you will try it on ugly CGA.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] EMODE - translation from Pascal to C - solved

[Zbigniew]

Solved - the problem was in totally different place, than I was
looking for it: misdeclaration of variable types in auxiliary function
holeParameter. It should have been look like this:

void holeParameter(unsigned char *pzeilen, unsigned char *pspalten,
char *argv[]) {
  unsigned char sp_allowed[] = {40, 80, 94, 0};
  unsigned char ze_allowed[] = {25, 30, 34, 43, 50, 60, 0};
  unsigned char *arrptr;
  unsigned int tmp;

  /* Zeilen und Spalten aus der Kommandozeile holen */
  sscanf(argv[2], %u, tmp);
  arrptr = sp_allowed;
  while (*arrptr)
if ((unsigned char)tmp == *arrptr) {
  *pspalten = *arrptr;
  break;
} else
  ++arrptr;
  if (*pspalten == 0) {
printf(Niedozwolona liczba kolumn - %s\n, argv[2]);
exit(0);
  }

  sscanf(argv[1], %u, tmp);
  arrptr = ze_allowed;
  while (*arrptr)
if ((unsigned char)tmp == *arrptr) {
  *pzeilen = *arrptr;
  break;
} else
  ++arrptr;
  if (*pzeilen == 0) {
printf(Niedozwolona liczba wierszy - %s\n, argv[1]);
exit(0);
  }
}

One more thing, that I still don't like, when comparing to Pascal
version, is the executable size. TP5 produced small 4k executable,
while TC2.01 produced executable of 14k size. :/
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Sudoku on a 8086 (or anything newer)

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-28 14:44 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:
 On 06/28/2014 11:59 AM, Zbigniew wrote:
 Not much sense. Probably no one but you will try it on ugly CGA.

 Yes, I don't have any doubts about this.
 But looking that way, developing on DOS in 2014 doesn't make any sense
 either.

Not really: DOS still has its community, as we both see ;) - but does
CGA have its community?

The ugliest graphics ever; probably only ZX81 had even worse. :D
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Re: [Freedos-user] EMODE - translation from Pascal to C - solved

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-28 15:45 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:
 About size - you should probably get it down a few KiB by compiling into
 a COM binary. From what I saw, you don't use any memory segments, just
 (plenty of) INT calls, so a COM would fit perfectly. Just add -mt -lt to
 your tcc call. And since you don't use any floats, you might also try to
 pass -f-.

 +of course try UPXing it - you'r likely to shave off a few KiBs again.

Thanks, I'll try the above - well, but I'm rather disappointed about
the TC's output generated by default. TP5 made better EXE binary
than TC? Actually I was expecting the opposite.

 If that's not enough, then you still have the option to rewrite it into
 ASM this time ;)

Surely it would generate the executable of smallest possible size. But
now I'm going to Forth-ify EMODE first...
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Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] EMODE - translation from Pascal to C - solved

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-29 1:13 GMT+02:00, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:

 Turbo Pascal has a smartlinker while Turbo C does not.

Actually, I wasn't aware that Pascal compilers are that smart - for
example: while searching for some more info, just discovered a Pascal
compiler for... 8051, which is very memory-constrained:
http://turbo51.com/

Found some more info at http://turbopascal.org/

It was always a bit strange to me, that I had - well, I still have ;)
- a few quite useful Pascal compilers for such little machine, like
Commodore 64, and just one C compiler (Power C), which is cumbersome
and hard to work with. C compiler - for the language being closer to
machine than Pascal or BASIC - theoretically should be less
resource-hungry (just like Forth compilers).

 Check the main program .OBJ with some kind of dump utility  (similar
 to *nix size), or just compare its pure .ASM output, or read the
 linker map. That (main .OBJ, code + data) size compared to the final
 .EXE should give you an idea of which party is to blame.  :-)

Indeed I noticed even earlier, that OBJ is of decent size (just a
little more than 4 KB), and it must be a linker, which glues some
additional library to final EXE. Most probably because I had to
include dos.h (int86 function in use).
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] EMODE - translation from Pascal to C - solved

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-29 14:04 GMT+02:00, Tom Ehlert t...@drivesnapshot.de:

 Most probably because you use printf().

It seems, not too much I can do about this using Turbo C:

1. Compilation of Hello, world! containing printf gave around 370
bytes for OBJ, and 8.3k for EXE.
2. The same when replaced printf with puts gave 6.4k for EXE.

Yes, the difference is noticeable - still it's not as big, as one could expect.

Probably Watcom compiler is able to produce smaller binary, but I
didn't try it yet.

Who knows, maybe for Turbo C the best solution for this would be to
code one's own simplified puts directly in assembly.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

What I also noticed, Turbo C 2.01 doesn't like JEMMEX - while having
around 32 MB of EMS and 1 GB of XMS, I cannot switch to shell from its
IDE; it complained: not enough memory, press Esc.

No such problem when using XMGR instead of JEMMEX.
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Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-29 15:25 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 I am not sure it's related to the XMS manager you use.

Unfortunately, it seems to be related.

 It's rather a matter of the amount of conventional memory you have.

No, it was what I checked first before posting.

 Maybe when using
 XMGR you end up with more free memory  640K than when using Jemmex?

JEMMEX left more memory: 609k conventional and 14k upper - while XMGR
left 599k of conventional, and no upper at all.
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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-29 21:16 GMT+02:00, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:

 I don't know which versions exactly, but AFAIK, Turbo C tries to use
 EMS by default (if found) but not XMS (without some cmdline switches).
 So who knows if it's getting confused here. Remember that 32 MB of EMS
 is a lot (to it)!

 Are you using any switches like NOVCPI or FRAME=NONE? Try eliminating
 any unusual switches at load time.

 Try using something else like EMSMAGIC (or EMM286 or whatever) and see
 if the problem goes away. Heck, it might be JEMMEX specific, so try
 using (XMS +) JEMM386 separately. (At least that can LOAD and UNLOAD
 manually, so less clashes.)

No, no such exotic options, and using JEMM386 didn't help - but I
located the problem: JEMMEX isn't to blame. Somehow TC's IDE doesn't
like 4DOS - when switched to FREECOM, the problem is gone.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDAPM slow turbo c 2.01 down

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-30 19:19 GMT+02:00, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com:
 Hi,

 On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 7:05 PM, Zbigniew zbigniew2...@gmail.com wrote:

 No, no such exotic options,

 Well, I would maybe recommend I=TEST X=TEST.

I used - and still use - exactly the two above.

 IIRC, 4DOS can swap out (since it's quite large) to conserve
 conventional memory. You may have to change that setting (SWAPPING ??
 I forget ...). I don't think it's something inherently wrong with
 4DOS, but who knows.

But I already wrote, that when using JEMMEX and 4DOS I had more memory
available (both conventional  upper), than using XMGR + FREECOM? And
- despite of this - that only in latter case I could switch to shell
from TC's IDE?
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Freeware BGI Drivers and Turbo C 2.01

[Zbigniew]

2014-06-22 0:54 GMT+02:00, Christopher Evans aaxiomfin...@gmail.com:

 No, But I use cvgalib in BC4, cvgalib is in development and has no font
 support yet.

 https://github.com/axiomfinity/cvgalib

Interesting.

Not being (yet) able to fix the BGI drivers by myself, I continued the
search for the other useful drivers/libraries, and I also found
something looking promising: VSA256 library
http://gumas.netfirms.com/blueberrygraphics/vsa256.htm

This is shareware - but, fortunately, not that expensive. I detected a
little flaw, probably somewhere in page flipping function (maybe my
machine is too fast?), but perhaps the Author could be willing to fix
it (not contacted him yet; still examining the library at the moment).

There is also FastGraph (for DOS and Windows) - with its lite
version available for free (for evaluation) - but full version is much
more expensive: https://www.fastgraph.com/

Well, didn't try yet neither of the above with my TC 2.01 - just read
the docs and some code, watched the included demos etc.

BTW: found also interesting audiovisual (MCGA graphics +
AdLib/Soundblaster sound) library for Turbo Pascal 6.0 - I mean pasKAL
- really a pity I didn't encounter it back in the 90s.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] legacy ATA support

[Zbigniew]

2014-07-17 16:02 GMT+02:00, Bill Haught wlhaughtpr...@att.net:

 The main reason I want Freedos is to flash my hard drive with the latest
 firmware.  I assume that the hard drive cannot be found for this purpose
 without legacy ATA support.

Maybe the best idea could be... to call techsupport of the
manufacturer (or distributor)? AFAIR 2 years ago I was flashing 2 HDDs
directly from within Windows (they were Seagate). Maybe there are
other ways to do this too - I think their tech guys surely can explain
them.
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] How do you transfer files to your FreeDOS machine

[Zbigniew]

2014-08-04 12:18 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 Here below I list all methods that have been mentioned, along with a
 short comment on each.

 * Floppies/CD (Zbigniew, Rugxulo)
- really slow. floppies are hard to get nowadays. Burning a CD every
 time I need to transfer a few KiBs of files seems wasteful.

Still you can use ZIP/LS-floppies: 100 MB of place (no need for
burning) means a lot of space for DOS-programs/data.

 * Running a FTP server on remote server, and connecting from DOS via a
 FTP client (Michael, Rugxulo)
- this is definitely my preferred way so far.

And is it really more convenient to type all these FTP commands - than
just mounting a Samba share, and simply using another drive letter in
VC or DN? ;) Well, it's your taste.
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Re: [Freedos-user] How do you transfer files to your FreeDOS machine

[Zbigniew]

2014-08-04 16:23 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 A samba share is another very valid approach, although IIRC there's not
 much 'free' alternatives there, and the only serious driver (from MS)
 consumes lots of conventional memory which I'd prefer to keep for other
 usages...

Switching among many startup configurations is something we can't
avoid in DOS. I was pondering one day, whether could be possible to
reset DOS without resetting entire machine... it would make such
switch much faster. Just some kind of full system reload - similar
way as LOADLIN does it - when switching from DOS to Linux without
reset.
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[Freedos-user] OT: FM vs Wave Table

[Zbigniew]

2014-08-12 22:54 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 I think you should rely on FM synth (0x388 IIRC) for playback, or provide a 
 configurable
 setting to the user: MPU/FM. Of course FM quality is poor

Not really: it is just _different_. Of course, it is poor as long, as
you expect it to simulate real traditional music instruments - but
in fact FM synthesis is a new kind of instrument on its own. Is guitar
poor, because it's unable to pretend to be a flute (or a drum, or
anything other)?

Yes, it's a matter of taste; I like C-64's chiptunes - and I heard
quite a few nice AdLib tunes too - well I'm aware, not everyone must
be fond of FM tunes.
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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: FM vs Wave Table

[Zbigniew]

2014-08-14 13:00 GMT+02:00, Mateusz Viste mate...@viste.fr:

 But of course it doesn't mean FM is poor by nature - I totally agree it
 can be used for really nice tunes. I even heard very nice music coming
 out of my Famicom 25 years ago. But this doesn't mean FM (or the
 Famicom) won't sound poor when trying to play actual MIDI data.

Not willing to argue ;) but this is rather poor example, if should I
believe to Wikipedia:
( 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_technical_specifications
)

#v+
The NES board supported a total of five sound channels. These included
two pulse wave channels of variable duty cycle (12.5%, 25%, 50% and
75%), with a volume control of sixteen levels and hardware pitch
bending supporting frequencies ranging from 54 Hz to 28 kHz.
Additional channels included one fixed-volume triangle wave channel
supporting frequencies from 27 Hz to 56 kHz, one sixteen-volume level
white noise channel supporting two modes (by adjusting inputs on a
linear feedback shift register) at sixteen preprogrammed frequencies
and one differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) channel with 6-bit
resolution, using 1-bit delta encoding at sixteen preprogrammed sample
rates from 4.2 kHz to 33.5 kHz. This final channel was also capable of
playing standard pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound by writing
individual 7-bit values at timed intervals.[
#v-

Maybe I'm misunderstanding(?) the above, but it seems, that NES'
soundchip had no (real) FM-synthesis ability. A better example would
be Commodore 64.

Anyway, a nice piece of software for AdLib - and nice example tunes -
can be found here: http://www.adlibtracker.net/

OK - EOT.
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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: FM vs Wave Table

[Zbigniew]

2014-08-14 21:41 GMT+02:00, John Ames commodorej...@gmail.com:

 The problem with this line of argument is that FM is quite capable of
 providing a wide variety of sounds, including passable mimicries of
 many traditional instruments. (The simplified two-operator FM in PC
 sound cards significantly less so than, say, the DX7, but still.)

Indeed you're right: I was actually referring to AdLib (OPL-2/3) - but
of course more advanced FM-synthesizers - operated by skilled people -
would offer amazing results.

Well, thanks to emulation we can examine them (in a way):
http://bristol.sourceforge.net/
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos vs. MS DOS 6.22 for legacy hardware

[Zbigniew]

2014-09-14 22:48 GMT+02:00, Krys Garnett krys.garn...@gmail.com:
 Hi,

 I'm resurrecting an old desktop for a distraction free environment
 and I'm wondering whether it is easier or more useful to use Freedos
 or MS DOS 6.22, which I have the original 3.5 disks for.

 The system is a Tandon 386SX, 8mb RAM, 512mb HD, 3.5 and 5.25 floppy
 drives, no USB, no CD-ROM, but does have an ethernet card.

IMHO is as (more) useful, as using DOS 6.22 instead of DOS 3.12, for example.

 With this spec, I'm wondering if the advantages of Freedos (support
 for big hard disks and RAM etc.) are meaningful on a low power system,
 and wether or nor it's worth the hassle of trying to install Freedos
 via floppy (I understand it's primarily designed for CD-ROM
 installation?).

Indeed: e.g. you'll have the opportunity to take advantage of using
Jack's extraordinary drivers, FreeCon (and 4DOS), kernel optimized for
386 etc. without installing it all separately.

 I'm mainly intending to use the system for writing and programming,
 but also communications programs like Lynx, Telnet and FTP.

 On that note, I'm not so enamoured with WordPerfect these days, so
 looking for any suggestions on alternative WP packages. It's primarily
 for academic writing, so decent support for footnotes, endnotes and
 tables is useful. I really like the DisplayWrite for DOS interface and
 features, but I've yet to find a version that exports into a widely
 used format. All suggestions welcome!

Maybe latest version of PC-Write (4.15)?
http://vetusware.com/download/PC-Write%204.15/
-- 
Z.

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Re: [Freedos-user] For what architectures is FreeDOS designed?

[Zbigniew]

2014-11-23 21:16 GMT+01:00, Dennis Holierhoek dennis...@hotmail.com:

 But can it also run 8-bit programs? And 4-bit?

Trust me: even 2-bit binaries like this: 00101010101011101010101011.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound or Internet - Which would you rather have?

[Zbigniew]

2015-11-09 14:07 GMT+01:00, Don Flowers :

> Yeah, I should have mentioned that my PC has an onboard Intel 82567LM-3 for
> which there seems to be no DOS option for connectivity and the sound is HD
> and unrecognisableed by either MPXPlay or Mplayer, I have at least one game
> that will throw sound out the onboard speaker (Empong).
>
> As for buying a retro machine, have you checked the prices lately?

But you can also purchase MODERN mobo with ISA slots, like these ones:

http://www.adek.com/ATX-motherboards.html
http://www.bressner.co.uk/isa-motherboards
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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound or Internet - Which would you rather have?

[Zbigniew]

2015-11-11 12:27 GMT+01:00, Mateusz Viste :

> That's nice to know, thanks for the links! I don't think though that
> anyone will want to spend $500+ for a retro home machine (which
> incidentally wouldn't be that retro any more) :)

I'm going to :) it'll be a "spacesaver" - instead of 2 machines beside
my desk I'll keep one. I like the sound of my ISA soundcards (like
Maxi Sound 64 Home Studio II, or Terratec) so much - the present
solutions (all these ALC codecs), while giving decent sound, sound
so... ordinary. It's no longer synthesizer; it's just (still better
and better, but...) MP3 player.

> The above are rather targetted to industrial needs where the production
> system relies on some ISA controller and cannot be easily replaced.

It seems, my need is quite industrial. :) "Industrial Sound and Magic" :D
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Re: [Freedos-user] Development Environment, Embedded +

[Zbigniew]

On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 09:20:39PM -0500, Patrick wrote:

> My dos screen resolution is better now, thanks to Eric's tip but I have a
> dual monitor setup on Linux. The monitors are rotated vertically and I can
> get a lot of lines the two screen. I find it really helps my head from
> spinning when there are a lot of things to remember.
> 
> I am thinking about giving FeeBSD a try in the next few months. I am running
> away from systemd.

A few years ago I gave Free/Net/Open/DragonFly-BSDs a try (yes, all four of
them) - only to find they are 10 years (or in some aspects even more) behind
Linux, if you consider them as desktop systems and their "User eXperience".
Being steady Linux user since 1994.

That Linux just works and works - no problem whatsoever, and it became
boring. So I went adventureous - and indeed I had interesting problems to
solve, when NetBSD dumped its core only because I wanted to print something
on USB connected printer, not via parallel port (yes, they fixed it since
that time).

Not trying to discourage you - just to let you know, that if you're looking
for something "better", you need to define what "better" means to you. If
"better" means hardware compatibility, stability as desktop system and
overall UX - no xBSD beats Linux. The creators of xBSDs do great job, but
there are much too few of them.

If you don't like systemd, you may simply install Slackware Linux - you'll
have "two in one": Linux in BSD's clothes.

> However, I truly love COBOL and I love GnuCOBOL.

If you mean creating some tools or applications - not games - Clipper (or
Clarion) may be more proper choice, since they were designed as the tools
especially for DOS. Just have a look, how easily you can design comfortable
user interface with Clipper. Never wrote anything in COBOL - but from what
I see in Wikipedia etc. if you love COBOL, you may fall in love with Clipper
as well.
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Re: [Freedos-user] [Lynx-dev] ANN: lynx2.8.9dev.17

[Zbigniew]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:58:47PM -0500, Rugxulo wrote:

> Yes, Lynx will presumably run under native DOS

Even, if it will - the days when we could use Lynx for browsing Web contents
are long gone. Java everywhere... :( and even without this if site's pages
haven't been designed to be Lynx-friendly, in most cases Lynx displays them
as a hard to navigate (even difficult to read) mess.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound in (Free)DOS

[Zbigniew]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 02:58:40PM +0200, Michał Dec wrote:

> This is really grasping at straws here, since this would require re-writing
> HMI drivers to use said cards. Lots of DOS games either have them statically
> linked into the exe file, or use them as loadable modules a'la dynamic
> libraries. I'm not saying it's impossible, just tough. AFAICT nobody has
> done that to date.

Probably nobody ever will until Elon Musk (or Branson) offers a "bounty" ;)
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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound in (Free)DOS

[Zbigniew]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 03:15:37PM +0300, ?? ?? 
wrote:

> I wonder if it is possible to write a driver for modern sound cards?

There was an attempt to bring some order into sound-related things under DOS:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions

Regarding driver for modern cards: an example can be MPXPlay, that can
use various modern soundcards ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpxplay ),
apart of older ones.

So definitely it is possible to create today DOS programs that generate sound
that more modern way -- the problem is: those old programs/games require older
way
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Re: [Freedos-user] Sound in (Free)DOS

[Zbigniew]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 12:57:54PM +0200, Frantisek Rysanek wrote:

> I've got bad news. This likely isn't gonna work for you.
> On the MB960, the ISA slot is implemented using the famous IT 
> PCI/ISA bridge. 

Indeed I could google some more before purchasing it:

 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=636980#p636980

#v+
  just got an MB960AF board to play around with and wanted to let you guys
  know, I tested with a SB16 card and was able to get OPL and MPU working,
  though no digitized sounds.

  Diagnose.exe reports "failure to set low DMA". So no DMA / PCPCI support
  out of the box.
#v-

I was a little bit overjoyed I've found "the final solution"  :]

Well at least it's confirmed it works under DOS' control. Though not 100%
I was expecting, unfortunately
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[Freedos-user] An idea for silent PC controlled by FreeDOS

[Zbigniew]

Stumbled upon this video on YT -- it may be of interest to several
FreeDOS users:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0otktPOVRc

"$9 DOS Retro Gaming PC with the HP t5530 Thin Client"


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

[Zbigniew]

> NT 10h has only some window scrolling/clearing functions. And you can
> query/position the cursor. [..]
> 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.

Thanks, that's I was afraid of ;) just wanted to make sure I didn't
miss anything
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Re: [Freedos-user] Limit text output to specific area

[Zbigniew]

> Do you want to do this as part of a program you are writing (such as
> conio?)

Indeed, I was pondering is it available as some (at the moment still
unknown to me) interrupt/function.

> or do you want to do this in a batch file?

Do you mean some escape-sequence allow this?
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[Freedos-user] Limit text output to specific area

[Zbigniew]

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

[Zbigniew]

> The content will indeed wrap, just on a per-character basis instead of
> per-word. It functions exactly how wrapping does when printing to the entire
> screen.

Which exactly BIOS/DOS interrupt/function you mean? Just made a short
test using int 10h/06
and it doesn't work that way.
It makes a "window", but the function int 21h/09 prints the text at
the former cursor position, not within a "window"
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Re: [Freedos-user] Limit text output to specific area

[Zbigniew]

>> > Do you want to do this as part of a program you are writing (such as
>> > conio?)
>>
>> Indeed, I was pondering is it available as some (at the moment still
>> unknown to me) interrupt/function.
>>
>
> I just replied with a sample C program that demonstrates how to do
> this with conio in OpenWatcom C. The C source should be small enough
> to not get rejected by the list server .. but if you don't see the C
> program source, let me know and I'll send it to you off-list.

Got it, thank you. I understand, that the header files:
#include 
#include 
#include 
...probably are (especially graph.h) confirmation, that it doesn't
exist as a BIOS/DOS function, and it has to be implemented. But I'll
take a closer look at compiled example. Thank you!
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Re: [Freedos-user] Limit text output to specific area

[Zbigniew]

> If you're speaking purely about limiting the cursor to the bounds of the
> current window (which is what I believe you're referring to), yes I believe
> it does do that much, if I remember correctly.
>
> However, if you're referring to some kind of "smart" word wrap ability, the
> answer is no. The BIOS performs only basic dynamic text port sizing and does
> not provide any sort of text wrapping or kerning features. It merely wraps
> text to the boundaries of the window, just as it would when writing strings
> to the full screen. Of course a programmer could always make their own... :)

A little bit strange. You mean BIOS 10h _will_ trap cursor, but if I
do any output
its screen-output functions won't do word-wrap within the bounds of the window?
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[Freedos-user] md5sums again: important

[Zbigniew W.Kaminski]

Thank You for this data. I asked about both because of 
problems I have found
in "full with sources":
fdfullws.iso[2006-07-2723:07:58]
39c506e05c99a434d63241d8cc56eda8 *fdfullws.iso248459264 
[2006-07-27/23:07:58]
Archive: ./freedos/packages/games/kraptorx.zip 
testing: games/kraptor/kraptor.exe bad CRC 9ac96298 
(should be a297f717)

Archive: ./freedos/packages/lang/fpascalx.ziptesting: 
fpc/bin/go32v2/fp.exe bad CRC d95aeb43 (should be 
1040b2bb)

Archive: ./freedos/packages/media/magickx.ziptesting: 
bin/animate.exe bad CRC 
5fb3350b (should be 4e03b04e)

Archive: ./freedos/packages/util/fipsx.ziptesting: 
bin/fips.exe 
bad CRC 17d92aaa (should be 99b551fb)
39c506e05c99a434d63241d8cc56eda8 *fdfullws.iso248459264 
[2006-07-27/23:07:58]

Maybe someone who download fdfullws.isowould be interested with data 
shown above.

Zbyszek

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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS and GRUB (Linux)

[Zbigniew Baniewski]

Hallo,

some time ago I've installed FreeDOS (beside the other OS-es), and it was
working fine. My disk has been divided in following way:

NameFlags  Part Type  FS Type
 -
hde1BootPrimary   W95 FAT32 (LBA)
hde2Primary   Linux ReiserFS
hde3Primary   Linux swap / Solaris
hde4Primary   NetBSD

But recently I decided to upgrade FreeDOS 0.9x to the new V1.0 - and that's
cause of my problem.

At the beginning, I made the installation starting from installing FreeDOS,
and then Linux and NetBSD has been installed. Of course, I'm unable to do
this in such way now - I don't want to clean the disk. I made the
installation from CD - downloaded from FreeDOS-mirror - but FreeDOS doesn't
boot, using GRUB, anymore. My GRUB FreeDOS-related section looks like this:

title   FreeDOS
root(hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

...and it was working before FreeDOS upgrade.

I'm unable to fix this. I've found some tips using the Google - but none of
them fix the problem. Booting from CD and then trying sys a: c: didn't
make any better (although there was message system transferred). Now I can
only boot from FreeDOS-CD, and only then access DOS partition.

My question is, of course, what should I do to make FreeDOS boot like
before - directly from HDD, using GRUB?

I read the page
http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/faq/cgi-bin/viewfaq.cgi?faq=Installing_FreeDOS/23
where I saw, that the FreeDOS' problems with GRUB are nothing new - first
messages are dated for 2003. I really can't uderstand, why the FreeDOS
creators seem to be ignoring this problem since 3 years - although it's
quite essential issue to have possibility just to install and run FreeDOS,
without a need to spend hours looking (fruitlessy) for the solution.

Is somebody able to help me?
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS and GRUB (Linux)

[Zbigniew Baniewski]

On Sat, Oct 28, 2006 at 01:43:19PM -0700, Larry wrote:

 Is your partition for Freedos marked bootable?

Can't you see the boot flag set (look the table in the quoting below...)?

 Is it a primary partition (though I'm not sure if Grub cares
 or not).

Yes, it is.

  NameFlags  Part Type  FS Type
  
 
 -
  hde1BootPrimary   W95 FAT32
  (LBA)
  hde2Primary   Linux ReiserFS
  hde3Primary   Linux swap /
  Solaris
  hde4Primary   NetBSD
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS and GRUB (Linux) - problem solved

[Zbigniew Baniewski]

For anyone, which will have similar problem:

First I must say in addition, that I'm using somewhat old hardware: it's
ABIT BX-133RAID motherboard, which has 2 IDE ports:

- an old UDMA33 interface
- ...and much faster HPT370 (ATA100)

Of course, my HDD (Barracuda 40 GB) is attached to that faster interface.
Trying to solve the problem I noticed, that Free Fdisk 1.2.1 is unable to
see any harddisk. So, I disconnected the HDD from HPT370 interface, and
attached to that old one. Then I booted FreeDOS from CD again, typed
SYS A: C: - and everything's working fine, like before.

It seems, there's something wrong with FDISK 1.2.1 (is SYS using FDISK to
set up the MBR?).
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Re: [Freedos-user] Mice and drivers (second try)

[Zbigniew Baniewski]

On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 09:48:17PM +0100, Robert Riebisch wrote:

  And I'm wondering, what about the support for the USB-mouses (and
  keyboards)?
 
 Nearly all modern BIOSs emulate PS/2 for USB. So no problem.

I'm not sure: didn't we lose IRQ 12 in such way?
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[Freedos-user] Does FreeDOS make CPU sleep when idle?

[Zbigniew B.]

I read, that the source of CPU (over)heating problems under original
MS/PC-DOS was the fact, that its waiting for key-loop (or however it
is called) didn't set CPU idle, when user (or application) was idle.
For example: when the computer has been left with the cursor blinking
in the command line.

I'm wondering, whether this misfeature has been fixed in FreeDOS?

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Re: [Freedos-user] Does FreeDOS make CPU sleep when idle?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/3/12, Eric Auer:

 I'm wondering, whether this misfeature has been fixed in FreeDOS?

 Yes! The good news is that newer FreeDOS kernels even have a simple
 version built into the kernel itself. [..]

Good news! Well, I should have googling for FreeDOS idle CPU,
instead of DOS idle CPU. ;)

 However, the normal way to let the CPU idle while DOS is idle is to
 load a suitable driver or TSR. In MS DOS you would use POWER but in
 FreeDOS you use the similar FDAPM tool. To load and activate it, run

 FDAPM APMDOS

 either at the command prompt or in your autoexec or similar :-) The
 FDAPM method needs only a bit of RAM and is more efficient than the
 simple method built into the kernel. Its best to activate only one. [..]
 PS: You can also use FDAPM to ACPI throttle your CPU if your board
 supports that. [..]

I want  to replace a DOS installation on quite old computer - it is
386SX25 - which I'm keeping around just because it's s.c. booksize
PC. It has no ACPI, not even APM. I understand, that the FDAPM is
most recommended method, but - from the other side - using this very
old computer only the kernel built-in method will work? Am I right?

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Re: [Freedos-user] Does FreeDOS make CPU sleep when idle?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/3/13, Mateusz Viste:

 Maybe. But it's still nice to lower the temperature of the chip, to make it
 last longer, and not warm up components that are around it. Plus, it's
 always
 a little more electricity saved. Running FDAPM costs nothing, and provides
 cool advantages. There's no reason to not use it. ;-)

Yes, it seems, that it'll work with 386SX too. Here's what I've found
on cpuidle home page:

Under normal circumstances the CPU isn't always active but spends
much time waiting for the keyboard, harddisk or CD-ROM. What would be
more logical than to turn off the CPU for that period? That's exactly
what the HLT machine instruction (Opcode F4) does. Whenever the CPU
encounters a HLT instruction the clock is halted and the CPU enters
suspend mode until an interrupt, NMI, or reset happens. With the
advent of power saving microprocessors like the Cyrix Cx486S the HLT
instruction elicits an additional benefit. When `Suspend on HLT' is
enabled in the configuration register the processor not only stops on
HLT but also enters the power saving suspend mode.

Of course, 386SX hasn't been designed as power saving microprocessor
- but still, if HLT halts CPU clock, it's suggesting to me, that
effectively CPU is turned off (until an interrupt happens). And
since in DOS we've got no daemons running in background, even the
HLT method alone can be quite effective method of cooling.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Large drives with 4k sectors presenting as 512b?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/4/10, Jack:

 Or, in fact, could this maybe [... just MAYBE!] be another case
 of the Wintel Consortium software BRATS being UNABLE to achieve
 their targets, using only their college-professors' and bosses'
 much-beloved C, and it is actually THOSE brats who are asking
 for such help??

This reminds me somewhat a Forth's Dillemma rant:

#v+
My own life-experiences with such a Great Firm was with Bell
Laboratories, part of ATT at the time. [..]
For 20 years, I believed in these objectives for excellence in
engineering, always assuming that it was for the benefit of our
customers and therefor of interest to management. Until one day,
when talking to a department head (a friend) about my design
objectives and why some of upper management seem to dislike me for it,
he pulled me into his office, for privacy, and told me the secret.
The users of our phones and long-distance services are not our
customers, the regulatory agencies of the government are. ATT gets a
fixed profit margin on any new equipment they install, the more it
costs to manufacture, the higher our profits! Striving all the time
for excellence in engineering, getting 12 patents for ATT, and
finally learning it was not a desirable goal for my management.
#v-

http://www.msmisp.com/futuretest/Forth's_Dilemma.htm

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Re: [Freedos-user] Large drives with 4k sectors presenting as 512b?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/4/10, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net:

 Your Forth's Dilemma is not any sort of rant but really
 a statement of fact.   I know, since I have BEEN there and
 DONE that!, as we in the U.S.A. might say.

Well, actually it's not mine - but I've found it interesting, and (as
I wrote) your opinion brought it back to my mind.
Yes, maybe rant was wrong term indeed (be tolerant to non-native
speaker ;) - since it was rather memories, and an attempt to make a
diagnosis of the situation in computer industry.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Large drives with 4k sectors presenting as 512b?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/4/11, Michael B. Brutman mbbrut...@brutman.com:

  Do you like cheap storage or 512 byte sectors?

Depends. You know: the storage itself may be somewhat cheaper - but
because of its incompatibility, it can force me to replace part of my
hardware, or to spend a lot of time for additional work of
(re)configuration/installation (looking for special drivers, reading
its docs, trying it, sending bugreports...) and so on.

 I think we can live with the 4KB sectors - it's going to cause a performance 
 hit,

Maybe, but there's simple solution within reach: making only that very
large HDD (over 3 TB) with 4 KB sectors - and the smaller ones still
with 512 byte sectors. The largest HDD I'm using has 320 GB, and that
area is divided among 3 different OS-es, so - in fact - one can say,
that I'm using HDDs not larger, than 100 GB, and it's large enought
for me. For FreeDOS I'm using 2 GB partitions on even smaller disks
(40 GB), just to _not_ waste space because of big clusters.

So although I realize, that the others may have different needs
(keeping movies on HDD, for example) - there are people, who aren't
looking for tera-/petabyte-sized storage. No idea, when will I (and
why..) need 2 TB HDD. So if the vendors could be kind enough to keep 2
TB (and smaller) HDDs with sectors of 512 b size, it can be seen as
kind of solution for many next years.

 but on modern hardware we have enough to burn.

Wasting anything just because we can afford it is generally a bad idea.
-- 
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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] Large drives with 4k sectors presenting as 512b?

[Zbigniew B.]

2011/4/11, Michael B. Brutman mbbrut...@brutman.com:

Oh, I forgot to address this one:

 Most of us like this progress.  While I do enjoy tinkering with my old
 hardware, it's not usable for things that most people need to do today.

No, you're wrong; it's not usable for bloated software of today, not
for the things that most people do:

#v+
Check out the results! For the functions that people use most often,
the 1986 vintage Mac Plus beats the 2007 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+: 9
tests to 8! Out of the 17 tests, the antique Mac won 53% of the time!
Including a jaw-dropping 52 second whipping of the AMD from the time
the Power button is pushed to the time the Desktop is up and useable.
[..]
...it can be stated that for the majority of simple office uses, the
massive advances in technology in the past two decades have brought
zero advance in productivity.
#v-

http://tinyurl.com/2hxfjd

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Zbigniew

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