Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatible USB2/3 drivers for external hard drive...
I can only boot from the internal hard drive or the floppy drive. Don't really know if Linux will support the intel graphics card and touchscreen... Remember, this is an Agilent E5061A network analyzer. I've tried grub4dos and plop, so far can't see anything. The bios is locked with a password, uge! Otherwise I would see about turning on USB boot. I notice there is a USB 1.1 driver in Freedos 1.2 packages, maybe I should try that. Yes it will be slow, but if it doesn't time out, that would be fantastic ;-) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Agilent e5061a and e5071b...
The Agilent e5061a belongs to the company I'm working for and is only two channel. The Agilent e5071b belongs to another company, is four channel, and anything we do to it has to be non intrusive because it is in production. Does anyone know as far as Linux if the Intel video card is supported? Thank you Eric for the bios password. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Agilent e5061a and e5071b...
The standard rescue disk for Norton Ghost is PC-DOS based. I have developed a Freedos alternative boot disk and I'm asking about the video card because of suggestions that freedos cannot support restoring a ghost image to a usb hard drive. Linux has been suggested by Eric because of the lack of USB hard drive support in FreeDOS and it looks like I need a dos based bootloader that can chainload Windows 2000. The intel video card and touchscreen require the panel.exe driver in Freedos to work. As far as Windows 2000 support, Windows 2000 isn't supported by Microsoft and if there was a free alternative that is a drop in replacement I'd try it. ReactOS in theory would work, but it's still in alpha and not meant for everyday use. May 8, 2019 9:36 AM, "Tom Ehlert" wrote: > Hi, > >> The Agilent e5061a belongs to the company I'm working for and is >> only two channel. > > this mailing list is about FreeDOS, and not the Agilent e5061a or > Windows 2000 support group. > > you may help him, but please do so on private channels; the FreeDOS > community is not going to learn anything out of this discussion. > > thanks > Tom > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] lfndos crashing...
DosZip commander sees the long filenames on the Windows 2000 C drive, but when I try to copy these files to an external USB hard drive I run into errors. Short of opening the case, I don't think I can use GHOST on the external drive as the restore target. I also think the internal hard drive controller is EIDE and not SATA. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Windows 2000 fat32 and freedos...
The two aren't currently compatible. Any chance of lfndos getting the bugs ironed out? If I could boot Linux instead, I could do backup and restore no problem as Linux has no difficulty with long filenames on a fat32 partition. How is it that Linux can handle Windows 2000 Fat32 and freedos can't? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS and Samba
October 13, 2019 9:23 AM, "Jon Brase" mailto:jon.br...@gmail.com?to=%22Jon%20Brase%22%20)> wrote: SMB1 has known vulnerabilities, so Windows has had the option to disable SMB 1 entirely for a while and on the Linux side, upstream SAMBA recently changed to disabling it by default. It is possible that various distros may already have disabled it in their default SAMBA configurations. Original message From: David Griffith mailto:d...@661.org)> Date: 10/13/2019 08:23 (GMT-06:00) To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net (mailto:freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net) Subject: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS and Samba What am I doing wrong with FreeDOS and mounting a Samba file share? I have a Virtualbox image I found at https://www.lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/?page_id=33 (https://www.lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/?page_id=33) which seems to have everything ready for networking. I have Samba installed on the host Linux machine. From the host I can mount the share, but not entirely on FreeDOS. The best I can manage is read-only access if the "valid users" parameter (below) is removed. I managed to get this to work a few years ago and recall that the solution has something to do with using SMB protocol 1. None of the guides I find now for mounting a share from FreeDOS mention this and Samba now seems unwilling to admit it knows anything about SMB1. Here's what I have for the share in /etc/smb.conf: [Dave] comment = Dave's stuff path = /home/dave/foobar read only = no guest ok = yes browsable = yes writable = yes valid users = dave -- David Griffith d...@661.org (mailto:d...@661.org) A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net (mailto:Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net) https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user (https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user) Known vulnerabilities or not, SMB1 is used by OPL for loading PS1/PS2 games over network from a SMB1 server. I'd like to know how to support SMB1 protocol or at least how to substitute SMB2 or later whether the environment be Dos or OPL. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Bolitare doesn't exit...
I love Bolitare, but when I'm done playing it would be nice to be able to return to freedos. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Bolitare doesn't exit...
January 1, 2020 2:14 PM, "Jim Hall" wrote: > On Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 9:12 AM wrote: > >> I love Bolitare, but when I'm done playing it would be nice to be able to >> return to freedos. > > That's weird. Bolitare exits for me. Did you click the Games menu, > then click Exit? > > Without the mouse, use Alt-G, then X > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user I'm running under VirtualBox and with emm386... either of those may be why it exits to a black screen... ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.3 and Windows 9x...
MS DOS 6.x was not the end of MS-DOS. Windows 9x releases added a strange protected mode, but unlike NT, these versions of Windows still ran on top of MS-DOS. There is no support for DOS based Windows any longer and the ReactOS project essentially abandoned it. However, there are embedded systems that depend on Windows 9x. It would be great if Windows 9x era software could be supported by something open and more stable. Why not replace the graphical system with FLTK and the WIN32API with a special library or something similar? Where Windows 9x comes to mind is on systems that use specialty ISA hardware which never got ported to NT. One system in particular used two servers, Windows 9x on one and MS DOS 6.22 on the other. Given time, I would love to substitute Freedos and see what happens. PPM bought out the Tyco system, but the new system is designed around different hardware with different problems and isn't necessarily better. I don't buy the notion that NT is better than DOS based Windows. A port of Q-Soft to a combination of FLTK and Freedos is very interesting to me. Theoretically, one can reverse engineer to drive the shared memory card in Freedos. Q-Soft is a Windows 32 program, but that could be abstracted out and a different system could be developed that runs in protected mode on top of Freedos. I think Q-Soft has a vxd internal to it, which is crazy IMHO. There should be a driver in device manager for the ISA shared memory card. The idea of a graphical hardware tree is something that would be nice to have in an open source gui that runs on top of Freedos. Even an unofficial service pack for 98se that lets you use more memory and modern hardware would be welcome. Just some thoughts is all. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DMA error trying to format floppy...
Trying to use the Freedos 1.3 live cd to get a dos prompt and test formatting floppies. My hardware is special. I'm using a PICMG 1.0 passive backplane or more specifically the HPP 14S backplane. I'm using an EVOC FSC-1740VNA single board computer. This SBC does not have an onboard floppy controller. I'm using an ISA multi I/O card with a floppy controller, but note that the EVOC is designed for a USB floppy. The reason I'm trying to use a real floppy controller is that the usb floppy support in Windows 9x is reportedly broken and needs some patch. If anyone knows of this patch, please tell me. I'm getting some sort of DMA overrun trying to format a floppy in freedos... -- Michael Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DMA error trying to format floppy...
The Teac USB floppy drive I have seems to work in Windows ME, uge! I took the ISA multi I/O card out. Freedos could really use USB floppy and USB cdrom support. USB hard drive support would also be very nice. DOS without floppy drives just isn't DOS. Anymore, you cannot get floppy drives. They have been replaced by zip drives, cdrom drives, dvd drives, Blu Ray drives, LS120 drives etcetera. Modern PC's don't even typically support or even have floppy drives as usb flash drives have replaced them. Unfortunately, 20 years ago floppy drives were ubiquitous and software was designed around them including especially industrial computers. Because programs like QSoft which depend on a DOS based real time system require floppy support to set the dos side up... and the source code is proprietary... Computers like the EVOC that can only use USB floppy drives may not work. Freedos doesn't like the USB floppy drive complaining that it reports 0 sectors/track and when I try to format a floppy I get Critical error duing int 13 disk access... Seek failed. Highly likely as the EVOC does not have a traditional floppy controller that it does not provide the typical BIOS interface. Assuming the floppy emulation is standard, there should be the possibility of a TSR or a new kernel that can detect and use USB floppy drives and CDROM/hard drives. I have a USB 128 gig M disc drive that is also a 3D blu ray drive that I can boot freedos from, but I cannot run the live system fully. Freedos expects an IDE ATAPI or possibly a SATA ATAPI drive, not a USB ATAPI drive. If someone could increase freedos's support for USB storage devices, that would be ideal. Clearly, USB floppy drives are not something freedos handles well. Might be a buggy AMI bios in this Chinese sourced EVOC, but Teac USB floppy drives are common. March 8, 2020 7:06 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com (mailto:mich...@robinson-west.com) wrote: Trying to use the Freedos 1.3 live cd to get a dos prompt and test formatting floppies. My hardware is special. I'm using a PICMG 1.0 passive backplane or more specifically the HPP 14S backplane. I'm using an EVOC FSC-1740VNA single board computer. This SBC does not have an onboard floppy controller. I'm using an ISA multi I/O card with a floppy controller, but note that the EVOC is designed for a USB floppy. The reason I'm trying to use a real floppy controller is that the usb floppy support in Windows 9x is reportedly broken and needs some patch. If anyone knows of this patch, please tell me. I'm getting some sort of DMA overrun trying to format a floppy in freedos... -- Michael Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] floppy drive won't format disk...
I'm running Freedos 1.3 RC2 installed from the live CD base system with sources. C:>format a: Insert new diskette for drive A: Press ENTER when the right disk is in drive... # Boot sector unreadable, disk not yet formatted Using drive default: 1440k (Cyl=80 Head=2 Sec=18) Cannot find existing format - forcing full format Please enter volume label (max. 11 chars): FREEDOS2019 Full Formatting (wiping all data) Format_Floppy_Cylinder( head=0 cylinder=0 ) sectors=18 [int 13.5] Critical error during INT 13 disk access INT 13 satus (hex): 08 Bits: DMA troubles Description: DMA overrun Program terminated. [Error 136] C:> I'm using a Digital Research Technologies ISA card with floppy controller. The box says Super ISA Multi-I/O Controller. A possible problem is that I am on an EVOC single board Pentium 4 computer that is designed for USB floppy drives. INT 13 sounds like a BIOS thing where the EVOC undoubtedly does NOT have the traditional BIOS. The EVOC is the FSC-1714VNA model. My passive ISA/PCI PICMG 1.0 backplane is undocumented. It is an HPP 14S. There are two jumpers on the backplane. One has been changed which is near the ATX connector on the backplane, the other appears to have something to do with the PCI bus. The only format I have achieved is with a Teac USB floppy drive in Windows Millenium, the ISA card not installed at all. Can someone shed light some light on Error 136 and DMA troubles? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] floppy drive won't format disk...
Research suggests that ACPI breaks ISA floppy in Windows XP... I wonder if ACPI is breaking Freedos 1.3 as well? BIOS SETUP UTILITY v02.58 (C)Copyright 1985-2004, American Megatrends, Inc. AMIBIOS Version : 08.00.12 Build Date: 05/26/07 ID: J8472006 Under Advanced -> Floppy Configuration Floppy A 1.44 MB 3 1/2" Floppy B Disabled Under Advanced -> SuoperIO Configuration OnBoard Floppy Controller Disabled Floppy Drive Swap Disabled Serial Port1 Address 3F8/IRQ4 Serial Port2 Address 2F8/IRQ3 Serial Port2 Mode Normal Parallel Port Address 378 Parallel Port Mode ECP ECP Mode DMA Channel DMA0 Parallel Port IRQ IRQ7 Onboard Game Port Enabled OnBoard MIDI Port 330 MIDI IRQ Select IRQ10 March 11, 2020 7:27 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com (mailto:mich...@robinson-west.com) wrote: I'm running Freedos 1.3 RC2 installed from the live CD base system with sources. C:>format a: Insert new diskette for drive A: Press ENTER when the right disk is in drive... # Boot sector unreadable, disk not yet formatted Using drive default: 1440k (Cyl=80 Head=2 Sec=18) Cannot find existing format - forcing full format Please enter volume label (max. 11 chars): FREEDOS2019 Full Formatting (wiping all data) Format_Floppy_Cylinder( head=0 cylinder=0 ) sectors=18 [int 13.5] Critical error during INT 13 disk access INT 13 satus (hex): 08 Bits: DMA troubles Description: DMA overrun Program terminated. [Error 136] C:> I'm using a Digital Research Technologies ISA card with floppy controller. The box says Super ISA Multi-I/O Controller. A possible problem is that I am on an EVOC single board Pentium 4 computer that is designed for USB floppy drives. INT 13 sounds like a BIOS thing where the EVOC undoubtedly does NOT have the traditional BIOS. The EVOC is the FSC-1714VNA model. My passive ISA/PCI PICMG 1.0 backplane is undocumented. It is an HPP 14S. There are two jumpers on the backplane. One has been changed which is near the ATX connector on the backplane, the other appears to have something to do with the PCI bus. The only format I have achieved is with a Teac USB floppy drive in Windows Millenium, the ISA card not installed at all. Can someone shed light some light on Error 136 and DMA troubles? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] floppy drive won't format disk...
The BIOS option is for a USB floppy drive. I'm actually running a real floppy controller as mentioned. I don't think this will work period because the BIOS on the Evoc isn't designed for a real floppy controller. As far as USB floppy, that may or may not work in Windows XP and higher. They definitely don't work in Windows 10. March 12, 2020 7:14 AM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Hi Michael, > >> Research suggests that ACPI breaks ISA floppy in Windows XP > > Unlikely, if you ask me? > >> Under Advanced -> SuperIO Configuration >> >> OnBoard Floppy Controller Disabled >> Floppy Drive Swap Disabled > > You should probably enable your floppy controller again ;-) > > Eric > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] USB floppy saga...
I'm working with an EVOC brand SBC on a PICMG 1.0 backplane. I have not been able to get floppy disk support in Freedos 1.3, period. I know USB 1.1 isn't part of the DOS specification that freedos is targeting, but a USB floppy driver is needed since that is what this particular SBC offers. I'm wondering if freedos could be reasonably modified to support a USB floppy drive as A drive? Another thought, if building a USB device with a 34 pin floppy output for legacy 1.44 m floppy drives... Why not emulate a floppy drive if desired as well? I'm thinking a CF to usb adapter with a 34 pin floppy connector. Another option, MicroSD card like the ones used on the Raspberry Pi. DOS if I'm not mistaken expects the floppy support to be in the BIOS. It also expects IRQ 6, DMA 2, I/O address something... The advantage of floppies is they are easily destroyed. Try destroying a USB flash key, they are more resilient than floppies and much higher capacity, but they are NOT easily destroyed. What I'm asking is with Linux and Microsoft moving away from floppies, should Freedos support emulated floppies? If say you are connecting via USB 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, or 3.1 that is different than what traditional DOS expects. Modern PCs lack the traditional floppy controller. Can freedos be tweaked to work around the no floppy controller issue in a compatible fashion? I'm thinking ATAPI devices such as Zip drives can be a floppy replacement, but can they be pointed to as the A: drive? I have a Zip 750 Atapi drive coming tomorrow and 3 sealed 750 meg zip disks. Atapi zip drives work in Windows XP and Windows 9x, but they don't work in MS-DOS and they don't work in Freedos unless I'm mistaken. I may be stuck with MS-DOS 6.2 for the real time system that the Tyco QSP-2 uses. I bet Freedos could be in place of MS-DOS if you only use HIMEMX. Haven't had a chance to test the real time system on freedos because I don't have floppy support unless the SBC in question that I'm testing with has a real floppy controller and a real 1.44M floppy drive in working condition is available. I'm not an EE, but I know someone who is and I would like to contribute an open hardware and driver specification for a floppy replacement that is compatible with MSDOS, Freedos, Linux, Windows... Magnetic media is easily disposed of, but it less than reliable in many cases and the capacities tend to be low. Something modern that is higher capacity and that can replace what came before is needed. Something that is easily destroyed like floppies but readily available and higher capacity. CD-R media is great, but it isn't as rewriteable as floppies. I'll be testing my Zip750 disks to see how destructible and how reliable they are and I'll be looking to see if I can replace A: with them. As far as using a USB floppy drive, I think I broke mine. Even so, I don't think freedos is able to use USB devices let alone floppy replacements. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Can't install FreeDOS
Is the problem not having floppy capability on real hardware? Maybe you have USB but not ATAPI cdrom? Freedos as far as I know does not support USB let alone USB floppy drives. If you don't have IDE or you have an external USB drive such as a DVD burner... that doesn't help you get it installed. Floppy drives are gradually being abandoned and unless you are a pro at fixing them when they break and you have a manufacturer making new floppy disks, not old stock sitting in a warehouse somewhere... What implications does modifying Freedos to support USB floppy drives have? How about using a Zip Atapi or USB drive as a floppy drive? I think BIOS support of floppy alternatives is spotty at best. DOS environments typically expect BIOS to provide floppy support. If you intend to replace floppies with what you have, say a USB floppy drive, you need a software driver for Freedos, MS-DOS, DR-Dos, PC-DOS... ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] USB floppy saga...
>> I bet Freedos could be in place of MS-DOS if you only use HIMEMX. Q-Soft for the Tyco QSP-2 installs to MS-DOS 5.22 and is a real time system on the DOS side. It installs via actual floppy disk. If you are running the GUI computer (Windows 9x) on say QEMU and emulating the floppy... but that would involve reengineering the system. The real time system for example uses ISA heavily. There are PCI variants of many of the cards where four ISA cards are replaced by say one PCI card, but that would involve reengineering of a 20 year old system. > Which reasons do you have to use MS DOS instead of FreeDOS? > Reasons to use FreeDOS could be to have more free RAM and > the FAT32 support. You can use most FreeDOS drivers together > with MS DOS if you like, too. Q-Soft is available as an executable designed to run on MS-DOS 6.22. May work just fine in Freedos, may not, have not been able to try it because of floppy disk issue. > Floppy drives do not break easily and most have the same > geometry and interface, so finding one might be easier > than finding any supply of still working disks for them. Understood, but I'm pretty sure my Teac USB floppy drive has failed. I fished a disk cover that came off out of it and there could be a smaller part loose still inside the drive. The drive simply does not work now. I doubt that disks that are generally new are suddently all bad let alone that sector 0 is magically unwritable on all of my disks. > Regarding your security concerns, you are right that flash > chips make it hard to securely wipe data due to built-in > distribution of writes to load-balance. You could avoid > the problem by having only encrypted files on the portable > drive. Then destroying the key effectively zaps the data. > DOS versions of infozip at least support some encryption > and you can use other tools such as 7zip for DOS as well. If I run Linux and KVM I can emulate the floppy on a flash drive. Sadly, that won't work well on an old Pentium 4 where it would work much better on say a modern i7. Going from PICMG 1.0 though to PICMG 1.3, forget about the ISA shared memory card. The real time system which is ISA only would have to be completely reconsidered. A Tyco QSP-2 is a 20 year old system now that depends on MS-DOS and Windows 98SE or Windows ME. You don't just replace the two computer heads with one without a lot of reengineering. PPM owns the system now and has reengineered it around Windows 7 and possibly Windows 10... different system with different bugs. Considering that this is a $30k plus piece of equipment for placing small electronic components on a circuit board, surface mount packaging, fixing the old system makes more sense than switching to the newer variant. You can't just upgrade the heads either as computers have changed so much in twenty years. Most people don't even know what a floppy drive is anymore. For the color computer 3 there is a floppy replacement that uses a 2GB flash memory card and stores 360k images on it. That device could be adapted I bet to work with an SBC that has a floppy controller. No emulation needed, direct hardware replacement. As far as DOS is concerned, that is a floppy disk in a floppy drive. In reality, it's flash memory holding multiple disks. > Eric > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user Oh, the EVOC board lacks a floppy header. It has 3 USB 2.0 channels and of course it expects you to plug in a USB floppy drive if you need one. Sadly, I don't think Freedos 1.3 RC2 can use a USB floppy drive even on an EVOC supported through some weird AMI BIOS. I tried an ISA multi I/O plus floppy card, but without BIOS support for it I don't think that will work either. I currently have the disable jumper set for the floppy controller. If only I could get the source code for the AMI BIOS on this thing and add support for the ISA floppy controller... ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Using a menu for many options
Hello FreeDOS people, At work I maintain CMOS images for a variety of different types of hardware. When we have a new server going out the door, we boot up FreeDOS on this machine and run a utility that flashes the correct image to the BIOS. Up to now, we've been using the Menu command in FDCONFIG.SYS to maintain the list of images, and it's an easy matter of selecting the correct server type and away we go. But the number of different images has been increasing and I seem to have run into a limit of 10 items (0-9) for the menu system. I'd like to get some recommendations of how to work around this, either within FDCINFIG.SYS or some combination of this and other files. The goal is to present a menu with the complete list of image types (or some way of drilling down into these items) and it's easy for the user to choose the correct one and it will automatically run the appropriate command. Suggestions? -- Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Using a menu for many options
Perfect. Thanks Jeffrey and Bret, for the suggestions and code. It looks like it should work for our environment. I'll go ahead and modify it and see how it goes. -- Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Using a menu for many options
Bernd Blaauw home.nl> writes: > > > As for the menu, I'd indeed suggest using a batchfile. > Alternatively, maybe the Syslinux menu system is worthwile, you can see > it in action in for example PartedMagic (LiveCD) > > Documentation at: > http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Comboot/menu.c32 > I'm already somewhat familiar with syslinux, but the commands I use must run from FreeDos, does syslinux let me do that? -- Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Using a menu for many options
I ended up using a combination the some menu items in FDCONFIG.SYS which in turn launch batch scripts that use the CHOICE command. Works great. Thanks for everyone's help. -- Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Zip 750 Atapi and freedos...
Doesn't work in Windows XP without Iomegaware... how about freedos? As freedos is not designed to support USB, USB floppy will not work. Short of getting the source code to the AMI Bios on my EVOC SBC, I'm not going to make a real floppy controller work... What are the implications of creating a TSR to implement USB 1.1 on compatability? Will the old guest program work with the Atapi Zip drive? Pretty clear on old hardware that it is getting hard to get media for disk drives. Most 1.44m floppies are new old stock. If you can't use a modern pc, because it's too different, you cannot use the flash drives that have replaced floppies. I propose an optional USB driver in Freedos. Start with 1.1, move to 2.0, add 3.0, and then add 3.1. With full usb support, any old computer that has USB will work with flash drives obviating the need for floppies on real hardware. Floppies have gone away for the most part. Zip 750 was too little too late. Another thing, I don't know how reliable old zip drives are including the last ones made. I don't know how long there will be support for zip drives, even the end of life higher capacity units. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] EVOC 1714VNA does not support a real floppy controller...
I'm talking about the ISA variety via a digital research multi I/O card It does however support USB floppy drives, but I doubt that they work in freedos. I think the problem is the bios, it has to show the correct geometry, etcetera. As this is an industrial single board computer that's 20 years old, I'm wondering if I can get the source code to the bios? Windows XP picks up the floppy controller, it just gets an unrecognized error when I try to format a disk. Freedos 1.3 tries to use the floppy drive, but I cannot format a disk there either getting a DMA overrun error. -- Michael Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] EVOC 1714VNA does not support a real floppy controller...
March 21, 2020 5:19 AM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Hi Michael, > > as you say WinXP sees the controller but can not format, > can it at least read existing floppies? Will the drive > spin up when XP tries to access it? Seems to spin up alright, don't think I have any formatted disks though... > About your project to connect either an ISA floppy controller > or directly a classic floppy drive without a controller (I am > not sure which method you imply) to a generic digital I/O card > the BIOSes of various virtual machines etc. are written in C, > so you could look in that direction and patch the port I/O to > the controller into suitable I/O card accesses to write some > custom "BIOS" which you can load as TSR in DOS on hardware :-) > > I suggest to start without DMA and just use PIO with classic > string I/O Assembly operations or even pure C language I/O to > keep things simple while developing. > Or maybe I have misunderstood you and the "digital research > multi I/O card" is what the BIOS of your old computer WANTS > to use for floppy access? Then I wonder why it does not work? Digital Research is a brand of card that happens to be an ISA card with I/O ports, an optional IDE controller, and an optional 34 pin floppy controller. As far as I can tell, the ports which include a game port, 16550C serial ports, and an ECP parallel port work. Not having things to plug into them though I cannot test them... > To debug DMA overrun while formatting, you could actually do > the suitable calls by hand in debug and make sure that none > of the buffers crosses a multiple of 64k linear address wise > but remember that FORMAT already is supposed to make sure to > do that automatically since May 2003. Which version do you > use and which errorlevel and exact error message does it get > with the /D option for debugging? Do other /f:size values work? > > Regards, Eric Thank you, I am using format from the freedos 1.3 live image rc2. I'm currently setting drive a to high density 1.44m in the bios but disabling onboard floppy, since the bios is expecting a usb floppy. I will try the /D flag and get back to you... ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] EVOC 1714VNA does not support a real floppy controller...
Confirmed that the BIOS has to be set to disable onboard floppy controller, that is for USB floppy only. The floppy drive seeks, but I get: Critical error during INT 13 disk access INT 13 status (hex): 08 Bits: DMA troubles Description: DMA overrun Program terminated. > I'm currently setting drive a to high density 1.44m in the bios but > disabling onboard floppy, since the bios is expecting a usb floppy. > > I will try the /D flag and get back to you... I will try setting the floppy type to disable in the bios, maybe that will help... -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] EVOC 1714VNA does not support a real floppy controller...
March 21, 2020 10:08 AM, mich...@robinson-west.com wrote: > Confirmed that the BIOS has to be set to disable onboard floppy controller, > that is for USB floppy > only. > The floppy drive seeks, but I get: > > Critical error during INT 13 disk access > INT 13 status (hex): 08 > Bits: DMA troubles > Description: DMA overrun > Program terminated. > >> I'm currently setting drive a to high density 1.44m in the bios but >> disabling onboard floppy, since the bios is expecting a usb floppy. >> >> I will try the /D flag and get back to you... > > I will try setting the floppy type to disable in the bios, maybe that will > help... > > -- Michael C. Robinson > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user I tried disabling legacy usb support, no difference. The floppy type has to be set in the bios to get anything to happen. I notice that the bios does not allow me to reserve DMA 2 and IRQ 6 for the floppy controller... Yet, one of the USB 2.0 channels tries to take IRQ 6 and presumably DMA 2 for USB floppy. If I could get an updated bios that I could tweak... I could probably fix this. I'm about ready to say that this board isn't freedos or even ms-dos compatible if you need to support booting from 1.44meg floppies. This is only a Pentium 4, one doesn't want to get into heavy emulation just to work around no floppy on such a low spec machine. I understand for Windows 9x that Microsoft screwed up USB floppy support, but there should be a patch. USB floppy may work in XP, but if you can't use the floppy in a dos environment to set up the RTC (Real Time Computer), there's no point. A problem with XP is that HAL masks the ISA bus and there is no driver for the ISA shared memory card. It is known that the memory base is D and that it uses 32k and IRQ 11, but HAL blocks Q-Soft from accessing the card. In theory a driver could be written, but Q-Soft may have to be rewritten to utilize it... which isn't a realistic proposition for a proprietary Windows 9x program. Fixing the floppy support issue isn't an easy problem to solve either. Q-Soft will run in XP, it just will have to be run in offline mode. The utility of running Q-Soft in offline mode is questionable at best. I had as a goal work around the floppy issue, but I'm hitting a wall here. I have a Zip 750 Atapi drive, way overkill when you need to support 1.44m floppies. I don't think 98se or XP though can map a zip atapi as the A: drive where Q-Soft is hard coded to go to A:. My brother has SBCs with real floppy controllers. Maybe we get rid of these EVOC boards. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] EVOC 1714VNA does not support a real floppy controller...
I appreciate the response. I'm waiting on a usb to floppy adapter and I'll leave my real floppy controller disabled for the time being. Purportedly, USB floppy works in MS-DOS and possibly Freedos as well. It's Windows 98SE that is questionable because if I'm not mistaken Microsoft screwed up the driver. March 21, 2020 1:57 PM, "Ralf Quint" mailto:freedos...@gmail.com?to=%22Ralf%20Quint%22%20)> wrote: On 3/20/2020 6:55 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com (mailto:mich...@robinson-west.com) wrote: As this is an industrial single board computer that's 20 years old, I'm wondering if I can get the source code to the bios?I guess you would have to check with the manufacturer for this. I know, dealing with a company in Shenzen can be a bit tedious, but I also encountered some folks over there who are quite eager to help... Windows XP picks up the floppy controller, it just gets an unrecognized error when I try to format a disk. Freedos 1.3 tries to use the floppy drive, but I cannot format a disk there either getting a DMA overrun error. When you say XP "picks up the floppy controller", what are the resource values shown in the device manager? It could be that the addon card (that's the one that provides the floppy interface, right?, I only got a one page "datasheet" for a EVOC FSC-1714VNA board, which lists only 2 IDE interfaces) is not using the default floppy controller ports, though at least through the IBM-AT and PS/2 models, the IBM BIOS (and probably all Phoenix/Award version of that time) allowed for 4 floppy drives). I also remember to have had problems using a 4 floppy drive setup in a newer (back in the mid '90s) PC because the BIOS dropped the support for the 3rd and 4th drive and we needed to use a special driver, that was intercepting the default BIOS interrupt calls to the floppy drives to deal with those additional floppys on the addon controller board due to the use of a different (set of) I/O port(s)... Ralf (https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=icon) Virus-free. www.avast.com (https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=link) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] USB to 34 pin floppy adapter...
The bios supports a USB floppy drive and purportedly it will work in MS-DOS... I've got an adapter coming Monday and will give it a shot under Freedos and XP. I can theoretically if XP will remap the Atapi Zip as A: replace floppies with a zip disk. Can I create an image file in XP and map that as A:? I'm not talking an emulated environment like VirtualBox, just a software floppy so to speak where the image file is on the SSD/hard drive? Then I should be able to rawrite it to a zip disk perhaps. It will be overkill on space, but 100 mb zip disks are cheap and 50mb zip disks are impossible to find. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] e100pkt.com is nice!
I found it on ibiblio, archive though I think if the loading in low memory problem can be fixed that it should be included as an optional packet driver for other people who have an Intel PRO100VE network card. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.3 RC2...
I found a free packet driver and I'm testing both gopherus and Dillo. Very nice programs. Would be nice to be able to raise the resolution for Dillo. I think I'm limited to 640x480 vga. Dillo doesn't seem to work with my rainloop server ;-( I can report that fdnpkg works though! I don't think long file names are supported out of the box, which would be nice to have since many Fat32 volumes are created under Windows and other systems and they have long filenames. Recall that the support is spotty at best historically. If all the filesystem tools work with Fat32, that would be a massive improvement. My graphics card on the EVOC is an Intel Extreme and is capable of driving my screen to 1920x1080 resolution. This resolution isn't a dos era resolution for certain, but it would be nice to be able to run at the higher resolution. I want to test Freedos as a replacement for MSDOS 6.22 in an embedded system. For two reasons I want to do this: 1) Freedos is not encumbered by licensing restrictions like MS-DOS is. 2) Freedos is actively supported and works better on modern hardware than MS-DOS. One request, MS-DOS 6.22 has a tool called MSD. I like that the tool shows resources and memory and other useful debugging information. If someone can clone that clone that tool I'd be very appreciative. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS wishlist and feature requests
Hello: I seem to recall that long filename support could use some work and out of the box Freedos doesn't support them. As far as memory management, any improvements in that area are highly welcome as that is probably the most important foundational improvement that could be made. FAT32 support puts freedos above MS-DOS 6.22. There could be some improvement though. Long filename support needs to be stable, but this isn't what I would call a highest priority issue. There is a lot of work making FAT32 more stable and making sure everything from checkdisk to defrag works with Fat32 volumes. A scandisk clone would be nice. Highest priority is memory management followed by FAT32 support improvements and then improvements to out of the box tools for everything from filesystem tools to something like what MSD provided. And yes, I'm meaning to check out hwinfo. Anti virus is very important, maybe some improvements to clamav are in order. A stretch goal is to make Freedos Windows compatible, at least 3.1 and 3.11. To a certain degree 3.1 works now, but does enhanced mode work and could 3.1/3.11 be replaced by an open source alternative on top of Freedos? I really like FLTK for example and seem to be remember a freedos spin that used FLTK to provide a gui. The system was roughly comparable to Windows 3.1. Given I have the time and the necessary info, I'll port Tyco's Q-Soft to Freedos for the real time system and Linux for the gui ;-) Maybe I can run the program in Linux using WINE, worth a try at least. It would be awesome if open source modern video support existed so you can do higher resolution in say FLTK or Windows 3.x. Start with PCI and then move on to PCI express. A revival of the open source implementation of the IPX protocol would be awesome. It would make a lot of old dos games work and an IPX/IP gateway could be a Linux server where the Linux server could handle security (anti virus squid proxy anyone). -- Michael C. Robinson March 23, 2020 1:33 PM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Hi Mercury, > >> "Creating packages for FreeDOS software that are not packaged yet." >> >> ... any "top requests" as it were? > > If you ask me: UHDD (only UIDE and UDVD2 listed yet?) and the > new HIMEMX version by Japheth, as discussed here recently :-) > > HIMEMX should get some tests in particular by users of either > ancient or very modern computers and that would get easier if > a package would be available :-) Background: Japheth has added > his own advanced parsing for int 15.e820 results (different > from the old Pemberton fork) and uses a special sequence of > "mov cr0,eax; jz $ + 2", maybe for CPU compatibility reasons. > > Japheth drops int 15.8a calls: Very few old computers worked > better with those calls, but the Pemberton fork failed to do > sufficient checks whether the call actually is supported, so > that forked version was worse for various modern computers. > > Thank you :-) Eric > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS wishlist and feature requests
Q-Soft originally created by Tyco is a real time system targeted at MS-DOS and a GUI system targeted at Windows 98SE/Windows Millenium. PPM owns Q-Soft now and has a Windows 7 replacement and a completely reworked pick and place machine. If you know what surface mount electronics are you are well on your way to understanding what the Quad QSP-2 is. The Tyco machine is 20 year old technology, but the system is worth $30k+. Why are there two computers? Windows 98 is not a real time system and the Tyco real time head uses a ton of ISA cards. Getting SBCs, industrial single board computers, that are 20 years old and in good working condition is neither easy nor cheap these days. Supporting Windows 98se which is abandonware is not easy, and no you can't get the source for 98se nor can you use it without a key. MSDOS 6.22 is closed source, not supported, and you are supposed to use a licensed copy even though you cannot buy one anymore. Microsoft could come after you for using MS-DOS that you didn't purchase from them, same for Windows 98SE. If you have a broken down Tyco QSP-2 and you are rich, go ahead and buy PPM's QSP-2. Thing is, I'm not that impressed with PPM's system and I'm not happy with Windows 7. It's a decent system, but I'd rather run ReactOS when it stabilizes. ReactOS by the way is of no value if you are trying to fix a Tyco QSP-2 and it is stalled in development at the moment. They have 16 or more major blockers to the next release where the next release isn't even a beta. They are hurting in the area of programming a new memory manager. Their memory manager must be completely rewritten and replaced. Few programmers can do this and even fewer of the ones who can if any are working on ReactOS. ReactOS 0.4.13 is heavily delayed, and it's not even going to be a beta that is suitable for everyday use, let alone a pounded out gold release. Freedos could replace MS-DOS for the real time side of a Tyco QSP-2 but without hacking, an NT style Windows will never replace the GUI side of a Tyco QSP-2. ReactOS was Freewin95 at first, but when Microsoft abandoned dos based Windows, the ReactOS project did as well. There are probably more systems than just the Tyco QSP-2 that rely on Windows 9x and MSDOS that are not cheap systems where you cannot simply drop in NT without heavily re-engineering the system. Michael Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.3 on a zip disk...
I set up a bootable image of Freedos 1.3 on a zip 750mb disk! I did so by copying the FDOS directory without copying the packages directory. Interestingly, I have fdnpkg.exe on the zip disk. Of course fdnpkg.exe checkupdates doesn't work right if there is no packages directory. It would be nice to be able to identify installed programs that were not installed by package and install the package over them. If there's no package for a program that is installed, it would be nice to be able to identify it for removal. This is sort of the reverse of package management. Tell me what's on the system that was not put there by package management, find out if there's a package for it, install the package over it, and flag anything that's left in any directory except perhaps for stuff under directory foo. In my case foo is a directory called XP_PIECES. A poor name choice as there is stuff for Windows 98 and Freedos as well in there. This reverse package management doesn't really really exist in Linux either :-( For anyone who has installed a program to Linux using a tarball instead of an rpm or deb (not Slackware ;-)), you understand what I"m talking about. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS wishlist and feature requests
> I expect the GUI part and the machine part to communicate > over a network, so I hope the GUI is much less hardware > specific. Yet you say ReactOS is no option even there? > You seem to be closely watching the ReactOS progress. > Eric > The Tyco QSP-2 does not use a network like one would typically expect between the real time head and the gui head. It uses a proprietary ISA memory card that exists in both heads and sadly there are ribbon cables that run from the back of one case to the back of the other. A Cat5 network cable between two network cards would be much better, but that's not how Tyco engineered their system. 50 wire ribbon cables. This wasn't the right way to do this even twenty years ago. Even a low voltage differential scsi cable would be better than two proprietary 50 wire cables... There is a tied reset button between the two heads as well, don't ask. I find the tied reset buttons to be especially obnoxious and wrong headed, but that's how the system was designed and fighting it is both time consuming and pointless. Yes, ReactOS will eventually (sooner than later I hope) be a realistic option on an NT based PPM QSP-2. ReactOS will not work on a Tyco QSP-2 because of HAL. Q-Soft written by Tyco goes to an ISA shared memory card directly without going through a driver. In Windows 9x, you can do this. In Windows XP, HAL does not allow this kind of access. XP is more secure than Windows 98se and HAL is a good thing, but without source code to Tyco's Q-Soft it will be hard to impossible to rework Q-Soft so that it will function fully in an NT environment. PPM owns the Tyco QSP-2 and the proprietary software it uses where I doubt that PPM is willing to release the source code to the original Q-Soft for a reasonable price if any. You are correct that the heavily ISA hardware side of a Tyco QSP-2 is getting harder to repair and/or replace these days. The Tyco machine my brother has is currently working, he actually has hardware that works without having to resort to total and crazy re-engineering. If he needs a second machine though or if it becomes impractical to keep the Tyco going because a part that fails is say too expensive to repair or replace... you get the idea. Even if he gets a PPM QSP-2 in the future, he would be well served to replace Windows 7 with something that is open and that will not reach end of life or become unlicensed because Microsoft is convinced that everyone can replace their OS and their computer for that matter every three years. If a computer runs a piece of equipment that is say $3k, buy the comparable piece of equipment with the new OS that is close to the same price. However, if your piece of equipment is worth $30k-$100k or more and comparable machines cost all of that, and replacing the computer alone involves expensive and difficult re-engineering, you can't just replace at that point. If you can for a reasonable cost repair the machine, you do. If you can't repair and replacements aren't available, that's not good for business and getting stuff done. A business can fail because a company cannot repair/replace their capital equipment. Obviously, I don't want my brother's business to fail. Fixing this 20 year old machine till it works has been a painfully long and painfully expensive process, his focus now is understandably getting a circuit into production so he can recoup the repair costs and then some. When he is solidly in the black, he can buy a second machine or replace the unit he has depending on what he needs and what the condition of this machine is in the future. I hope and pray that nothing breaks between now and say 2-3 years from now. > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] fdnpkg.exe - how does it know where to install the packages to?
I think I missed a command.com line in fdauto.bat where it still said C:... and that this is why fdnpkg.exe installed to the C drive. If I'm wrong, why does fdnpkg.exe install to C: when I'm running on a Zip disk mapped to A: by the bios? I'm test installing freedoom to see where it lands... ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos cost...
How are the repositories on ibiblio paid for? Freedos is free, and much of the programming work is done on a voluntary basis. Freedos is predominantly open source if not completely so. ReactOS is supported by a company that pays for the infrastructure to host the source code, a web site, some of the programming, etcetera. ReactOS is free to download and under the GPL 100% I believe. Could something similar be done for freedos? Could a person be trained and paid a modest salary to work on memory management for example, in the US $15/hour is modest for programming. I am willing to work on freedos for a low salary and have my code released under the GPL. If I were wealthy, I'd do the work for free. Freedos for a hobbyist project is in incredibly good shape. I would like to see this become an excellent dos, better than MSDOS, and sought after by industry for systems that currently require msdos. Everyone who has worked to make freedos what it is, pat yourselves on the back for a job well done. I want freedos to go further in terms of quality and become the most stable dos on the planet that is the most compatible dos with everything dos that is worth being compatible with. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOSBOX isn't for everyone...
Just a thought, some of us have old computers that we want to run freedos on. Running Linux on a Pentium 4 and trying to run Dosbox on top of that is going to be pretty have for that machine. Some people aren't grabbing a multi core modern computer when they use freedos. Some of us want to use old computers, 386 anyone? Linux won't run on a 286 or XT by the way. Modern Linux distributions, don't expect them to work with less than a 1 Ghz processor with at least 1 gig of ram. Even the popular arm processors that run Linux, Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi 4, run at over 1 ghz. Freedos is an OS that works on any ancient PC including dinosaurs like the veritable 8086. Just saying ;-) -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Overwrite files option...
I'm using fdnpkg to install to a zip disk. I am finding that I have to delete a lot of files because I copied another installation of freedos 1.3 minus the packages and appinfo and source directories... Would be nice if fdnpkg would clobber when it encounters a file it is trying to install. - Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] WinWorldPC disk images...
I'm on a CentOS 7 system. I downloaded a rar archive of Wordperfect 6.0 dos that is an archive of floppy images. I do not at this time have real floppy support... but I do have zip disks. Is there a way I can mount these images and create one larger image? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] fdnpkg and a local mirror...
I have a Linux based gateway, Debian Buster based. It occurs to me that I could run an ftp or http server to serve out freedos locally. How would I point fdnpkg to the local repository? How would I mirror ibiblio without putting too much load on it? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installation Problem Hdd
What kind of hard drive did you take out? Was it a serial ATA hard drive or an IDE hard drive? Have you considered trying Freedos 1.3 RC2? Make sure you aren't in AHCI mode? April 23, 2020 7:03 AM, "Ludovico Giorio" mailto:ludovico8...@hotmail.it?to=%22Ludovico%20Giorio%22%20)> wrote: Hello everyone, I'm having a problem installing Freedos 1.1/1.2 on my laptop. The laptop came shipped with a custom Freedos version from Hp, I installed Win10 on a second drive, had some problems and need to return the laptop. I took out the second drive, and the win bootloader was still there. I accessed the Efi partition and erased the windows bootloader, but doing this I must have made some mistake, and now the laptop wont boot in Hp dos too. So, I downloaded Freedos 1.1/1.2, created a bootable usb with it, restarted on usb and accessed the installation prompt. Problem is, installation is stuck in a partitioning loop: after partitioning, the installer starts again anew. I checked, and the installer can only see my usb, not the hdd inside the laptop. Message is:"SETUP wasn't able to locate any disks to install FreeDOS 1.1 from." What am I doing wrong? I enabled legacy support in Bios. I formatted my hdd in Fat. I think that the installer can't see the hd, and don't know why. Is it because of the hdd format (I made it MBR)? Are there some hdd requirement I m not aware of? If someone can help me about this, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and good luck for the emergency. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installation Problem Hdd
If GPT is the issue, should a Linux based tool be used to get around that? I'm thinking something like boot nuke or something similar. April 23, 2020 8:16 AM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Hi! Which tools in which versions did you use? > > For example which FORMAT, FDISK...? Let me start by > saying the choice for MBR was good: GPT partitions > are not visible for DOS. Not sure what the purpose > of that EFI partition is, but it is easily possible > that Windows had a boot loader on the first disk > to boot from the second, affecting both boots. > > You can tell FDISK to install a fresh MBR boot > code, see the command line help of FDISK :-) > Of course you also want to mark the partition as > bootable and for big disks, you probably want to > use FAT32 LBA partitions for FreeDOS. > > Regards, Eric > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3
What is the goal for Freedos 1.3 Final? When possibly will the final release come out? May 31, 2020 5:45 PM, "Jerome Shidel" mailto:jer...@shidel.net?to=%22Jerome%20Shidel%22%20)> wrote: FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 is now available for download and testing. https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/previews/1.3-rc3/ (https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/previews/1.3-rc3/) Please note, this also includes a slight update to the Floppy Edition that was previewed last week. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] SATA...
I have an EVOC 1714vna single board computer, Pentium 4 with hyper threading turned off. It has two PATA 100 channels and two SATA I connectors. My DVD RAM drive is SATA I. I run Windows 98SE on this hardware and only when I switch to XP am I able to use the DVD RAM drive. Will Freedos support SATA I in the future? Is there a way to access the SATA I in 98se? If the answer is no, I can use an adapter to convert my SATA ATAPI drive to PATA and connect it to the PATA 100. The ACPI has to be turned off to run 98se sadly, the SATA I also has to be disabled. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] SATA...
I have an 865GV ICH5 chipset. There is SATA ehanced mode yes/no and that's it in the bios. You can map SATA to primary or secondary IDE, but that's all you can do. I tried saying YES to SATA Enhanced mode and primary for IDE mapping SATA to Secondary, didn't work in 98se. I could see about getting a PATA DVD RAM drive or even a PATA CD drive or I suppose I could trying plugging in a USB drive. June 1, 2020 9:41 AM, "tom ehlert" wrote: >> Or if that fails, disable AHCI in the SATA controller. DOS is fine with >> drives talking in IDE mode. > > for disk drives, your disk should be supported by the BIOS. it usually > is, otherwise it could not boot from it. > > it doesn't matter at all if it's SATA, PATA/IDE, RAID, SCSI, SAS, MFM, RLL > or whatever happened the last 40 years, your disk is supported by the > BIOS, and anyDOS doesn't even care. it's handled by the BIOS in a > transpüarent way. and that's one of the few advantages anyDOS still has today. > > on the other hand, FreeDOS CD/DVD drivers don't handle AHCI mode. > if you plan to boot from disk, then access the CD, disable AHCI. > > Tom > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] SATA...
Windows XP is the only supported system on the Evoc 1714VNA SBC I'm experimenting with, but I cannot run XP because of HAL and special hardware connected with QSoft... QSoft directly tries to reach the special hardware, a shared ram card, which HAL will not allow. Only Windows on top of a DOS kernel can allow direct access to hardware. The system this board would go into is a Win9x/MSDOS system made up of two computers. As far as I can tell, the SATA I where there are two connecters on the SBC simply does not work in MS-DOS or WIN9x period. If freedos works with this SATA I controller, that makes supporting a SATA DVD burner much easier at least in a dos environment. For the DOS machine that would be a definite plus. One thing I want to try is substituting MSDOS 6.22 with Freedos 1.3 when it's finalized. No guarantee that the former will be close enough to the latter, but getting into a supported system that is tracking modern hardware is a plus. The software to run the Quad QSP2 is still proprietary, but if it runs on an open system that works on modern equipment this will address one issue of keeping these old pick and place machines running. It is getting harder and harder to get Windows 9x era industrial computers let alone ones that have real floppy controllers. Never mind how hard it is to get all the drivers sometimes for a 90s era SBC. Windows 98 SE is not Freedos, but it is the last version of Windows that runs on top of a DOS kernel which allows booting to a DOS prompt. June 1, 2020 10:14 AM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Hi! FreeDOS is neither Win98 nor WinXP. Just use UDVD2 with > your available settings and tell us which work and which do > not, in the latter case please mention the exact messages. > > Thanks! Eric > >> I have an 865GV ICH5 chipset. There is SATA enhanced mode yes/no and >> that's it in the bios. You can map SATA to primary or secondary IDE, >> but that's all you can do. >> >> I tried saying YES to SATA Enhanced mode and primary for IDE mapping >> SATA to Secondary, didn't work in 98se. I could see about getting a >> PATA DVD RAM drive or even a PATA CD drive or I suppose I could >> trying plugging in a USB drive. > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] SATA works!!!
Booted the Freedos 1.3 RC3 live cd and the SATA I works!!! ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] SATA...
June 1, 2020 10:59 AM, "Eric Auer" wrote: > Michael, > >> Booted the Freedos 1.3 RC3 live cd and the SATA I works!!! > > Glad to hear that but... > >> Windows XP is the only supported system > > Officially yes, but as long as it works, it works. > Even when you illegally run Linux or FreeDOS :-)) > >> I cannot run XP because of HAL and special hardware connected with QSoft > > Then you can run XP, but not QSoft, correct? > >> QSoft directly tries to reach the special hardware, a shared >> ram card, which HAL will not allow. > > I remember similar problems with dongles. Unless > QSoft provides drivers... > >> Only Windows on top of a DOS kernel can allow direct access > > You know that Windows 98 does not run in FreeDOS, > you would have to use FreeDOS with HX RT, Wine, > ReactOS, Linux or similar if QSoft needs Windows. > > Does QSoft need Windows? Exactly. You can run it in a so called offline mode in Windows XP, but Windows 98SE is required. >> The system this board would go into is a Win9x/MSDOS >> system made up of two computers. > > But you claim neither Win9x nor MS DOS runs on the Evoc? Officially, they don't. Unofficially, if you stay away from the SATA and not having a real floppy controller is not an issue you can run these operating systems. >> SATA I where there are two connecters on the SBC simply >> does not work in MS-DOS or WIN9x period. > > This has zero relevance for FreeDOS, why do you insist > on mentioning what certain Microsoft products can or > can not do? Until I can replace them with Freedos, seems relevant to me. It's called I want a freedos that can do X. I just verified that Windows 98SE will not boot with the SATA I controller enabled... It's possible that an open source driver could be made for Windows 98SE to support SATA. In the meantime, I may want to adapt the SATA DVD drive and plug it into one of the PATA controllers. >> If freedos works with this SATA I controller, > > As long as the controller is not locked to AHCI mode, > it works. As you have already found out today :-)) > >> that makes supporting a SATA DVD burner much easier > > Do you want to BURN DVD or just READ them? Is it okay > to use only ISO9660 or do you also need UDF format? I just want to support CD's and honestly being able to boot from CD is a work around for not having a real floppy controller. > Burning DVD and using UDF are more complicated, but > some DOS enthousiasts do take the effort to do that. I just need to burn to CD an image of the QSoft install disk for a DOS environment. QSoft runs in Windows 98se and MSDOS 6.22, the dos side being a real time system. In theory, I can replace MSDOS with FREEDOS as long as I realize there is an expanded memory manager built into QSOFT and am careful to not conflict with it. In practice, I've never tried installing QSOFT to Freedos. >> I want to try is substituting MSDOS 6.22 with Freedos 1.3 > If you are confident that you know how to configure > DOS and have backups of your data, you can always try > FreeDOS and MS DOS in parallel. You could even take > the effort to make a dual boot configuration. There > is no need to wait for FreeDOS 1.3 there. > >> Windows 98 SE is not Freedos, but it is the last version >> of Windows that runs on top of a DOS kernel which allows >> booting to a DOS prompt. > > Windows 98 SE runs only on MS DOS 7.10 which is included > when you install Windows 98 SE. You cannot simply tell it > to use another DOS kernel. True. > You CAN use UDVD2 with FreeDOS or with MS DOS 6.22 or 7.10, > but that will only make the DVD drive work for your DOS and > NOT for Windows 98 SE. Because Windows versions newer than > 3.xx rarely use DOS drivers. They need real Windows drivers. > > Regards, Eric Understood. If UDVD2 could be ported to Windows 98SE, that would be very much appreciated by a lot of folks on MSFN. Ideally, I would find a way to run QSoft in a Windows 98SE VM where modern hardware is no issue or I would find a way to make this software work directly in gnome on a Linux box using WINE. I would need a modern passive backplane, one without ISA slots, to support a modern SBC. Unfortunately, the shared ram card is ISA. I could possibly make a PCIe to ISA adapter card... but that's a lot of work. I have little to no experience with KVM where I would have to map the PCIe hardware to a virtual machine in order to use it. MSDOS and Windows 98se think the card (the same card in both systems) is at IRQ 11 and I/O address D 32k reserved. Because of HAL, the GUI head cannot be NT based. With Microsoft dropping support for DOS and Windows 9x and computers changin
Re: [Freedos-user] Save the date!
Sounds really cool, but I'm doing a conference with the Linux Foundation starting the 29th... Shucks! -- Michael C. Robinson http://lily.robinson-west.com/michael June 17, 2020 6:54 PM, "Jim Hall" mailto:jh...@freedos.org?to=%22Jim%20Hall%22%20)> wrote: The FreeDOS 26th anniversary is coming up on June 29. I'd like to do something to recognize the date, and it occurs to me that I've only met a few of you in person. So let's do a virtual get-together to celebrate FreeDOS! Keep your calendar open for Monday, June 29 at 9am US/Central. Keep an eye on the FreeDOS website front page (you may need to refresh) and I'll post a link at that time to a video meeting for the hour. My video meeting service (BlueJeans) has a capacity of 75 so join as soon as you can. :-) It will be great to finally meet you face to face! (I'm doing a similar thing for Patreon the day before. But I wanted to get together with everyone.) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] remastering cd iso under Linux?
I have a CD ISO image I keep of useful free software programs for Windows. I was wanting to use the spare space on the discs to make a FreeDOS (and maybe Memtest) rescue disc. I've downloaded the FreedOS CD ISO. Do I just copy this ISO to a directory and copy the files from my other ISO into that directory? I'm working under Linux here. Is there anything special I need to do when remaking the ISO in order to make disc bootable into FreeDOS? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks. -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] remastering cd iso under Linux?
I have a CD ISO image I keep of useful free software programs for Windows. I was wanting to use the spare space on the discs to make a FreeDOS (and maybe Memtest) rescue disc. I've downloaded the FreedOS CD ISO. Do I just copy this ISO to a directory and copy the files from my other ISO into that directory? I'm working under Linux here. Is there anything special I need to do when remaking the ISO in order to make disc bootable into FreeDOS? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks. Nothing difficult. However, FreeDOS cdrom *is* a bootable cdrom, and like Linux distributions, uses ISOLINUX bootloader for the installation cdrom. You can use MKISOFS under Linux, and point to isolinux/isolinux.bin as bootloader. layout is basically this: AUTORUN.INF (root of cd, optional) FREEDOS ISOLINUX and then your other programs You'll first have to unpack the ISO (or mount it, then copy it to a writable directory) before adding your other programs and remastering. Thanks, this works great. Is there a way to boot into FreeDOS from this CD such that I have access to the harddrives? -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] remastering cd iso under Linux?
Also, does the cd image come with memtest or do I need to do something to add that? It looks like it's supposed to be there, from reading the docs, but I don't seem to be able to load it from the boot menu. -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] remastering cd iso under Linux?
you need to add the Memtest86+ binary (www.memtest.org) to the Isolinux directory yourself. Be sure to remove the .bin extension from the Mt86+ binary. This is because Isolinux interprets it as a 'cd bootsector' which it is not. The Memtest+ binary currently is only delivered with the special bootdisk I'm offering for users who cannot boot from cdrom. Thanks, works great. I'll post a link to my finished ISO once it finishes uploading to my webserver. Harddisk is accessible as C:, but only if it has FAT filesystem, not NTFS or any Linux filesystem. Are there any NTFS drivers I could load? -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] remastering cd iso under Linux?
Thanks, works great. I'll post a link to my finished ISO once it finishes uploading to my webserver. And here's that link: http://kavlon.org/index.php/free_windows_tools -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] soundcard?
I'm a little confussed. Is there no way to configure your soundcard if it is new enough not to come with DOS drivers? Is there SB or MIDI support at least? I just want to play some old id/Apogee games with the full 1995 experience. :) -- Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kavlon.org --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595&alloc_id=14396&op=click ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] HTML5/Javascript/Flash (was: Re: Quickview ver 2.60)
The conversation is getting silly.​ Sony got hacked. Like many large corporations, they are very concerned about threats from outside. But once an intruder is inside, every door in the building was basically found to be unlocked. Good security is layered security - getting in the front door does not give you access to everything. And the issue of broadband vs. dial-up really for ease of hacking is not relevant. Broadband does make it slightly easier, not because of the speed, but because the connection is always on and in the same place all of the time. It's much easier to test the security of an entity when they keep showing up at the same place (IP address) all of the time. And even in ye olde days, if hacking over the network was not feasible then the hacking would have been done from inside. Data would be carried out using floppies, tapes, Zip drives, CD-R, etc. Physical security at many corporations is often pretty weak too. Getting back on topic ... Browsing under DOS is a lost cause. The world has moved on. We do not have enough library or developer support to keep modern applications running under DOS. It's just not worth the effort. Modern hardware is cheap enough were this should not even be a concern. DOS and its variants are a niche. They are not good for running Java, Javascript, etc. Use and enjoy DOS for what it was good at, and occasionally be unreasonable and do something cool that people are not expecting. But don't expect to keep parity with Linux, Windows, MacOS and ChromeOS - that is just not feasible. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Cancelled: Kickstarter project for FreeDOS 2.0
>From the comments page: "Unfortunately the FreeDOS community wants nothing to do with this project as the goals cannot not be mutually met i will be removing the project and exiting the development. sorry." As far as I can tell, the Kickstarter project was launched without any consultation from the FreeDOS community. A little bit of discussion up front about what he wanted the project to achieve would have gone a long way to getting more buy-in. There was no participation in the roadmap discussion either, once the discussion started. So it's hard to read that comment and not shake one's head. If somebody is in contact with Chelson or the backers of the project they should encourage them to join the mailing lists here. -- New Year. New Location. New Benefits. New Data Center in Ashburn, VA. GigeNET is offering a free month of service with a new server in Ashburn. Choose from 2 high performing configs, both with 100TB of bandwidth. Higher redundancy.Lower latency.Increased capacity.Completely compliant. http://p.sf.net/sfu/gigenet___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS (network) Printing
There is Netcat for DOS ... http://www.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Netcat And it can easily be used for printers that listen for "raw" connections on port 9100. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] mTCP - A better solution for moving files on the LAN
Rugxulo - I'm pretty sure that John was using the FTP server on his machine, not the FTP client. The FTP server has no "shell to dos" capability - that is only really needed/useful in the client. For the most part it is safe to do; just don't take too long. In general FTP servers are not sending unsolicited messages so if the client is dormant because it is in the DOS shell, then the server doesn't know any better. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] mTCP - A better solution for moving files on the LAN
That version was a minor packaging fix to the previous version, which is why the date strings did not change. (Except for the one affected program.) On Jun 17, 2015 11:26 PM, "Mateusz Viste" wrote: > On 18/06/2015 00:32, John Hupp wrote: > > Now I have found mTCP, available in the FreeDOS install CD's Net > > collection, or in a newer version from developer Michael Brutman's web > > site at http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/ > > In fact, as Rugxulo pointed out already, the versions are the same. > > On Mike's website the file download name is slightly misleading, since > it reads "mTCP_2013-05-23.zip", while it contains in fact a set of mTCP > tools versioned as "2013-04-26". Hence yes, the version mirrored on > iBiblio (and FDNPKG, which you seem to have used) are the same than the > 'official' one from Mike, even though they might give the impression to > be a month older. > > Or Michael forgot to update the version strings in his last release > maybe? But I was unable to find *any* reference to 2013-05-23 in all the > text files shipped with mTCP, so I suppose it's rather simply a mistyped > filename. > > Mateusz > > > > -- > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDNPKG v0.99
The current memory requirement is a function of your design, which I think could be improved. Disk based data structures are not that difficult to implement. I have a PCjr with a 20GB Maxtor drive on it, of which 600MB is in use. There are lots of 8086 and 80286 class machines with larger than original hard drives on them; drive overlay software made that possible 20 years ago. Recent IDE controller projects have expanded the number of old machines that are hard drive capable. You are incorrect in you belief that old machines can not benefit from a package manager. FreeDOS will get no traction among the sizeable retro-computing community of these kinds of design decisions continue to ignore the more interesting, older machines. On Aug 31, 2015 11:50 PM, "Mateusz Viste" wrote: > Hi Sparky, > > On 31/08/2015 19:38, sparky4 wrote: > > I want to make a 16 bit version of this program... > > You are most certainly welcome to do so - that's what open-source is all > about. > > I can't help but wonder though - is there any practical need behind such > work? I don't really see what this would improve. Sure, it would make > FDNPKG potentially run on 80286 CPUs - but I am not convinced anyone > would want to run a package manager on a 286. Disk space is usually > scarce on these machines (if there is a hard disk in the first place), > so I'd rather think people will turn to good old manual 'copying what I > need' on such hardware. It's worth noting that 8086 and 80186 are out of > scope anyway due to memory constraints, since FDNPKG definitely requires > more than 640K of RAM to work. > > Mateusz > > > > -- > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDNPKG v0.99
A 16 bit database engine is a little bit of a stretch, is it not? I don't think that keeping some data in memory and indexing to records on disk qualifies as a database engine. I agree that it is more work, or in this case rework. And I agree that when time is limited, projects like this become optional. But this is not a "monster project." I really do object to the "small machines can't use this or don't need this" misconception. mTCP has all of the traction that it needs ... it runs on 16 bit machines, 32 bit machines, emulators, and pretty much every flavor of DOS created. The most recent version (2015-07-05) has been downloaded 600 times already; the previous version has over 4000 downloads. I'm sure it's much more widespread given how many places it was mirrored at. I can't see ever going 32 bits when the 16 bit code works well on both 16 and 32 bit machines. I think that the solution for requiring more memory is to start using EMS/XMS memory via interrupts. That allows the same basic code to run on both sets of platforms and use more memory when it is available without the pain of fully going to a 32 bit address space. Starting with a 32 bit address space is certainly easier and there is more library support available. But for the use case of just simply needing more memory it is overkill. I'm willing to leave that space to WATT-32 which handles it nicely. We need to include the 16 bit machines wherever possible. Note that I'll never ask for something like a 16 bit version of Dillo ... it's just not feasible. But a package manager really should be able to run on a 16 bit machine. I've managed to create functional (and fast) FTP and HTTP servers for 16 bit machines - they are very capable. On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 10:02 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote: > Hi Michael, nice to hear from you! > > Of course disk-based structures are easy to implement - FDNPKG already > uses them extensively for storage. The key word here is speed - keeping > packages metadata in RAM is fast. Parsing and searching through on-disk > data structures is at least a magnitude slower. > > Now, of course I could implement some indexing mechanisms on top of > that, and end up designing a specialized 16 bit database engine that > would fit in the 640K limit of memory... Unfortunately I don't have > enough free time for this kind of "monster projects", although this > might positively change in a decade or two. Until then, I'll let others > do such work. > > BTW, any plans on publishing a DJGPP-compatible version of mTCP? I'd be > happy to switch from Watt32. I fear mTCP will get no traction if it > ignores the more interesting 32-bit projects. ;) > > cheers, > Mateusz > > > > > On 01/09/2015 17:45, Michael Brutman wrote: > > The current memory requirement is a function of your design, which I > > think could be improved. Disk based data structures are not that > > difficult to implement. > > > > I have a PCjr with a 20GB Maxtor drive on it, of which 600MB is in use. > > There are lots of 8086 and 80286 class machines with larger than > > original hard drives on them; drive overlay software made that possible > > 20 years ago. Recent IDE controller projects have expanded the number > > of old machines that are hard drive capable. You are incorrect in you > > belief that old machines can not benefit from a package manager. > > > > FreeDOS will get no traction among the sizeable retro-computing > > community of these kinds of design decisions continue to ignore the more > > interesting, older machines. > > > > On Aug 31, 2015 11:50 PM, "Mateusz Viste" > <mailto:mate...@viste.fr>> wrote: > > > > Hi Sparky, > > > > On 31/08/2015 19:38, sparky4 wrote: > > > I want to make a 16 bit version of this program... > > > > You are most certainly welcome to do so - that's what open-source is > all > > about. > > > > I can't help but wonder though - is there any practical need behind > such > > work? I don't really see what this would improve. Sure, it would make > > FDNPKG potentially run on 80286 CPUs - but I am not convinced anyone > > would want to run a package manager on a 286. Disk space is usually > > scarce on these machines (if there is a hard disk in the first > place), > > so I'd rather think people will turn to good old manual 'copying > what I > > need' on such hardware. It's worth noting that 8086 and 80186 are > out of > > scope anyway due to memory constraints, since FDNPKG definitely > requires > > more t
Re: [Freedos-user] metados networked freedos distro by rugxulo available
Disclaimer: I understand that once I release something into the wild, there is not much I can do about it. I see two problems with the two included mTCP programs: 1. I took great care to write user documentation for my programs and the DHCP.TXT and FTP.TXT files should be included with the executables. The README.TXT file is kind of important too - it gives the requirements, features, and where to go for help. Distributing executables that were originally part of an ensemble without the general README.TXT or the program specific instructions is king of wrong. 2 - The file sizes for DHCP.EXE and FTP.EXE are different than the versions that I compiled and distributed. I am guessing that you ran them through some sort of image compressor. I can't tell though; did you include the batch files or a makefile that you used to process the original executables? Your version of FTP.EXE takes 1 minute and 46 seconds to load and print out the title line. My standard version takes 2 seconds. That's 53x faster. My UPX compressed version takes 5 seconds. That's 21x faster. Your version is 55906 bytes and my UPX compressed version is 58395 bytes. So my original compressed executable is a little bigger, but yours is worthless on an 8088 class machine. Given that I wrote mTCP explicitly to support 8088 class machines, I find this kind of reprehensible. I suspect DHCP has the same problem; it is taking longer to run in DOSBox. I hope the other programs are not compressed in the same way. Please fix this - distribute the appropriate TXT files and fix whatever compression program you are using, or better yet, use the originally distributed UPXed binaries. My name is still on the programs and I don't want other people to think that I am responsible for a nearly 2 minute startup time. Mike -- Monitor Your Dynamic Infrastructure at Any Scale With Datadog! Get real-time metrics from all of your servers, apps and tools in one place. SourceForge users - Click here to start your Free Trial of Datadog now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=241902991&iu=/4140___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] metados networked freedos distro by rugxulo available
I have a real simple solution ... Test more or repackage things without altering them so that more testing is not needed. My UPXed binaries are almost the same size and don't have that horrible side effect. That's because I recognize the value of testing on a variety of targets and I accept responsibility for what I put out there. -- Monitor Your Dynamic Infrastructure at Any Scale With Datadog! Get real-time metrics from all of your servers, apps and tools in one place. SourceForge users - Click here to start your Free Trial of Datadog now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=241902991&iu=/4140___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] metados networked freedos distro by rugxulo available
Rugxulo, Your thickness amazes me at times. I provided a UPXed version of all of the mTCP programs back in 2013. It works just fine, even on the slowest 4.77 8088 machine that I own. I'm objecting to your blindly re UPXing it in such a way that the executable takes 21x longer to load on the same machine. I have a good reason to object; if that particular executable were to be posted somewhere and more widely used, I'd be the one fielding the questions about why I advertise that it works great on an 8088 but it takes nearly two minutes to load. The rest of your verbose text about your emulator environment, how you test, etc. is irrelevant. You took something that worked and made it worse. Be more careful. I think I have a right to complain about the dismemberment of my executables for no good reason. -- Monitor Your Dynamic Infrastructure at Any Scale With Datadog! Get real-time metrics from all of your servers, apps and tools in one place. SourceForge users - Click here to start your Free Trial of Datadog now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=241902991&iu=/4140___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] ot: run time issues?
On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 12:54 PM Karen Lewellen wrote: > If that is the German one, then I found it. > Two problems, first because the output is in German, I cannot tell if > using it produces any results. > Translator? http://www.bing.com/translator > Second, my reading of the purpose suggests it might not work at all if > the machine is faster than a Pentium II, which mine most certainly is. > Lastly I am unclear what makes this a turbal pascal error solution when > the reference is to borden? pascal 7 or higher. granted divide 0 does > not appear in my error message, which may put it in the 7 range. > regardless I require a patch that works in English. > If this program does I will try again. > > > > On Fri, 14 Jun 2019, Mateusz Viste wrote: > > > On 14/06/2019 06:49, Ralf Quint wrote: > >> I just had a quick look and did not find that program to patch 3rd > party > >> programs where I thought I had a copy of it. > > > > No need to look into backups, tppatch is widely available on the web. > First > > google hit points to this: http://www.ipnet6.org/tppatch.html > > > > Mateusz > > > > > > ___ > > Freedos-user mailing list > > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] [Freedos-devel] Heads up: "DOS ain't dead" forum is closing
Crisis averted. :-) -Mike Robert Riebisch wrote: >Dear all, > >You have probably noticed, that I have received a lot of public feedback >(plus a few private mails) on my announcement to close this forum. >Thanks for that! I didn't know, that this forum is such an important >part of the DOS community. > >Today I have also received a //large// donation via PayPal from an >unknown US guy to keep the forum alive. >Well, folks, I'm not trying to get rich now, but: >**"DOS ain't dead" will stay online after 2011-09-19!** > >A special thanks to these people for their interest in hosting this >forum: Glenn McCorkle, RayeR, Japheth, Michael B. Brutman, Jim Hall, >Markus Maussner, and Michal H. Tyc. -- Maybe next time ... ;-) > >Robert Riebisch >-- >BTTR Software >http://www.bttr-software.de/ > >-- >BlackBerry® DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA >Learn about the latest advances in developing for the >BlackBerry® mobile platform with sessions, labs & more. >See new tools and technologies. Register for BlackBerry® DevCon today! >http://p.sf.net/sfu/rim-devcon-copy1 >___ >Freedos-devel mailing list >freedos-de...@lists.sourceforge.net >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel -- BlackBerry® DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA Learn about the latest advances in developing for the BlackBerry® mobile platform with sessions, labs & more. See new tools and technologies. Register for BlackBerry® DevCon today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/rim-devcon-copy1 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FTP Server testing needed
I'll have to install those clients and try them. But it is most likely to be something specific about them. Anonymous users can't delete what they (or anybody else) upload. So that was expected behavior. Mike escape wrote: >Works with Filezilla/Linux, lukemftp, ncftp, but fails to retrieve >directory listing in Midnight Commander, Krusader and Dolphin - upon >connection shows empty filelist. Also I was unable to delete file >TEST.TXT uploaded to /INCOMING, despite its rwxrwxrwx permissions, but I >suspect this could be some restriction in server config: > >Command: DELE TEST.TXT >Response: 550 permission denied > > >On 29.09.11 16:37, Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> >> I have made a large round of improvements to the FTP server in mTCP and >> I am looking for a little testing help with it. If you have a few spare >> moments over the next day or two just try to connect to it and browse >> the file structure. Using a few different clients will help me shake >> out any new bugs. Upload some relevant files if you are adventurous. >> >> It can be reached at ftp://96.42.66.188:2021/ - if you are using a >> browser that URL should work as-is. For command line clients just take >> note of the non-standard port number. The FTP server is running on the >> slowest machine that I have, which is a PCjr; it if runs well on that, >> it will run well on anything you probably have. (If you want to see the >> actual machine it is running on look at THISPCJR.JPG in the root directory.) >> >> Changes for this version include: >> >> - scanning for valid drive letters at startup to avoid errors when >> touching floppy drives >> - a major rework of directory handling if you are not an anonymous >> user. Drive letters now look like part of a normal Unix path so that >> the smarter FTP clients don't get confused by the drive letters and path >> delimiters. >> - The flow control problem with FileZilla is now understood and fixed >> - The wrong file date problem with FileZilla is fixed >> - There is a new "message of the day" feature for putting up special >> notices at login time >> - The local user interface is redesigned and little more friendly >> - Better error checking on the password file >> >> All if this will be part of the next mTCP release, which I'm targeting >> for the next week. Getting some testing time on it is a good thing ... >> >> >> Thanks in advance, >> Mike >> >> >> >> -- >> All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a >> definitive record of customers, application performance, security >> threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes >> sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > >-- >All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a >definitive record of customers, application performance, security >threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes >sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. >http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 >___ >Freedos-user mailing list >Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FTP Server testing needed
It's DOS so the filename was in error, but it should have aborted the data transfer fully. I'll look into that after work - for now stick to 8.3 style filenames. Single Stage to Orbit wrote: >On Thu, 2011-09-29 at 08:37 -0500, Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> I have made a large round of improvements to the FTP server in mTCP and >> I am looking for a little testing help with it. If you have a few spare >> moments over the next day or two just try to connect to it and browse >> the file structure. Using a few different clients will help me shake >> out any new bugs. Upload some relevant files if you are adventurous. > >Uploads to incoming doesn't quite work for me. Here's the transcript of >my session: > >$ ftp -n -p 96.42.66.188 2021 >Connected to 96.42.66.188 (96.42.66.188). >220 mTCP FTP Server >ftp> user anonymous >331 Anonymous ok, send your email addr as the password >Password: >230-Welcome to Mike's PCjr running the mTCP FTP server! This machine >230-was released by IBM in 1983 and features a 4.77Mhz Nec V20 CPU (an >230-upgrade from the standard 8088), an XT-IDE modified for the PCjr, a >230-Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card, and a 20GB Maxtor hard drive. >230-It is running DOS 3.3 so most of the hard drive is not being used. >230-Please poke around, test things out, report any problems you might >230-have, and enjoy! Incoming files may be deposited at /incoming, and >230-you can create subdirectories there if needed. -Mike >230 User logged in >ftp> put alex_was_here >local: alex_was_here remote: alex_was_here >227 Entering Passive Mode (96,42,66,188,11,76) >550 You need to be in the /INCOMING directory to upload >ftp> cd incoming >250 CWD command successful >ftp> put alex_was_here >local: alex_was_here remote: alex_was_here >227 Entering Passive Mode (96,42,66,188,8,221) >550 Bad path >ftp> dir >425 Transfer already in progress >Passive mode refused. >ftp> ls >425 Transfer already in progress >Passive mode refused. >ftp> bye >221 Server closing connection > >Hope this helps >-- >Tactical Nuclear Kittens > > > >-- >All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a >definitive record of customers, application performance, security >threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes >sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. >http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 >___ >Freedos-user mailing list >Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Dillo, interesting...
It is interesting that Arachne isn't the only option anymore, but Dillo is still pretty austere. On the other hand, DOS isn't security friendly so supporting an advanced web browser probably doesn't make sense anyways. With no sand boxing because there is no user concept, DOS and networking is a pretty risky combination. I suppose DOS running under DOSBOX or a virtual PC is a sandbox though. I suppose Syllable makes a lot of sense with DOSBOX installed if you need to run DOS programs sometimes and go browse the web at other times. As for other news, how is Freedos 1.1 coming along? -- All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] AST driver problem...
There has been quite a bit of talk about AST hardware needing special drivers even under DOS. Well, if the company won't put the drivers in the public domain and there aren't very many AST computers in the world, the logical thing to do is recycle the ones that are left and replace them. Am I missing something? Are AST computers superior to normal PC compatibles? In general, can free dos drivers be developed for hardware that is otherwise unusable? For example, the sound blaster 16 pci card doesn't work apparently without expanded memory in dos and the driver has to be in a Windows 98 tree. Rather weird if you ask me. More to the point, you can't play Ultima 7 even under MS-DOS 6.20 because the game is not compatible with protected mode environments. Oops! There is Exult, but I find that it is somewhat unstable on top of 98SE. I haven't used it in a current Fedora system. Free operating systems whether we are discussing Freedos, Minix, or Linux have problems with certain hardware. In the Linux world unfortunately, drivers for modern graphics cards that work are hard to come by. In a Freedos environment, modern graphics card came after DOS lost most of it's popularity. On modern systems, one can use an emulated dos environment to create the appearance of a legacy PC, but what if you don't want to emulate? What if you are after real time computing and need to use the full capability of a modern graphics card? I can't think of a good example, but I'm sure one exists. Maybe Freedos isn't the best get the maximum out of a modern computer in real time OS. Dos was originally developed before the modern computers of today existed. Minix may be a better choice. I'm sure there are other real time OS'es available beyond Minix and Freedos. A few questions and points to take away: 1) Why should the open source community support rare hardware? 2) Can the open source community support rare or even cutting edge hardware? 3) What is it about DOS environments that draws people to them instead of Linux, Minix, etcetera environments? There is talk of not letting copyrighted software that the producers don't care about get lost. I think supporting software that is unpopular or not well documented inside and out in the public domain is a mistake. Freedos exists because DOS is well defined in the public domain and there are talented people who took that information implementing what we have today. Think about where the open source community focuses resources and why. One of the weaknesses of a real time OS is that it probably won't protect against bad programming in the interest of speed. Another issue, spaghetti code is more likely which is harder to maintain than object oriented code. Whether a true real time environment is necessary for a particular task has to be weighed against the disadvantages. Computers are so fast now that an OS which allows one to write maintainable code at the expense of some speed loss probably makes more sense than an OS which will run a program as fast as possible at the expense of the code being harder to maintain. Harder to maintain code is more likely to have serious bugs which is counterproductive when time performance is critical. There is probably a sweet spot between real time and general purpose that is appropriate for most applications. As a thought experiment, how do you design a real time kernel so that you can say this operation has to complete in x time and it will? -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1...
How soon will the official release be? :-) -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos and graphical user interfaces...
The problems encountered strapping a GUI onto a DOS system are similar to the problems that were encountered when object orientation and classes were added to C to create C++. C++ is really a hybrid language, neither a strictly procedural nor a strictly object oriented language. Any GUI strapped onto a DOS environment will seemingly make it a hybrid. All dos environments share the following problem: Multiple users requires permissions on individual files and resources to keep users from walking all over each other, if such a thing is wanted. DOS environments only have a superuser. So, DOS environments are single user environments. Change DOS so that there are permissions on files, FAT filesystems present a real problem since they predate permissions on files. Many programs that expect uninhibited access to everything and anything won't work. The best you can do is run Linux or something even more secure underneath DOS via DOSBox. Each user has his/her own DOS system. Nowadays with companies greedily protecting their intellectual property, can you access hardware directly if you don't know what's there? Can you use a software library to access that hardware via a well known interface from your favorite OS? Does it ever make sense these days to have direct hardware access without the user abstraction? If DOS itself is in ROM and you are building a kiosk... maybe then if you can directly access the hardware DOS does make sense. Even a GUI on a DOS kiosk might make sense. What doesn't make sense is a DOS system that is supposed to be usable by multiple strangers where the system is not in a ROM but on a writable hard disk. Insofar as a graphical user interface can limit what can be done and make it easier to do what is intended, such an interface will make sense. So a version of DOS with no command line per se outfitted with a GUI could make a nice kiosk system. But if direct hardware access is improbable or software library access of hardware is impossible outside of say Windows 7, you are in trouble even if the target system is a Linux system. -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos and graphical user interfaces...
A kiosk is a multiple user system, but not necessarily a simultaneously multiple user system. So DOS will work most likely. Chances are though, the DOS system files and tools themselves need to be on read only memory if there is any possibility of a person being at a command line and making a mistake or doing something malicious. DOS used in a kiosk breaks down if there is any persistent data tied to a particular person that needs to be saved on the kiosk, but often that isn't what you actually want. A large ROM and a lot of ram placing data on a ram drive is an option. Hit the reset button, the data is gone. Freedos in particular boots up quickly, so users can hit the reset button and the next person will be able to use the system shortly. Dos is simple compared to Linux, less to go wrong and troubleshoot. Dos supports some software that no other environment supports. Dos with local only area networking on a kiosk may be connected to a true multiuser multitasking OS so that individual user data can be saved securely. A kiosk in essence should be just a terminal to a more advanced server. The advantage of a true single user fast booting OS is that you can hit the reset button and you won't damage it. Don't hit the reset button on a Linux system, it may not boot again. > Why are you assuming said DOS system will be accessed by multiple > strangers? For things like FreeDOS, there will be a single user who > installs it in the first place and runs it after it is. While it's > theoretically possible to set up DOS in a VM so that different users > have different DOS systems, t's far more bother than it's worth. > > If I am setting up a kiosk, DOS is *not* what I'll use. -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.1 released
First off, I don't appreciate anyone calling anyone an idiot on this
email list. Second, I haven't experimented with Freedos 1.1 myself, but
I hope any difficulty others have working with it is dealt with both
patiently and professionally. Myself, I'm waiting for the 1.2 release.
> >Problems:
> >
> >- What's the purpose of the menu item "Pasquale" (see top shot) ?
>
> Are you such an idiot or are you just trying to play the troll here?
>
> It should be obvious to almost everyone that this is not an active
> menu item but as it clearly says, it indicates that this release is
> dedicated to Pat ("Pasquale") Villani, who wrote the initial FreeDOS
> kernel and who passed away last year.
> Why the f*** don't you complain about the "FreeDOS is a trademark by
> Jim Hall" menu item as well? ...
>
> >- CWSDPMI, VSM, DOSNTLFN, ... are in
> >- INFOPAD, 7-ZIP, UNTGZ, HX/HDPMI32, MPXPLAY, FASM, CC386, FREEBASIC,
> >ARACHNE, ... are NOT in ... what can you do with it when installed ?
>
> How about installing whatever software you like to run?...
>
> Ralf
>
>
> --
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[Freedos-user] SB16 PCI not working...
It has to be installed using Windows 98SE, but once that's done one can grab the dos files for freedos. At least that used to be the way it was until I upgraded to Freedos 1.1. Something about not able to allocate below the 4 megabyte barrier when sbinit.com runs. I'm using Jemm386. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS and timing...
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. Modern multi core processors can do real multitasking and don't have to simulate process concurrency. In DOS environments, there is no multi tasking, so it doesn't make sense to time programs beyond looking at whether the program's time complexity is roughly exponential or not. Is the solution to the problem a polynomial time solution or worse? If you need an idea real time of how your program is using the system's resources, you need UNIX, MACOSX, Windows, or some other modern OS. I guess there is nothing stopping you from writing multitasking into your DOS based application, think Windows 3.11. If you go to the trouble though of recognizing multiple processes and task switching, chances are good that you'll want to protect user A's processes from meddling by user B. DOS is a lightweight OS because unlike UNIX and Windows NT it doesn't attempt to block direct hardware access let alone provide abstractions for hardware. DOS is lightweight, but DOS applications are hard to maintain. Actually, hard drives and video devices are abstracted in DOS. As hard drives and video devices change, DOS has to change too. VESA is a standard, but is it updated? How about the BIOS which is changing now? There is talk of having to have a special bios and a boot sector signature to run Windows NT, how will that affect Freedos and Linux going forward? Printers and mice for example have changed over time where interfaces have changed beyond just the hard drive interface. Think universal serial bus, a replacement for serial ports, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. For commercial DOS programs you are very unlikely to be able to use a USB printer with them. USB gamepads and joysticks? Not likely with games themselves having to support the hardware directly. USB video cameras? Again, not likely. DOS environments as far as I know don't even protect against processes accessing memory that doesn't belong to them. DOS originally was QDOS which stood for quick and dirty operating system. No protection means you can write fast programs and not worry about the overhead of protection, but you can't preempt processes to multitask without protection. Aside from simple applications which have to run fast, does Freedos make any sense? Emulated hardware running Freedos or DOSBox make a lot of sense so long as the DOS application of choice doesn't tax a modern computer. Knowing how long a program will take to execute is often important, but Freedos isn't the best environment for real time or otherwise time critical apps. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement
On Wed, 2012-03-28 at 23:27 +, Zbigniew wrote: > 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. WARNING, you can't write a program that takes another arbitrary program as input and tells you whether or not it halts. This is called the halting problem. As far as loop troubleshooting, you may want to use another OS and a debugger to write your program. If the language is truly portable, you should be able to take your debugged program and compile or interpret it in Freedos. Since Freedos probably doesn't protect memory, programming in an environment that does is most likely a good idea. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 install errors...
There is a syntax error message that flashes before the where to install freedos to and from menu comes up. Another problem, install freezes at installing command.com. Uge! -- Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second resolution app monitoring today. Free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Windows 3.11 and Windows 9x seem to be the closest thing to a 32 bit DOS environment that I know of. I agree that creating a "32 bit dos" would be awkward. Heck, 20 bit memory addressing is awkward, isn't it? If you need to run dos games or want to run a Wordprocessor like Wordperfect on an old computer that can't run Linux, Freedos 1.1 debugged makes a lot of sense. As far as 32 bit Dos or a Windows 95/98/98SE/Me clone, I guess that is too much work and that it really doesn't make sense. Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that matter, how hard would it be to make a Windows like graphical user interface that can run Windows 3.1 software? What might make sense is being able to dedicate one core in a multi core 64 bit computer to running freedos via say a hypervisor. A hypervisor is a simplified OS where it's sole purpose to exist is to create a virtual hardware environment for other OS'es. Dosbox seems to run on any modern computer at this point. Syllable is very interesting from the standpoint of being simple, but the project needs more help. I think the number one source of complexity today in operating systems is that companies which produce computer hardware are Microsoft Windows NT centric. In other words, they develop for a proprietary OS and keep their mouths shut about how their product is actually laid out. Linux gets a bad rap because many modern graphics cards don't work 100%, especially AMD video cards. If there was enough competition like there used to be and people were more aggressive about using open source OSes, companies wouldn't be able to survive keeping their mouths shut and focusing on NT only. AMD and NVIDIA do release Linux drivers, but they are always deficient which I think is on purpose. If you want to be able to run Windows software, help the ReactOS people. ReactOS has a long ways to go where I think significantly more help would improve the outlook of people who have been working on the project a long time and overall increase productivity. Testing ReactOS is helping. Say you reverse engineer a piece of modern ATI/AMD hardware that a lot of people have which doesn't even work well in Linux. Something I've been mulling over is putting together a company that only produces standards compliant computer hardware where the standards are open ones that are readily available to everyone. It would be a big jump though to go from a B.S. in computer science to a company producing computer hardware that is both cutting edge and OSS compatible. What would the business model for such a company be? -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Sound card drivers...
I have a dos driver for the Sound Blaster 16 PCI card, but not a Windows 3.1 driver. The patch for the SVGA256 driver to make it VESA compliant worked beautifully, thanks for the tip. I've been trying to play LodeRunner where it crashes on the bomb scene. Why does Jemmex give an error when I exit Windows 3.1? Is it reasonable to remove the lines that fire up smartdrive? -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Why DOS shouldn't be emulated...
There has been a fair amount of just run it under emulation being said. One of the advantages of DOS is that it isn't a modern operating system. An easy way to install Freedos safely to a desktop computer involves the following: 0) Back up all existing systems. 1) Disconnect all existing hard drives. 2) Buy a hard disk to put Freedos on, if you have room for another one and a place to plug in. 3) Install Freedos to the whole entire hard drive or however you want to install it, maybe you want to put Linux on there too ;-) 4) Hook all the drives back up. 5) Adjust your bios appropriately. 6) Use BootIT bare metal or grub or something similar to set up booting for all of your OSes. Now on a 64 bit computer, Freedos may have to be run under emulation. A variant of these instructions is to get a PIII or P4 32 bit computer and dedicate that to Freedos. The problem with emulation is that you are throwing the simplicity of DOS away and introducing compatibility issues. Emulation is getting better and if you are constantly rebooting between Freedos and Linux or Freedos and Windows, emulation may be a necessity. Still, a good KVM switch and a dedicated DOS computer also solves the reboot issue. Freedos will work fine on anything from an 8086 up to a Pentium 4. Don't underestimate the utility of dedicating a computer to DOS. A thought that comes to mind is that you don't want to worry about your kids who are interested in playing video games screwing up your computer. A dedicated DOS machine makes a lot of sense for that. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS based backup delivered via PXE...
I blew it, my Linux From Scratch system that I've been trying to tailor to run over NFS so I can use it for backup and restoration purposes no longer has /usr/bin or /usr/sbin. Are there any free dos based backup solutions that work over network? The obvious problem is network card and file system support. If I want to back up say a Syllable 0.6.7 system, I need Andrew File System support. I found on a web site the idea of using a diskless Linux system NFS root with dosemu and ghost installed. However, ghost isn't free and I don't think it can handle the Andrew file system for example. It is a lot of work to build Linux from scratch. Linux is a capable enough system to back up anything, especially if it is booted NFS root. This seems like overkill big time though. The annoying thing about mondo backup is that there are no instructions for installing the tools to a Linux From Scratch system. Oops! Seems like there should be a solution where freedos is PXE booted with a backup/restore program installed. If freedos supports network cards as well as Linux for free in the future, that will help considerably. The minimal Linux with dos running on top idea isn't a bad idea. In theory, the underlying Linux system can take care of the networking. File system support can still be a problem, but in theory, supporting Andrew file system in a dos environment should be easier than supporting the latest gigabit network card. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 20:47 -0800, Ralf A. Quint wrote: > At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: > >This may be a FAQ. > > > >I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it > >uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by > >later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program > >writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 > >partitions anymore. > > > >So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 > >or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 > >partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. > > Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running > Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and > not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS > file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write > access a bit of a gamble IMPE... > > Ralf Can you perhaps create a freedos boot disk? Should be an option if you have an install CD. What is the size of this program that needs a fat16 file system specifically? I think you can have up to a 504 meg partition and still use FAT16. Any chance you can shrink that NTFS partition by 500 megs and install Freedos to a second primary partition using ntfsresize or partition magic? Another approach is to use Linux via a live CD to back up Windows XP to an external hard drive. Set that back up aside, make the NTFS partition the first primary partition making freedos install on a second primary partition. Any decent live Linux CD can resize NTFS partitions to open up 500 megs of space. An easier approach is to add another hard drive and install freedos onto that. How old is your computer? Good luck. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Try gparted on a live CD.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php Based on Debian I believe, there is a download link you'll need to click to get the iso image. Deepburner is a free CD/DVD burning tool that works in Windows XP/2000. There is a way to create a virtual floppy disk under Linux and burn that to CD. I think mtools is what you want. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FLTK...
It is impressive, quite fast actually. Unfortunately, I tried to use it in VirtualBox only to have it choke when I attempted to enable networking. The Crynwr packet drivers are not very complete either. This gui seems well on track to replace the aging and proprietary Windows 3.1, especially if it supports the win32 api. It would be nice to be able to install fltk to a standard Freedos 1.1 system. Maybe there can be a freedos 1.1 update to being in fltk and some of the other 1.0 software that has been left out. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What about scsi???
I guess my Compaq 4.3 gig scsi hard drive is the part that doesn't work. I swapped in a Seagate Cheetah drive, works just fine without any kind of driver. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Windows 98SE screwing up Freedos 1.1...
First I installed Freedos 1.1 and used the 4x4 NEC cdrom, only the first slot seemed to work, to copy over the Windows 98SE cabinet files. I then proceeded to boot from the 98se cdrom and run setup from the directory with the cab files. Long story short, this screwed up the freedos installation. Is there a simple way to repair the freedos installation so that Windows and Freedos can happily coexist? Looks like freedos command.com got renamed to command.dos and I've already renamed autoexec.bat to fdauto.bat, but fdconfig.sys seems to be missing. One option is to use a program called fips, delete the freedos stuff, and install freedos to a second primary partition. This is somewhat of an extreme approach though. For the most part, I only want to run old games like Warcraft II where freedos + hxrt might do the trick, except that I'll need networking too. A working ReactOS would support these old games, but there hasn't been another release for months and I can't even get the latest trunk to build. Running an unlicensed copy of 98 is not the best idea where there's the issue of 98 having a lot of bugs and being out of support. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] freedos-98
On Thu, 2012-12-20 at 03:32 +, dos386 wrote: > > I'm not even sure there's a reason to have FreeDOS in the mix. > > Sure there is, especially if your 98 copy isn't legal. My copy is sort of legal, but I don't have as many licenses for it as I have computers running it. The computer I'm running Windows 98 on is under spec for emulation. It only has a K6-2 500 processor. So yes, if I can run hxrt on top of freedos and come up with some sort of packet driver for the PCI Realtek network card... that will be legal and I won't have to worry about how many computers I'm setting up to play Warcraft II. I am curious if you can run Warcraft II under Wine on more powerful computers and apply ipxwrapper to get around the no IPX problem? I've run Warcraft II via Wine, but I've never tried to play a network game with that kind of setup. A 98 clone or ReactOS stabilized is definitely needed for these old games. DOS is a good choice on aging computers where anything that operates at speeds below a gigaherz is an antique already, except for embedded processors. Actually, ReactOS used to an effort to clone Windows 95 until that was abandoned in favor of the NT architecture. Sadly, there probably isn't the interest to support cloning 98. I use Freedos for a lot of my old games, but 95/98 era games are not always compatible with plain old dos. I wonder if Freedos32 some day will have extensions to support old games designed for Windows 98? There was an effort to produce a free clone of Warcraft II called Freecraft, but that effort was squashed by Blizzard. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Windows 98SE and ipxwrapper...
Windows 98 sort of running on top of a DOS system doesn't work with ipxwrapper-0.4.0. There is an error that iplphapi.dll can't be found or something similar. Turns out, this DLL probably doesn't show up till Windows 2000. So the thought of using Windows 98 boxes and Windows 7 boxes together goes out the Window. A game that was originally run from the DOS command line if I'm not mistaken can't be run from Windows 98SE when Windows 7 is the master server. Yikes! Hmm, I guess I could run 2000 instead even though the computer is only a K6-2 500 and I'd probably have to search for SIS 530 W2K video drivers. Don't have a legal 2nd copy of 2000, but there doesn't seem to be a legal way to solve this. There are a lot of games that aren't DOS games and aren't NT games. Windows 98 in my opinion is a sort of aberration, Microsoft should have skipped Windows 9x in favor of bringing everyone into an NT environment sooner. I'm sure there is a dos driver for my Realtek 8139 10/100 network card. But ipxwrapper is intended for NT and HX probably won't run Warcraft II. I'd love something legal that isn't the full blown Windows 98SE to run games like Warcraft II and Diablo II that are in that transitional period. I just hope that the ReactOS developers get something stable put together soon. I have a Windows XP Home upgrade kit, it is in use though. I'm worried that XP won't even run on this old machine, but I guess stripped down I can get away with it. Sadly, XP phones home so Microsoft will know that I'm running it illegally. What is needed is a protected mode DOS like Windows 98SE, but much lighter, that can run directx 6 or so and do the ipxwrapper trick. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Made XP work okay...
I got my K6-2 500 with 504 megs of ram running XP SP3 well enough by turning off the swap file. Don't let XP swap, Warcraft II works fine. The scsi hard drive, despite being a Seagate Cheetah, really slows the system down. I don't let my Linux firewall allow this old machine to access the Net, so there are a LOT of protection programs I don't need to run. I don't need spywareblaster, clamwin, spybot search and destroy, crap cleaner, or Windows defender for starters. I'm not 100% confident in the method I used to bypass activation. Would Microsoft please distribute an activation crack and let people freely use 32 bit Windows XP at will? I've been studying Windows 7 verses Windows XP and honestly, it's a toss up. Both systems are bloated and complex. A ROM based dos system is more secure than even the typical Linux system and it's going to be light weight. That's not saying much though, I can't compare Apples to Oranges and be fair about it. The ipxwrapper hack seems to force one to use Windows NT 4.0 or newer. If only someone would port ipxwrapper to freedos and write a program to create a DOS executable out of a Win32 app like Warcraft II BNE. Add network card support for many of the current network cards and on mobo nics to that, there is suddenly no reason why Warcraft II can't be played on old computers using a: free, lean, and nice operating system. Warcraft II and Freedos's memory footprint is small enough, even if the necessary WIN32 support is added most likely, that one should be able to run the game using freedos in way under 100 megs. Note that most network cards built into motherboards and many PCI network cards are currently not supported in DOS and one has to take care of that somehow. I think that running Warcraft II Battle.Net edition on a freedos system is possible, but there are a lot of pieces to pull together and Blizzard probably won't offer to help. Come on Blizzard, these games are not earning you revenue anymore and they are very popular. It annoys people when a company crushes efforts to create open source clones of it's popular software and this can incite boycotts. I am a legal owner of Warcraft II BNE, two copies actually. I should be able to play Warcraft II on systems that are current and supported as well as open. I'm sure ReactOS will work just fine on old hardware if it is stabilized, but it isn't stable right now and the developers have not released since October or longer. The only way to get free Windows NT it seems is to support the ReactOS project. Sadly, I can't. Even if they make their fundraising goals and can hire competent programmers to help move the project along faster, there is no telling when stability will be achieved. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Long-term survival of FreeDOS
Dos makes sense for 8/16 bit computers that can't handle multitasking very well. There are plenty of 8/16 bit computers around still, think e-readers probably and other embedded devices that don't need the higher functionality a 32/64 bit machine/multi core machine offers. Dos was a quick and dirty operating system that was needed when personal computers were far less powerful and something cheap was needed now. Nowadays, except for special purpose/embedded devices, DOS doesn't make much sense. As we move away from the original BIOS model, I hope dosbox gets updated sufficiently. There is real time Linux, I don't know much about it though. About the time that Windows 95 came out, DOS lost official support. Microsoft should have gone straight to NT, but Microsoft didn't. Windows 9x is a nasty quasi dos/partial implementation of Win32. It isn't DOS and it isn't NT. Unless your computer is a 16 bit 286 or older machine, Linux will run on it. A 386 won't run a modern Linux distribution most likely and it definitely won't run Firefox, but chances are good that it will run Freedos directly or a pared down Linux system with dosbox. The 90's were a sad period for diversity of general purpose computers and DOS as well. The Tandy Color Computer III for example disappeared in the early 90's and the Commodore seems to have gone away as well. The DEC Alpha basically failed on the market about 1998 or so. Sun Microsystems is no more and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Sun stations are no more. General purpose computer diversity has diminished, but cell phones and tablets vary widely at least as far as hardware and software. Hopefully, Microsoft's attempt to dominate tablets won't lead to another period of Monopolization. I blame the consumer for the Microsoft domination and the decline of all of the competitors except Apple. Apple being 50% owned by Microsoft isn't much of an alternative though. As long as there are old computers, special purpose computers doing real time work, and modern computers that can emulate older ones Freedos should have a future. Freedos without Win32 though leaves out a lot of software that has kinda fallen through the cracks as some of this stuff doesn't even work in NT. I think ReactOS which is based on NT is the better way to address that than adding a Windows 9x compatible gui to Freedos. I question the wisdom of maintaining Freedos long term. Sooner or later, people will have to emulate for Freedos anyways which means that they will have to deal with a modern operating system and modern hardware. What will be needed going forward is capable software that works on other systems. If you like Lotus 123 for example, you might like LibreOffice or GNU cash. Syllable may take off and will likely support software programs that are unique to it. Trying to address the need for a system compatible to one that was popular in the past is a difficult proposition, and there may be little interest if the public as a whole is enamored with newer computers that can do more. The wisest thing to do perhaps is to help projects like Syllable and ReactOS and pressure legislators to crack down on Microsoft's strangle hold on the software market. Freedos is in pretty good shape where the developers can probably do more good by working on other systems that are positioned to take better advantage of modern hardware. On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 20:57 -0500, dmccunney wrote: > On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Jim Lemon wrote: > > > If there was a Linux kernel in which the user could turn off everything that > > isn't in DOS, that would be a way out. > > If you could turn off everything that *isn't* in DOS, you might have > fun running the Linux kernel. You run DOS in an emulator on top of > Linux because you can't *get* DOS to run native on that hardware. > Drivers are needed that don't exist. > > What you probably want is a flavor of Linux modified for use in an > RTOS, where a user process can preempt the kernel itself. > > But on modern hardware, "other time-critical programs that will carve > out slices of CPU time" are likely a "Who cares?" issue. Commonly > used hardware is orders of magnitude faster than the machines DOS was > made to run on, and there are cases like games where you might > specifically *want* to steal CPU slices, because otherwise your game > runs *too* fast and is unplayable. . > > __ > Dennis > https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519 > > -- > Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, > MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current > with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft > MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at: > http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122712 > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos V2.0 - when will it be available?
On Tue, 2013-01-08 at 18:46 +0100, Bernd Blaauw wrote: > Op 8-1-2013 15:38, KOS schreef: > > Hello there, do you know when V2.0 of freedos will be available? > > > > I'm not sure there's going to be a V2.0 sometime soon, be there FreeDOS > roadmaps or not. I'm still quitely working on version 1.2 of the FreeDOS > distribution whenever I find spare time. > > Is there anything that you need but find lacking sofar in the 1.0 and > 1.1 releases? Or for that matter in the core components like the kernel > and shell? > > Bernd There are some programs that require Windows 3.1 or 3.11 which can run on top of Freedos, but more work on compatibility would not hurt. ReactOS may fill the niche of Windows replacement eventually, but not for a while most likely. Worse, for Windows programs that expect there to be dos underneath, enough said. A protected mode dos like the one under Windows 9x and Windows ME could be interesting and would justifiably deserve a different name like Freedos-32. The problem with a dos environment is that there isn't an operating system taking care of all the hardware and providing standard calls to use it. Most sound card support involved adding to your program in most likely a spaghetti fashion calls to a third party driver, closed source of course. Windows 98 may have had multitasking, but if that is true, it was more than just a single thread dos system. Gates made some very bad assumptions that crippled dos back in the day. Assumption one, nobody will ever need more than 640k of memory for executable programs and drivers... I imagine that other bad assumptions were made as well. Actually, there is OS/2 which was supposed to be the competitor to Windows 9x and I'll bet that IBM is willing to release source code to it. Maybe the freedos community should get it's hands on OS/2 and develop it further. Aside from taking bugs out of Freedos 1.1, I don't see any major changes that should be made. Implementation of a Windows 9x clone is going to be too much work where there is the ReactOS project that gave up on trying to do that years ago. I'm confident that ReactOS will work better on old computers than XP does. Granted, ReactOS is at a very early alpha stage where it is somewhat futile to predict what the resource requirements will be when it stabilizes. I like FLTK, I like opengem, I like some of the graphical user interfaces I have seen that are free. Problem though, graphical user interfaces on top of dos are an afterthought even today. There was no planning when dos was initially invented that I know of for guis. There are plenty of MS Dos programs that aren't Windows compatible, because a Windows compatible programming method wasn't employed. What I'd like to see at this point is a focus on debugging and a focus on deploying Freedos via a rom chip. It should be possible to get write once 1 meg+ memory chips now. Why not install the freedos kernel, command.com, etcetera on such a chip? If you can't overwrite the operating system executable, security is enormously improved. For low power embedded processors that are say only 8 bit, freedos may be very useful. A hypervisor that can run dosbox and make modern hardware work with old dos programs anyone? How about dosbox running on a Pentium 133 or a Pentium 166 machine with 16 megs of ram? -- Master Java SE, Java EE, Eclipse, Spring, Hibernate, JavaScript, jQuery and much more. Keep your Java skills current with LearnJavaNow - 200+ hours of step-by-step video tutorials by Java experts. SALE $49.99 this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122612 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos V2.0 - when will it be available?
> Most embedded processors (that are still actively produced) are > 32-bit. Anyways, I don't think FreeDOS qualifies, at least not for > 8-bit (AVR??) ones. PIC16F505, PIC16F1938... these are microchip baseline 8 bit microprocessors intended for embedded use. Yes microchip offers 32 bit processors, but one often doesn't need them unless USB or ethernet is required for the application at hand. It would be interesting to port Freedos to something other than the ia32 architecture. -- Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122712 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Active GUI development?
On Mon, 2013-04-15 at 19:57 -0700, turtleman wrote: > Hello, I am new to freeDOS, but I find the project very interesting. However, > upon doing research of DOS applications I found that there are almost no > desktop GUIs being developed. It appears that freeDOS supports openGEM, but > even that hasn't been updated in a couple years, and even the most recent > update looks more limited than some of the other GUI's I found during my > research, for example Seal 2. Should I not get my hopes up regarding GUI > development for DOS? How about FLTK? When you talk about GUI development for DOS, what are you hoping for? Graphical user interfaces tend to require more processor resources then text based interfaces where dos is liked for being close to the hardware, lightweight, and fast. A consideration, abstractions that make graphical user interfaces appealing to programmers tend to have high overhead. Graphical user interfaces in general are not particularly a dos thing. Chances are good if you want a gui that you want to run software that can take advantage of one as well. A modern web browser perhaps? Trouble is, any version of Firefox past version 2 roughly isn't going to work in a dos environment with a gui running on top. I installed Firefox 2.0.0.20 in Windows 98 SE which is Microsoft's last major GUI on top of dos. If you are not the only person who uses your computer, dos is not going to be a good choice for a primary operating system. If software that requires utilization of multiple processing cores is needed, dos is definitely not an option. Id steer you towards ReactOS, but ReactOS isn't anywhere near feature complete let alone stable. So for now if a gui is an absolute must have, give Fedora 18 Linux Gnome 3 or Fluxbox spin a try. Ubuntu may seem more popular than Fedora, but IMHO you will be less frustrated by and more impressed with Fedora. If your computer is at least comparable to an Intel Pentium 4, Linux is probably the best place to be right now. X is nice, but there is also Syllable and Visopsys. Syllable and Visopsys like ReactOS unfortunately really aren't ready for prime time. As computers with features that dos isn't positioned to take advantage of become more common, dos development is going to become less popular. I'll be surprised if GUIs that are comparable to Windows 3.11 let alone Windows 98SE get developed for freedos. Should freedos development focus on attracting developers of new software applications? Maybe not, maybe Syllable, Linux, and Visopsys are better platforms for new software applications. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Think I have a hardware mess...
I have a Pentium III 750, 768 megs of ram, and a soundblaster 16 PCI card. Turns out, that sound card was causing a crash, a 0D exception. I got around that by adding the SB option to the jemm386.exe line. Well, trying to add msclient as it seems to be the only way to go for a national semiconductor DP83815 network card. Goal has been to run fdnpkg to update my freedos 1.1 system. Apparently, the only choice is to have crynwr working, but that requires that I use a different nic. The msclient 3.0 dos software is a horrible memory hog. As soon as I do a ping www.yahoo.com, I get a different crash and it is a hard crash involving again jemm386. Are there special flags that are needed on jemm or himemx? Has anyone gotten Microsoft Client to work with a Netgear FA311 card and a soundblaster 16 PCI card? Though I'm not trying to support it in Freedos, I should mention that there is a Hauppage PCI PVR 150 card that I use in Windows 2000 so I can run my Playstation II on the same monitor that the computer uses. -- October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60135991&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] running windows 3.1
On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 10:40 -0500, James Crawford wrote: > Hey Guys, > > > > I have a Pentium 3 running Freedos alone. I tried to load Win 3.1 and > got the error : Win 3.1 will not run in protected mode. I understand > that the command.com runs in protected mode. Do I have to change this > permanently to run Windows. How do I get Windows to work? > > > > Thanks! > > > > Jim Crawford I have Windows 3.1 working on a Pentium 3 running freedos 1.1. I think I'm using Jemmex for the memory manager and I believe I'm running it in 386 enhanced mode. That said, I get a memory manager crash when I exit Windows 3.1 and I notice that Loderunner for whatever reason crashes before I reach the first level with bombs. Too bad I can't get sound in Windows 3.1. I have a Soundblaster 16, but it's the PCI version that only comes with an expanded memory dos driver, a Windows 9x driver, and XP drivers. I wish there was a 100% compatible replacement for Windows 3.1 that is free. There is a lot of software that requires Windows 3.1. ReactOS is an attempt to clone Windows NT and support Windows software designed for at least Windows XP. Developers are trying to crank out a 0.4 release, the last release was 0.3.15 back in September. See http://www.reactos.org. I wonder if someone could debug what is causing Windows 3.1 running on freedos to crash and develop workarounds? In other news, ReactOS is gaining an emulated dos environment of it's own. Very recent development, so don't expect the environment to be stable. -- Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] VirtualBox and FTP
David Dunfield has a utility called DHCP that will work with both mTCP and WATTCP. I've not tried it, but David is well known in vintage-computer circles and his software is supposed to be pretty good. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/dos/index.htm Mike -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] VirtualBox and FTP
It pains me to see this much effort going into what should be a small utility that takes the relevant mTCP obtained network parameters and writes them into the WATTCP file. There are 15 invocations of the mt.exe program in that script. I suggest that somebody write a small program that takes the current configuration parameters from the mTCP configuration file and updates a WATTCP configuration file. It should not be a terribly complicated program - you just have to do some light string processing. Then one would be able to run the mTCP DHCP program, run the utility, and have both mTCP and WATTCP apps configured and ready to go. As an alternative you can contact David Dunfield and see if he would license his code in a way that FreeDOS could use it. Or just simply use it, but don't distribute it with FreeDOS. (A readme file or the wiki can point to it as a useful utility no matter what the license is, or if source is not even available.) Mike -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] VirtualBox and FTP
On 8/31/2014 1:36 PM, Rugxulo wrote: > Hi, > > On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 10:10 PM, Michael Brutman > wrote: >> It pains me to see this much effort going into what should be a small >> utility that takes the relevant mTCP obtained network parameters and >> writes them into the WATTCP file. There are 15 invocations of the >> mt.exe program in that script. > I agree it could maybe be more optimal, but as long as it works, it's > no deal breaker. Just calling it 15 times isn't really a direct > problem, nor necessarily slow either. Sure. My 4.77Mhz floppy based systems are going to do well with this. Let's not speculate. There are lots of different use cases out there. Loading and executing a program 15 times to do some simple string manipulation is slow and painful on a low end system. You would do faster to type it in by hand using edlin. Even on a fast system it is still much slower than it should be. Cordata's program seems reasonable. I would get rid of the multiple printfs at the end and just use a large block quote. Somebody who uses WATTCP might want to step up, test it, and see if there are any bugs. Mike -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
