Re: [fpc-other] you may say I'm a dreamer... :)

2018-09-28 Thread Travis Siegel
Dos screen readers have done screen scraping for years, it'd be easy 
enough to pull the required information from the screen buffer, (which 
is how most dos screen readers handle things), then you could easily get 
any information you eeded from the dos application.  Of course, it 
would't hurt to monitor normal i/o routines as well, to ensure you have 
all information available, (again, something most dos screen readers 
do), but with a combination of watching io ports, and video memory 
watching, it's a trivial matter to get all the available information 
from any dos screen.  There are one or two dos screen readers available 
with source, (provox is one I've used quite extensively) where you could 
remove the speech output routines, and simply use it for the i/o 
monitoring, and obtain the required results.



On 9/23/2018 5:08 AM, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:

On 23/09/18 08:15, Paul Breneman wrote:
On 09/21/2018 05:07 PM, duilio foschi wrote:> I dream of a automated 
virtual machine that can run in a software> bubble, as possible with 
Vmware Workstation, VIrtualbox and other> products.> > However in my 
dream this bubble should take keyboard commands from a> windows 
application external to the bubble, and this application> should be 
able to do screen scraping from the bubble screen (virtual> and 
invisible from the PC screen).> > In this way, one would be able to 
use algorithms existing in old EXE> applications inside his own 
modern application without writing any> code.> > Or one would be 
finally able to send a whatsapp message from his own> application.> > 
Has this automated virtual machine ever been implemented ?> > Thank 
you> > Peppe Polpo
I'm not sure I understand much about your concept.  Have you taken a 
look at Levinux?  Comments appreciated!


I see what he's getting at, and it's something I've considered in the 
context of calling (a DLL associated with) a development tool in the 
past (specifically, the compiler for the Propeller chip).


I accidentally hit the wrong button a couple of days ago and mailed 
him directly, but for the record in case my thoughts are useful to 
anybody:


"You can certainly run text-based programs in DOSemu or Bochs under 
Linux. If the guest program communicated solely by stdin and stdout 
then communications should be easy enough to manage.


"If the guest used scancodes for input (i.e. "PC-DOS" rather than 
"MS-DOS" programming techniques), it's still probably not too bad. If 
it wrote to arbitrary locations on the screen... that would be a real 
problem, I've previously looked at scraping arbitrary fields from 
(Minitel) terminal output and it was a pain.


"In any case, as well as the communications aspect the host would 
probably need some sort of scripting to drive the guest program in a 
closed loop (i.e. /this/ is collected from the screen and /that/ is 
sent to the keyboard), as well as to e.g. send a WhatsApp message."


He assures me that he doesn't have money to put on the table :-)




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Re: [fpc-other] you may say I'm a dreamer... :)

2018-09-23 Thread Mark Morgan Lloyd

On 23/09/18 08:15, Paul Breneman wrote:
On 09/21/2018 05:07 PM, duilio foschi wrote:> I dream of a automated 
virtual machine that can run in a software> bubble, as possible with 
Vmware Workstation, VIrtualbox and other> products.> > However in my 
dream this bubble should take keyboard commands from a> windows 
application external to the bubble, and this application> should be able 
to do screen scraping from the bubble screen (virtual> and invisible 
from the PC screen).> > In this way, one would be able to use algorithms 
existing in old EXE> applications inside his own modern application 
without writing any> code.> > Or one would be finally able to send a 
whatsapp message from his own> application.> > Has this automated 
virtual machine ever been implemented ?> > Thank you> > Peppe Polpo
I'm not sure I understand much about your concept.  Have you taken a 
look at Levinux?  Comments appreciated!


I see what he's getting at, and it's something I've considered in the 
context of calling (a DLL associated with) a development tool in the 
past (specifically, the compiler for the Propeller chip).


I accidentally hit the wrong button a couple of days ago and mailed him 
directly, but for the record in case my thoughts are useful to anybody:


"You can certainly run text-based programs in DOSemu or Bochs under 
Linux. If the guest program communicated solely by stdin and stdout then 
communications should be easy enough to manage.


"If the guest used scancodes for input (i.e. "PC-DOS" rather than 
"MS-DOS" programming techniques), it's still probably not too bad. If it 
wrote to arbitrary locations on the screen... that would be a real 
problem, I've previously looked at scraping arbitrary fields from 
(Minitel) terminal output and it was a pain.


"In any case, as well as the communications aspect the host would 
probably need some sort of scripting to drive the guest program in a 
closed loop (i.e. /this/ is collected from the screen and /that/ is sent 
to the keyboard), as well as to e.g. send a WhatsApp message."


He assures me that he doesn't have money to put on the table :-)

--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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Re: [fpc-other] you may say I'm a dreamer... :)

2018-09-23 Thread Paul Breneman

On 09/21/2018 05:07 PM, duilio foschi wrote:

I dream of a automated virtual machine that can run in a software
bubble, as possible with Vmware Workstation, VIrtualbox and other
products.

However in my dream this bubble should take keyboard commands from a
windows application external to the bubble, and this application
should be able to do screen scraping from the bubble screen (virtual
and invisible from the PC screen).

In this way, one would be able to use algorithms existing in old EXE
applications inside his own modern application without writing any
code.

Or one would be finally able to send a whatsapp message from his own
application.

Has this automated virtual machine ever been implemented ?

Thank you

Peppe Polpo


I'm not sure I understand much about your concept.  Have you taken a 
look at Levinux?  Comments appreciated!


http://wiki.freepascal.org/Small_Virtual_Machines#Levinux_virtual_machine
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[fpc-other] you may say I'm a dreamer... :)

2018-09-21 Thread duilio foschi
I dream of a automated virtual machine that can run in a software
bubble, as possible with Vmware Workstation, VIrtualbox and other
products.

However in my dream this bubble should take keyboard commands from a
windows application external to the bubble, and this application
should be able to do screen scraping from the bubble screen (virtual
and invisible from the PC screen).

In this way, one would be able to use algorithms existing in old EXE
applications inside his own modern application without writing any
code.

Or one would be finally able to send a whatsapp message from his own
application.

Has this automated virtual machine ever been implemented ?

Thank you

Peppe Polpo
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