Hi, I randomly stumbled upon your video yesterday:
https://youtu.be/zGmCVeAKR4w So here's some remarks (since I dislike comments on YouTube). BTW, before I forget, let me reiterate that I still think that DOSBox is "probably" better for gaming on modern (e.g. SB-incompatible) hardware. Even DOSEMU might work better for some games. 1). "xyz game worked fine" ... Okay, but it would be nice to know what worked with what (e.g. sfx/music with SB driver on SB16). Maybe device model and serial number is too much, but some minor details would be better than just assuming it universally works for all hardware. (Sound support in DOS is very fractured and harder to get working than a generic graphics card.) EDIT: Watching again, you did mention your machine specs at 4:37. 2). Glad the "legacy" version instead worked for one of your older machines. Thanks to Jerome for that! 3). "Wing Commander: Privateer crashed with JEMM386" ... In fairness, I would suggest not ever loading EMM386 at all these days unless you're sure you need EMS (which most software doesn't anymore). Even then, if all you need is EMS and not UMBs, you can just "JEMM386 LOAD" (and "UNLOAD" later) manually, when needed, without having to reboot. Or use something like (third-party) EMS Magic TSR instead. 4). "FreeDOS doesn't work with SoftMPU" ... AFAIK, this is due to a MS-specific feature in their EMM386. I think he halfway considered working on the FD equivalent later on but gave up for whatever reason. Not sure of the details, but I think I read about it on the DOSBox forum. 5). "Shipping old 2013 version of UDVD2 is bad because it's worse for CD digital audio" ... That wasn't my decision, and I'm not entirely sure why that old one in particular was used by default, but overall, UIDE (etc.) is considered unsupported (re: FreeDOS) and deprecated by us, hence it's not considered wise to recommend it. (The former developer has engendered an unusually antagonistic view of FreeDOS, so that doesn't help.) And most DOS users aren't gamers and thus don't direly need CD access (just use Linux). 6). "Buggy drivers, too much mucking around, scaring off retro users" ... It's not intentional, but it's mostly unavoidable. If they want a super simple experience, they should get their games from GOG.com or just download and use DOSBox (or derivative) explicitly. That is more user-friendly than real DOS, which was probably never "user-friendly" to literally anyone. If you don't like fiddling with settings, then DOS isn't for you. This wouldn't be so hard if vendors actually still supported DOS (or explicitly tested, like you're doing) or at least had good instructions. There's too much IBM PC (clone) hardware (1981-1994) to be 100% compatible with everything, especially with hardware-sensitive software like games. 7). "Can't purchase MS-DOS anymore" ... Not quite true. You can still buy MS-DOS 6.x from MSDN Subscriber Downloads. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/hh442898.aspx#searchTerm=&ProductFamilyId=155&Languages=en&PageSize=10&PageIndex=0&FileId=0 You can also find a limited boot disk in (e.g. Win7) Explorer (format system floppy), which is (optionally) used by (third-party) RUFUS. However, it has no SYS, so you can't really "install" it (but actually FD SYS may? allow it, feel free to read the docs and test!). Although obviously RUFUS will install it to USB. Also, allegedly Win10 doesn't come with that image anymore either. So while it's easy to champion MS-DOS, half the point of FreeDOS is that it's (roughly) both free and open, thus easy to use, study, redistribute, modify, etc. If MS-DOS goes away, we still have FreeDOS. Not 100% perfect, but close enough, far better than nothing. Just to be complete, although I almost hate to mention it, you can still buy at least two other major DOSes online, if you just can't live with these options. Those are Datalight ROM-DOS 7 and DR-DOS 7.03. No idea if they are good (or "better") for gaming, but if you just had to get "some" variant of DOS, there you go. Thus, there's no huge need (AFAIK) to worry about scarcity or legalities (although that always depends on your country of residence). Not sure about EDR-DOS (minimal install, minor enhancements, non-commercial use only), the website there is down (AFAIK). EDIT: The WayBack Archive seems to have it. So yeah, I just felt the need to weakly try to clarify some things. I admit that everything isn't perfect, but it's quite good for what it does. It took a lot of effort to get this far. Time isn't infinite, and new developments aren't either. Anyways, thanks for your review. On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 8:45 PM, Philip Hoefer <philscomputer...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Excited about the new version and have begun working on a YouTube review for > version 1.2. I focus on games, so that's what I test. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
