Re: [Freedos-user] FDI Preview 15, update 2

[Don Flowers]

What QEMU version are you using?
2.5.0 for me (I'm on Xubuntu 16.04).

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Apr 4, 2016, at 6:13 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I have tested under QEMU on Linux and have detected the issue and its
> cause.
> >>
> >> It appears to be that SHSURDRV is locking up the system in DOSBox and
> QEMU.
> >> It does not seem to have this issue on the native hardware I’ve tested.
> >
> > Are you sure?
>
> Fairly sure. I noticed that it was the problem under DOSBox. So, I added a
> DOSBox
> detector to V8Power Tools and skip it inside DOSBox. After hearing of the
> issue,
> the issue under QEMU sounded exactly the same. So, went straight to the
> RAM Drive
> creation and skipped it. FDI works fine afterwords. All other external
> utilities that are
> used by FDI are used in may places. So, if one of those was the culprit,
> it would
> exhibit issues elsewhere as well.
>
> HOWEVER, that being said, that does not mean there is a bug in SHSURDRV.
> The problem could be in the kernel, freecom. Or, even possibly in my
> FDITEMP.BAT.
> I have not tested had a chance to fully examine the problem. But, so lar
> it appears
> to be SHSURDRV.
>
> > I often use SHSURDRV (386, XMSv3 version) as RAM drive
> > under QEMU with no problems.
> > Of course, my version is reassembled without the (bloated, unused by
> > me) ZLIB/"GZIP" stuff (so it's only like 6 kb now).
> >
> > What QEMU version are you using?
>
> Don’t know about everyone else. But, I tested it on 2.4.0.
>
> > I think I'm on 2.5.0 at this point,
> > but newer versions are coming soon.
> > (Yeah, some Linux distros, e.g. Ubuntu LTS, still only have older
> > 2.0.0.) I get mine for Win32/64 (precompiled) from
> > http://qemu.weilnetz.de .
> >
> >> Drawbacks of not having the RAM DISK or RAM DISK creation failure:
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FDI Preview 15, update 2

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Apr 4, 2016, at 6:13 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  
> wrote:
>> 
>> I have tested under QEMU on Linux and have detected the issue and its cause.
>> 
>> It appears to be that SHSURDRV is locking up the system in DOSBox and QEMU.
>> It does not seem to have this issue on the native hardware I’ve tested.
> 
> Are you sure?

Fairly sure. I noticed that it was the problem under DOSBox. So, I added a 
DOSBox
detector to V8Power Tools and skip it inside DOSBox. After hearing of the issue,
the issue under QEMU sounded exactly the same. So, went straight to the RAM 
Drive
creation and skipped it. FDI works fine afterwords. All other external 
utilities that are 
used by FDI are used in may places. So, if one of those was the culprit, it 
would 
exhibit issues elsewhere as well.

HOWEVER, that being said, that does not mean there is a bug in SHSURDRV. 
The problem could be in the kernel, freecom. Or, even possibly in my 
FDITEMP.BAT.
I have not tested had a chance to fully examine the problem. But, so lar it 
appears
to be SHSURDRV.

> I often use SHSURDRV (386, XMSv3 version) as RAM drive
> under QEMU with no problems.
> Of course, my version is reassembled without the (bloated, unused by
> me) ZLIB/"GZIP" stuff (so it's only like 6 kb now).
> 
> What QEMU version are you using?

Don’t know about everyone else. But, I tested it on 2.4.0. 

> I think I'm on 2.5.0 at this point,
> but newer versions are coming soon.
> (Yeah, some Linux distros, e.g. Ubuntu LTS, still only have older
> 2.0.0.) I get mine for Win32/64 (precompiled) from
> http://qemu.weilnetz.de .
> 
>> Drawbacks of not having the RAM DISK or RAM DISK creation failure:


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Re: [Freedos-user] Booting FreeDOS on HP desktops?

[Wayne Dernoncourt]

I can boot a USB stick as well on the Dells

This clown speaks for himself

> On Apr 4, 2016, at 6:35 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt  wrote:
> 
> No floppy, I tried CD (booting SpinRite) testing a disk drive for bad spots.  
> The CD/SpinRite does boot on a Dell laptop & desktop.
> 
> This clown speaks for himself
> 
>> On Apr 4, 2016, at 6:18 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>>> On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Wayne Dernoncourt  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Does anyone have any advice about getting FreeDOS to boot on an HP desktop?
>>> I get a message about "Init..." and then nothing happens.  I've been trying 
>>> to get this
>>> to work for a two or three months but I haven't had a chance to fool much 
>>> with this
>>> for the past three or four weeks.
>> 
>> What have you tried? CD? Floppy? USB? Hard disk?
>> 
>> Does your machine have a traditional BIOS or only UEFI (hopefully with CSM)?
>> 
>> Worst case scenario, you can run an DOSEMU atop Linux or a different
>> emulator (e.g. VBox) atop a different host OS.
>> 
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> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Booting FreeDOS on HP desktops?

[Wayne Dernoncourt]

No floppy, I tried CD (booting SpinRite) testing a disk drive for bad spots.  
The CD/SpinRite does boot on a Dell laptop & desktop.

This clown speaks for himself

> On Apr 4, 2016, at 6:18 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Wayne Dernoncourt  wrote:
>> 
>> Does anyone have any advice about getting FreeDOS to boot on an HP desktop?
>> I get a message about "Init..." and then nothing happens.  I've been trying 
>> to get this
>> to work for a two or three months but I haven't had a chance to fool much 
>> with this
>> for the past three or four weeks.
> 
> What have you tried? CD? Floppy? USB? Hard disk?
> 
> Does your machine have a traditional BIOS or only UEFI (hopefully with CSM)?
> 
> Worst case scenario, you can run an DOSEMU atop Linux or a different
> emulator (e.g. VBox) atop a different host OS.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Booting FreeDOS on HP desktops?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Wayne Dernoncourt  wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any advice about getting FreeDOS to boot on an HP desktop?
> I get a message about "Init..." and then nothing happens.  I've been trying 
> to get this
> to work for a two or three months but I haven't had a chance to fool much 
> with this
> for the past three or four weeks.

What have you tried? CD? Floppy? USB? Hard disk?

Does your machine have a traditional BIOS or only UEFI (hopefully with CSM)?

Worst case scenario, you can run an DOSEMU atop Linux or a different
emulator (e.g. VBox) atop a different host OS.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDI Preview 15, update 2

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
>
> I have tested under QEMU on Linux and have detected the issue and its cause.
>
> It appears to be that SHSURDRV is locking up the system in DOSBox and QEMU.
> It does not seem to have this issue on the native hardware I’ve tested.

Are you sure? I often use SHSURDRV (386, XMSv3 version) as RAM drive
under QEMU with no problems.
Of course, my version is reassembled without the (bloated, unused by
me) ZLIB/"GZIP" stuff (so it's only like 6 kb now).

What QEMU version are you using? I think I'm on 2.5.0 at this point,
but newer versions are coming soon.
(Yeah, some Linux distros, e.g. Ubuntu LTS, still only have older
2.0.0.) I get mine for Win32/64 (precompiled) from
http://qemu.weilnetz.de .

> Drawbacks of not having the RAM DISK or RAM DISK creation failure:
>
> FDI will not be able to import language or target directory settings from a
> previous installation.
>
> FDI will not be able to automatically partition an empty drive in normal mode.
> (False back to running fdisk)
>
> I will look into detecting QEMU tomorrow sometime.

I don't know of a really good way to detect QEMU.

Sometimes the VESA string tells what emulator, but here it's only
saying "VESA 3.0 SeaBIOS VBE(C) 2011".

Another way is to check the processor string (e.g. cpulevel.com | find
/i "This CPU calls itself"), but that's only available in later cpus,
so you can't exactly use "-cpu pentium" (or even pentium2 or pentium3)
and expect it to work. But if you omit any cpu restrictions, by
default (for me) it now says "QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+".

Not sure of other ways (though check news://comp.os.msdos.programmer,
I think it was discussed there before). I think you can detect things
like DOSEMU via BIOS date.

EDIT: I'm guessing this is the thread I'm thinking of: "detecting
emulation or console windows" (May 31, 2014):

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.msdos.programmer/l2e4kYnhX-8

> I would hate to have to disable automatic drive partitioning. QEMU seemed a 
> slow compared to
> VMware and native hardware.

QEMU is indeed slower than VBox (with VT-X), but KVM (QEMU with VT-X)
is pretty speedy too. But I think they still use TCG as quasi-JIT, so
it's not as slow as it could be.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FDI Preview 15, update 2

[Don Flowers]

Jerome, Eric, and others,
I used the SLIM image for a quick test on QEMU edited the FDITEMP.BAT file
and now have a successful (basic) install.
Will test the Full install with the 512 image later today.


On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 8:14 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Apr 4, 2016, at 8:00 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> > Thanks! I'll try it out tonight.
> >
> > I didn't see the link for the USB image, but I see that it is there. I
> saw the link for Download and the link for Latest, then a bunch of text
> that I didn't read. My bad. ;-)
>
> No problem.
>
> My CMS is only setup to have multiple versions on the Floppy Image.
> The USB images are always the latest FDI and are not versioned.
>
> For the current 4/3/16 images, just remember to add that line of text to
> FDITEMP.BAT.
>
> > For now, the lockup can be avoided by adding
> >
> > goto IsDOSBox
> >
> > at line 26 in the \FDSETUP\SETUP\FDITEMP.BAT portion of FDI.
> > This will cause FDI to just assume RAM DISK creation for initial
> > temporary storage has failed and will proceed with the installation
> > process. FDI will still function like this. However, a few things will
> > not automatically be handled for the user.
>
> Running installer under QEMU….
>
> > qemu-system-i386 -m 32M -hda FDI-USB.img -hdb drivec.img
> >
> > then after install
> >
> > qemu-system-i386 -m 32M -hda drivec.img
>
> At present, I’m looking into detecting QEMU so I don’t have to drop
> the blank drive auto partitioning in Normal mode.
>
> Thanks, Jerome
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Printing in FreeDOS

[Don Flowers]

Thanks Eric - that should relieve my anxiety.

>That is a lot of DOS? Why several computers?

I just scored a NOS  WordPerfect Office 3.01 and am going to test it in a
network environment.

I have had this DOS disorder since the 80s and have always
wanted to network DOS. I worked at Holiday Inn in the (1985-1988) and we
had this awesome network and Hotel Management Software.


On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Dosgeek,
>
> > Just a quick poll to see how many users are actually running
> > a printer in FreeDOS.
>
> > What kind of printer are you using?
> > Dot Matrix
> > Ink Jet
> > Laser
> > Other
>
> > I have an Epson NOS LQ-2070 Dot Matrix (Parallel interface) on the way
> and
> > am anxious about the setup and the end result. I have 4 PCs running
> FreeDOS
> > 2 of those are FreeDOS only machines; 1 of which will be a dedicated
> server.
>
> That is a lot of DOS? Why several computers?
>
> According to the manual of your printer:
>
> https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/lq2070/lq2070u1.pdf
>
> This 24 pin printer supports IBM and ESC/P2 commands and a number of DOS
> codepages such as 437, 850, 860 and related. The first two should match
> your most common BIOS and mode/display VGA fonts for USA and Europe :-)
>
> I would suggest to use ESC/P2 configuration of your printer, because DOS
> text related software may already know the escape codes for things such
> as bold or italic printing. That makes it a bit easier for you to have a
> bit of layout. Also, ESC/P2 is supported by our GRAPHICS TSR driver for
> the graphical screenshot hotkey :-)
>
> Finally, you will probably not need a print spooler TSR, but you should
> make selections for buffer size and buffer waiting time in your printer
> configuration (using buttons on the printer) according to your taste.
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
> PS: GRAPHICS also supports simple PostScript and HP PCL screenshots, but
> you should avoid old dumb GDI laser and ink jet printers, as those would
> require smart Windows or Linux drivers. I think most modern printers are
> smart enough to understand PostScript, ESC/P2 or HP PCL anyway?
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Printing in FreeDOS

[Eric Auer]

Hi Dosgeek,

> Just a quick poll to see how many users are actually running
> a printer in FreeDOS.

> What kind of printer are you using?
> Dot Matrix
> Ink Jet
> Laser 
> Other

> I have an Epson NOS LQ-2070 Dot Matrix (Parallel interface) on the way and 
> am anxious about the setup and the end result. I have 4 PCs running FreeDOS
> 2 of those are FreeDOS only machines; 1 of which will be a dedicated server.

That is a lot of DOS? Why several computers?

According to the manual of your printer:

https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/lq2070/lq2070u1.pdf

This 24 pin printer supports IBM and ESC/P2 commands and a number of DOS
codepages such as 437, 850, 860 and related. The first two should match
your most common BIOS and mode/display VGA fonts for USA and Europe :-)

I would suggest to use ESC/P2 configuration of your printer, because DOS
text related software may already know the escape codes for things such
as bold or italic printing. That makes it a bit easier for you to have a
bit of layout. Also, ESC/P2 is supported by our GRAPHICS TSR driver for
the graphical screenshot hotkey :-)

Finally, you will probably not need a print spooler TSR, but you should
make selections for buffer size and buffer waiting time in your printer
configuration (using buttons on the printer) according to your taste.

Cheers, Eric

PS: GRAPHICS also supports simple PostScript and HP PCL screenshots, but
you should avoid old dumb GDI laser and ink jet printers, as those would
require smart Windows or Linux drivers. I think most modern printers are
smart enough to understand PostScript, ESC/P2 or HP PCL anyway?



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Re: [Freedos-user] Booting FreeDOS on HP desktops?

[Don Flowers]

I need a little more information.
I have two HPs (HP Elite 8000 SFF and a DC-5700)
The 8000 is in SATA mode for W10 so I have to use the HP/Intel
AHCI.SYS driver to "see" the hard drive. The other is in IDE mode and boots
with no issues.

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Wayne Dernoncourt  wrote:

> Does anyone have any advice about getting FreeDOS to boot on an HP
> desktop?  I get a message about "Init..." and then nothing happens.  I've
> been trying to get this to work for a two or three months but I haven't had
> a chance to fool much with this for the past three or four weeks.
>
> This clown speaks for himself
>
>
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[Freedos-user] Booting FreeDOS on HP desktops?

[Wayne Dernoncourt]

Does anyone have any advice about getting FreeDOS to boot on an HP desktop?  I 
get a message about "Init..." and then nothing happens.  I've been trying to 
get this to work for a two or three months but I haven't had a chance to fool 
much with this for the past three or four weeks.

This clown speaks for himself

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[Freedos-user] Printing in FreeDOS

[dosgeek57]

Just a quick poll to see how many users are actually running a printer in
FreeDOS.
What kind of printer are you using?
Dot Matrix
Ink Jet
Laser 
Other

I have an Epson NOS LQ-2070 Dot Matrix (Parallel interface) on the way and 
am anxious about the setup and the end result. I have 4 PCs running FreeDOS
2 of those are FreeDOS only machines; 1 of which will be a dedicated server.



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Re: [Freedos-user] FDI Preview 15, update 2

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Apr 4, 2016, at 8:00 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> 
> Thanks! I'll try it out tonight.
> 
> I didn't see the link for the USB image, but I see that it is there. I saw 
> the link for Download and the link for Latest, then a bunch of text that I 
> didn't read. My bad. ;-)

No problem. 

My CMS is only setup to have multiple versions on the Floppy Image. 
The USB images are always the latest FDI and are not versioned.

For the current 4/3/16 images, just remember to add that line of text to 
FDITEMP.BAT.

> For now, the lockup can be avoided by adding
> 
> goto IsDOSBox
> 
> at line 26 in the \FDSETUP\SETUP\FDITEMP.BAT portion of FDI.
> This will cause FDI to just assume RAM DISK creation for initial
> temporary storage has failed and will proceed with the installation
> process. FDI will still function like this. However, a few things will
> not automatically be handled for the user.

Running installer under QEMU….

> qemu-system-i386 -m 32M -hda FDI-USB.img -hdb drivec.img
> 
> then after install
> 
> qemu-system-i386 -m 32M -hda drivec.img

At present, I’m looking into detecting QEMU so I don’t have to drop
the blank drive auto partitioning in Normal mode.

Thanks, Jerome


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