Re: [Freedos-user] Announcements seen on BTTR: Lynx web browser, NDN file manager, DOSBOX emulator

[dmccunney]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 1:33 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 8:06 PM dmccunney  wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:20 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> > > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:36 PM dmccunney  
> > > wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:19 PM Eric Auer  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Bocke adds this: (I think FTP is just broken in the major browsers 
> > > > > now,
> > > > > alas!)
> > > >
> > > > It is broken and will *not* be fixed.
> > >
> > > I assume this is moreso due to unneeded extra maintenance rather than
> > > just dislike for it.
> >
> > No, it's because it is no longer *necessary*.  You can do the same
> > thing in other ways.  If you can, why bother with FTP?
>
> In case you haven't noticed, FTP is much simpler to implement than
> Curl or Wget. Those are incredibly complex, especially for DOS.
> However, it's unavoidable these days, things are too complicated
> elsewhere to rely on "simple" FTP exclusively (or if at all).

I *have* noticed.  That is irrelevant to the decision to deprecate it
in *browsers*.  Browsers already had support, but it is going away.

> > And please note, I said it was deprecated and would not be fixed *in
> > the browsers*.  This does not mean it won't live on in other places.
>
> I still assume this is more of "we don't need it, we don't have time"
> rather than "we don't like it" reasoning.

All three.  They have reasons for disliking it, it is not *needed* in
a browser, and it will be one less thing to maintain and perform
security audits on..

> > FreeDOS (and any other form of DOS) is increasingly locked out of
> > access to the wider world, because it does not and *cannot* support
> > the methods now used.
>
> I get it, FreeDOS will never rule the world and will never support
> 100% of everything. Even if it IS possible (as most things are),
> there's not enough skilled workers to do it. Those with the skills
> lack motivation and/or time. So it won't get done. However, it's not
> true that FreeDOS can do "nothing". The fact that we don't have
> Javascript in a web browser is less of an impossibility and more of a
> simple lack of effort.

Nothing simple about the lack.JavaScript is an evolving standard.  The
current standard is ECMAscript 6, but development is continuing.

To give you an example, when you compile code in current compilers
like GCC, it's a two step process.  A front end parser examines your
code and attempts to convert it to an architecture independent
Intermediate Representation Language.  The back end code generator
converts that to object code for the architecture you are developing
for.  (That is why you can set up GCC to cross compile, and develop
code under X86 that will run on ARM.)

It is now possible to use JavaScript *as* the IRL.  In many cases, you
may not bother compiling to object code.  Your target has a JavaScript
engine already present, like Google's V8, that does JIT compilation to
object code on the device.  Just compile your source language to JS
and send that to the target.

I won't say it's *impossible* to get that level of JS into a DOS
browser, but I do think it's highly unlikely.  And even if you can,
you need to understand what current websites will send to the browser
and expect it to make sense of, to know whatJ > S support you need.

> DOS can at least crunch numbers, edit text,
> compile stuff, and run some games, even multimedia (within reason).
> It's just not "do everything like Linux or Windows". And that's okay.

I never said FreeDOS could do *nothing*.  It does all sorts of things
and people do those things with it.

The pain points for using FreeDOS are in two areas.

1. 64 bit Windows (and I 8think* 64 bit Linux) dropped support for 16 bit code.

If you are a Windows user used to 32bit XP, which provided NTVDM and
let you run 16 bit code under it, it means you either use an emulator
like DOSBox, or run a full blown virtual machine with WinXP as a
guest, and DOS apps running in it under NTVDM. (The latter is a "You
are going through far more trouble than you need to..." thing.)

Or, you're Old Skool, and want to boot and run DOS on the bare metal
on old hardware.  That's a different set of challenges.

2. The Internet ate the world, but *connecting* to the Internet has
become increasingly difficult for *any* flavor of DOS.

HTTP is deprecated, and all communication must use https and be
encrypted both ways.  (And encryption standards are changing, as folks
find vulnerabilities in older forms.The current standard is TLS 1.1,
but TLS 1.2 is in beta and will become the standard soon.)

Using a browser?  Web standards are moving targets, but you are
currently expected to have support for HTML5, CSS3, SVG, and a current
implementation of JavaScript in the browser.  If you don't have that,
you will not have a good experience, and many sites will simply not be
usable.  Turn off JavaScript support in your browser (and I think
Chrome on Chromebooks will let you do that,)  and surf for a while.
Tell me what you 

Re: [Freedos-user] Announcements seen on BTTR: Lynx web browser, NDN file manager, DOSBOX emulator

[Mateusz Viste]

On 25/11/2021 19:31, Rugxulo wrote:

In case you haven't noticed, FTP is much simpler to implement than
Curl or Wget. Those are incredibly complex, especially for DOS.


FTP is actually more complex than HTTP. Curl and Wget are obviously huge 
programs, but that's because they do a lot of things beside just 
downloading a resource over HTTP.



Long story short: if I ever make an update (unlikely), I'll probably
include CURLLITE.EXE (386 DPMI) by default.


For *simple* HTTP jobs you might also use Gopherus (8086-compatible), 
since it embeds a tiny http-downloader.


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] Announcements seen on BTTR: Lynx web browser, NDN file manager, DOSBOX emulator

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 8:06 PM dmccunney  wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:20 PM Rugxulo  wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:36 PM dmccunney  wrote:
> > > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:19 PM Eric Auer  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Bocke adds this: (I think FTP is just broken in the major browsers now,
> > > > alas!)
> > >
> > > It is broken and will *not* be fixed.
> >
> > I assume this is moreso due to unneeded extra maintenance rather than
> > just dislike for it.
>
> No, it's because it is no longer *necessary*.  You can do the same
> thing in other ways.  If you can, why bother with FTP?

In case you haven't noticed, FTP is much simpler to implement than
Curl or Wget. Those are incredibly complex, especially for DOS.
However, it's unavoidable these days, things are too complicated
elsewhere to rely on "simple" FTP exclusively (or if at all).

> And please note, I said it was deprecated and would not be fixed *in
> the browsers*.  This does not mean it won't live on in other places.

I still assume this is more of "we don't need it, we don't have time"
rather than "we don't like it" reasoning.

> FreeDOS (and any other form of DOS) is increasingly locked out of
> access to the wider world, because it does not and *cannot* support
> the methods now used.

I get it, FreeDOS will never rule the world and will never support
100% of everything. Even if it IS possible (as most things are),
there's not enough skilled workers to do it. Those with the skills
lack motivation and/or time. So it won't get done. However, it's not
true that FreeDOS can do "nothing". The fact that we don't have
Javascript in a web browser is less of an impossibility and more of a
simple lack of effort. DOS can at least crunch numbers, edit text,
compile stuff, and run some games, even multimedia (within reason).
It's just not "do everything like Linux or Windows". And that's okay.

> I suppose it's significant that you *could* get DOSBox X to run on top
> of FreeDOS using HX, but why would you *do* that?  What do you get
> from doing it?.
>
> I am honestly curious about what use case you might have beyond "Let's
> see whether I *can*... '

For me, I've only tested it a few times for fun. I had no pressing need for it.

Having said that, I imagine that the adjustable speed or various cpu
configs can help identify bottlenecks, cpu incompatibilities, and
certainly being able to take screenshots is always a plus. (If, for
some bizarre reason, HX supported your sound card, you could then say
it's able to emulate other sound cards successfully, which would also
be very nice.)

But there are other ways of doing similar tasks (usually TSRs): SNARF,
SLOWDOWN, etc.

> > BIOS and CSM are basically dead, so it's probably under emulator (e.g.
> > QEMU). So what? Better than nothing (especially since most new
> > computers "supposedly" have VT-X! Great!)
>
> If you *can* run DOS under emulsion, splendid.  DOSBox exists to let
> folks who want to play DOS games do so on things that *aren't* PCs.
> (I got a few DOS apps up under DOSBox on an ARM based Android tablet,
> using an ARM port of DOSBox.)

DOSBox is meant to be portable, so there's no emphasis on VT-X or any
other x86-specific cpu extensions. It's also "only for games" (at
least upstream, forks are free to expand upon that).

> Folks trying to run DOS on bare metal on old hardware that still has a
> BIOS will have challenges.

I still use my old Dell laptop (with a BIOS) for FreeDOS (and bootable
jump drives). It actually came with a Diagnostics partition and tools
that were running atop DRMK ("Dell Real Mode Kernel", aka modified
DR-DOS)!

The whole point of my minimal MetaDOS distro was to facilitate using
FreeDOS under VMs like QEMU or VirtualBox. But I half-relied on FTP
quite heavily (mTCP), only using Wget (or Curl) when forced. In part,
this was because of iBiblio.org mirroring FreeDOS files. The other
reason was because mTCP supported 8086 while Wget or Curl would need
386 DPMI. But I guess FTP is almost a lost cause. So MetaDOS was never
anything less than 386+, even if I tried to keep as many pieces as
possible to the lowest common denominator. Long story short: if I ever
make an update (unlikely), I'll probably include CURLLITE.EXE (386
DPMI) by default.

> > I wish I knew how to run FreeDOS on a generic Chromebook like this
> > one. (I've tried Linux cmdline support [beta] before, it wasn't bad,
> > but it needs 10 GB of space, yikes!)
>
> I fail to understand why it needs 10GB of space, unless you are trying
> to run Linux *instead* of ChromeOS.  But 10GB is not a significant
> amount of space these days.

It's trying to run Linux (Debian? cmdline only) under KVM (QEMU via
VT-X). And 10 GB is a lot, especially when these Chromebooks don't
barely have 16 GB total! (My bad for having such a low-end device. I
tried "Linux (beta)" (under ChromeOS) before, a year ago, successfully
... but not lately. But it's truly tedious trying to pare down bloated
distros, so I don't blame them 

Re: [Freedos-user] SvarCOM - a nimble COMMAND.COM shell

[Mateusz Viste]

On 25/11/2021 14:22, Jerome Shidel wrote:
Kinda busy right now, don’t know when I’ll get around to testing it. 


No worries. If you're happy with FreeCOM, no need to look after 
something else.



But, I did turn it into a package already. :-)


Cool, thanks!

Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] SvarCOM - a nimble COMMAND.COM shell

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Mateusz,

> On Nov 24, 2021, at 12:51 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I tend to use FreeDOS mostly on old computers that often have no more than 1 
> MiB of RAM. On such setups FreeDOS doesn't leave much memory to applications, 
> mostly due to FreeCOM.
> 
> This is the main reason that led me to develop a new command interpreter 
> named SvarCOM. This interpreter will soon become the standard shell of the 
> SvarDOS distribution. It's resident size is under 2K.
> 
> Today I published the first version of SvarCOM, version 2021.0. This version 
> must be considered as a "functional preview", since there are still a few 
> things missing. It is stable, though, and what is implemented works pretty 
> well. I use it since a few days on my museum-grade machines without major 
> troubles. The most annoying thing is probably the lack of an INT 24h handler: 
> it may lead to surprising results if one tries to access an empty floppy 
> drive.
> 
> While I developed SvarCOM specifically for the SvarDOS distribution, it works 
> just as well on plain FreeDOS. As such, the FreeDOS project is welcome to 
> mirror it or use it as an alternative shell, should that be of any interest 
> to the community.
> 
> Read more on http://svardos.osdn.io/svarcom/
> 
> Mateusz

Kinda busy right now, don’t know when I’ll get around to testing it. But, I did 
turn it into a package already. :-)

https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/svarcom.html 


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