Re: [Freedos-user] was: Windows 3.1 - Pending kernel patches 2037/2038
Bernd Blaauw wrote: Christian Masloch schreef: Since disassembling MS-DOS is considered legal by UDOS and RBIL authors (and these sources are considered legal by all members of the FreeDOS project) I think there's no problem using some DLL examination tool. Regards, Christian I hope you have heared about the term clean room implementation where one team does the research and writes a specification, and another team writes an implementation based on the specification. That way you never violate anyone's copyright, patents etc. Reverse engineering is considered illegal in many countries (DMCA anyone, US folks?). I assume RBIL forms the specification of interfaces, upon which you can build an implementation if you want. I'm not talking about disassembling the code. I talking about finding out what the methods are. Visual Studio does it to do intellisence etc. And I believe the tool was provided by Visual C++ 6. I don't want the code for the functions/methods. Just what methods there are and what the parameters are. I can write the internal code myself. I guess the only allowed tools are debuggers for virtual machines, and general debuggers like SoftIce, just to see how software *interacts* with Microsoft copyrighted products. As for running Windows 3.1 on FreeDOS, it's possible. Jeremy Davis managed to do so once a few years ago. Seems like his FDOS.ORG website has expired by now though. Requirements: * kernel 2037, specific compiled flavour of it though * Share, specific compiled flavour. Not sure if it's the FreeDOS one, or the one by Michael Devore, or Japheth, or whoever. * MS memory drivers I think (HIMEM) * FAT16 I would prefer to keep the environments separate. For comparisons etc. I have already gotten the dual boot MSDOS\FreeDos working (just looking on a linux desktop that the laptop will run) Speaking of ReactOS, I think they have dropped their 486-compatibility, but still that OS should work on anything which is i80586-compatible (or newer/later). Recent fixes have brought the memory consumption back to about 32MB. I am hoping that the 486 16bit code will be available in older versions of the source code. I am thinking though it it may be easier to make a 32 bit app that looks like Win 3.x that can run 16 and 32 bit applications. Than to make a complete clone. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] was: Windows 3.1 - Pending kernel patches 2037/2038
Windows 3x Issues I was reading the Undocumented Dos book and according to it Win 3.x goes to extraordinary lengths to insure that the operating system it is running on os MSDos and not one of the alternatives. Plus it replaces parts of DOS while running. (Either for underhanded as the book hints at or legitimate concerns it doesn't matter at this point) This probably some of the reason for the problems. Win 3.x will probably never be 100% on FreeDos, nor will a compatible Win 3.x GUI ever be 100%. I have been researching what it would take to make a Win 3.x compatible GUI. I wanted to write a GUI might as well make one that is useful, there are enough new ones out there that are new. I think its possible, and in the long run its probably better. If one runs the Win 3.x /FreeDos then is the GUI/OS that will be unstable. If there is a compatible GUI, then it should be the hopefully rare application that is unstable. Better to have a stable GUI/OS than I think. I think this could be done there is plenty of ports out there to either use or learn from: HX DOS Extender (although there is the lack of license with the source code provided.) Wine Project for Linux Reactos As for the GUI again plenty out there NanoX wxWidgets I have been looking and asking questions on both of the Wine and ReactOS forums and it looks promising. I think I will buy a copy of windows 3.x on EBay and use that for comparison. I can barely remember what it looked like and what is all there. LOL I was thinking of calling the GUI Janus after the code name for windows 3.11. Which I think should be ok legalwise. Thoughts? The lack of license for HX DOS Extender concerns me a bit as well. If code is posted with no license can it be considered public domain? I emailed the author but have not gotten a response. Also I remember from my pre dot net days using a program which would inspect a dll and identify all the public methods/functions that it has. Would this be considered legal? If so anyone remember what that program is/was? I used it at a client site to integrate with a 3rd party DLL and application. Any thoughts, advice, windows 3.1 programming SDK, documentation would most helpful. usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone know why 386 enhanced mode doesn't work Windows 3.1???
Is internet access required for FDUPDATE? Or can the files be on a CD? - FDUPDATE makes wget downloading the index file from my server correctly, - FDUPDATE open the index file and load the package database correcyly, - It propose an update, basing on what has been found on user's system, - crash when launching wget to download that given package. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] patents - was: LFN in FreeDOS kernel? - was: aimed compatibility?
Travis Siegel wrote: Personally, I fail to see how lfn could be patented in the first place. US Patent Law is screwed up. For example the company that I just left has a patent on putting hardware on carts for delivery to clients. Something like that should never have been allowed. But even if its wrong we have to follow it if there is ever a chance that FreeDos end users are ever to be more than a few hobby users. And who knows, if we come up with an elegant solution Linux and other Open Source OSes will pick it up and vendors and users like TomTom will be safe. FreeDos, since it only uses FAT is probably closer to the problem than most. The best work around solution will probably come from here. Just my two cents :) usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What is the trick to get Windows 3.1 to run on freedos???
* Calmira for GUI or someone could write a Program Manager for GUI like Windows 3.x. Personally, I like the style of Windows 3.x over the Windows 95 style of GUI. I can't remember if Win 3.1 had context menus or not and I kind of like a start menu/taskbar but thats not 3.11. If I do this right Calmira should work. :) Because DOS HX Extender supports OpenGL, it is possible to use WineD3D to translate DirectX to OpenGL, so DirectX apps may not get left out anyway. Currently, this is how ReactOS emulates Direct3D. I expect that with all the things that I am looking at will make this both win16\win32 compatible, simply be cause of where I will be looking for code. Depends on what happens, we may want to have two version 16 only for older PC and a Win16\32 for the PCs that can handle it. This could end up being what would have happened had someone at M$ not conceived of Win95 LOL. With the Nano-X server for DOS adapted to be up to date on Win16/Win32 APIs from the Wine/ReactOS Projects, and the X11 API from Xorg, then that would make it extremely flexible. I am thinking, looking at Nano-X will give me a couple of options, xwindows integration with the win libs (easier app porting etc) or at the very least a good place to learn. I am not 100% sure but I am nearly confident that Window's window managers follow a different model than xwindows. Windows 3.1 compliance is the most important thing anything else is will be a bi product of what I use. usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
If you own a computer that had MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on it at one point, but your install media are fried, try this abandonware site. Regardless of the age of the product and the ownership, if one has the orig media there shouldn't be a problem. At least thats what I think, :) usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] patents - was: LFN in FreeDOS kernel? - was: aimed compatibility?
Couldn't there be a optional syncfat program that one could run at the boot of freedos, and before shut down? Could synchronize the FreeDos LFN and the M$ Dos storages mediums. It may not,since isn't live access, violate the patent. Many Programs write/read directly to and from the fat tables without violating the patent. CD/DVD Burners etc This program could then be run before and after legacy LFN apps in a bat file. MyProggy.Bat syncfat.exe myproggy.exe syncfat.exe There could be switches to do a full, one direction only, certain directories. For speed. Adam Windows9X and is used in the millions of USB devices or the like, nor with the applications that are LFN-aware (unless you'd like to rewrite the DOS LFN API descript.ion-based... -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Dos Basics
Visual Basic for Dos (1.0) 1) Anyone know if this runs on FreeDos 2) If it does does anyone know where to get it? FreeBasic 1) Does it have GUI? 2) Will it run QuickBasic programs? QuickBasic Are there any alternatives for FreeDos, Or would that be FreeBasic thanks, Usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dos Basics
FreeBasic 1) Does it have GUI? I meant can you write applications with GUI under freedos with freebasic Forms, textboxes simple stuff. usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Win 3.11
Has anyone ever considered an open source equivalent to windows 3.11? Compatible like Reactos is compatible? At least on the surface, enough to where most basic applications would run? usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
