Re: [Freedos-user] Can you recommend a good single-board-computer for legacy OSs?
Hello from Czechia, I run makerspace in the past and have 86Duino EduCake, a smart breadboard including Vortex86. It can run DOS and Windows. Only disadvantage is a lack of VGA output, so it can do only SSH. I second that Vortex86 choice. By the way Win XP and Win 7 won’t boot non ACPI bios, right? Or they wont boot multicpu non ACPI bios. This issue happens with 6x Pentium Pro server Unisys Aquanta or ALR Revolution 6x6. There is article to overcome this using Whistler build that did not have ACPI hardcodes yet and apply XP SP3 on top of it. Lukas RetroGamer (sberatele historickych pocitacu FB) On Fri 10. 3. 2023 at 15:32, Frantisek Rysanek wrote: > On 10 Mar 2023 at 11:13, Mart Zirnask wrote: > > > Just for reference, I'll share some of my bookmarks. > > I'm just a shy hobbyist, not an engineer whatsoever, but I've been > > interested in fanless, small form factor DOS computing solutions for > > quite a while. > > > We are a similar blood type. Only I happen to have been working in > this toystore for 20 years :-) > > > EBOX-3100: Vortex86 400MHz, 1GB RAM, VGA, SeaBIOS, enclosure -- this > > one seems like the most "complete" solution: > > https://www.compactpc.com.tw/products/item/21 > > > FYI, compactpc.com.tw is another sibling company of the DMP holding. > Therefore, similar to ICOP, "they also have their own CPU" = the > Vortex86. > AFAICT, CompactPC are more on the consumer/office side of the > business - in terms of temperature range, form factor and the general > feature set. > > The particular EBOX model that you've pointed to seems a bit of an > oddball to me. The Vortex86EX is junior to the Vortex86DX that I've > mentioned before. IIRC, the Vortex86EX is originally an "embedded" > CPU = intended for vehicle onboard computing, machine control and > whatnot. It shows in several respects: > - a relatively lower CPU clock > - some special peripherals: ADC, multichannel motor controller . > - an integrated 80C51 MCU core for general use > > https://www.vortex86.com/datas/upload/site/2019042310373055.jpg > https://www.vortex86.com/products/Vortex86EX > > Similarly to the DX, the EX does not have a VGA subsystem on chip > either - but, in contrast to the DX, the EX does not have a parallel > PCI - instead, it has a single external lane of PCI-e. > Therefore, this particular computer has a dedicated VGA chip - on > PCI-e, rather than the neat old Z9s on the PCI. > This dedicated VGA on PCI-e is possibly something "own" by DMP, > possibly related to the on-chip integrated VGA of the > Vortex86DX2/DX3. In the computer that you're referring to, its > nominal maximum resolution is 1024x768. Which doesn't seem like very > much. > > The SeaBIOS looks cool! This is the first piece of hardware that I > see from the DMP corp that has anything else than AMI. > > I can see that eBox PC's with Vortex86DX no longer exist. > No more XGI Z9s for the consumer segment. Interestingly, that chip > could only produce 1280x1024 maximum on the ICOP boards, despite 32 > MB dedicated RAM. > But, eBox PC's with the Vortex86MX are still listed. > This one has on-chip integrated VGA, with a maximum resolution of > 1920x1200. > And, there's a DX3-based version that can do 1920x1080 (on-chip > integrated VGA). > Note that these VGA subsystems can only do basic 2D acceleration > (blitting and such), no 3D, no video playback accel. > > > Various DOS SBCs by JK Microsystems: > http://www.jkmicro.com/Products.html#dos > > > Interesting... I didn't know about this brand. > They have some pretty old legacy stuff, starting from a 386... > > > Various Vortex86 SBCs: > https://www.emacinc.com/products/pc_compatible_sbcs/486 > > > The SBC models mentioned at that link are made by ICOP. > > > Categorized as "legacy" on the home page: > > SAT-DX4 - 133 MHz SBC with video and ethernet: > > https://www.winsystems.com/product/sat-dx4/ > > > I didn't know this one either. > The particular board model looks like an ultra-classic (legacy) > 486DX4, but it smells to me of the pioneer days: a non-standard form > factor, two sockets for the DiskOnChip... > Doesn't appeal to me very much. > (I still remember the relief and exhileration, when the CompactFlash > arrived and the DiskOnChip landed in the scrap bin.) > > Frank > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos 1.3
Yes, or if you want to have HTTPS in WinXP, you can set up retro https proxy gateway on 2nd machine (Linux router, Raspberry Pi or newer Windows 7/10 device, MacOS etc). I recommend WebOne project: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=67165 On Mon, Oct 17, 2022 at 5:53 PM Jerome Shidel wrote: > Hi, > > > On Oct 17, 2022, at 10:43 AM, Dale E Sterner > wrote: > > > > > > I recently tried to download Freedos 1.3 and had a problem. > > I used XPsp2 ; the download failed with a " unable to complete > > secure transaction". Your download source is too restricted. > > > > > > > > cheers > > DS > > > This is probably a result of Windows XP not supporting the minimum > required protocols to establish a secure connection. Luckily, you can > connect to the official download server without establishing a secure > connect at the same url using just http instead of https. For example, > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/ to > download one of the releases or interim test builds. > > :-) > > Jerome > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] People often do not want responsibility and answer: It is unsupported
Hi, Recently I started to maintain several opensource projects. And this subject touches FreeDOS as well, so I'm asking what would be your argumentation for that. I remember opensource 20 years ago, it was great and as a student I had time to support or even develop my own projects. Companies did not release opensource yet. Today companies = business only = profit. They learn to use opensource because it is cheaper for them. Otherwise they would not use it. I think their main reason is give a little bit of code, so someone can test it and fix it for them, for free. That's it. Today's opensource developers, for example on Github, do it in their free time and they need also paid job. Their paid job is in a company, like something above, so they are heavily influenced by bad habits. This recently came to my attention when browsing several Github projects and their history. So lets say you have opensource project for 10-15 years and it provides some value, it provides a very broad operating systems support! Now the repository gets forked, because original mantainer does not have time, or in some cases, it is even original mantainer, who breaks it. What is happening right now: They delete files, they delete project configuration, they rewrite files. What they think they do: They think they are the best and they upgrade their project for latest OS (Windows 10, soon 11 or 12 as well as Linux) What they really do: Lack knowledge of design patterns, lack knowledge of using even development and git tools properly, lack understanding that 10 years old project provides bigger value than their latest Win10 only breaking change. How would you argue with person like that? How would you try to explain to them that there is a better way? You see it everyday from Microsoft. They remove downloads (Windows 8.1 WDK / SDK is temporarily offline). Everytime you even ask a simple thing about Windows XP on DOS on ANY gaming forum, the first dumb user automatically replies: "It is not supported. Get away." - without even thinking as a human, without even thinking anything - it is automatic response pre-programmed by corporation marketing - they get it somewhere else, not from their head. Then, I look at the project, look at the code. And often it is very simple to keep old OS support. You just change a few parameters or recompile some library (as it was for the last 10 years anyway). Do you, as a FreeDOS have some opensource developer best practice guidelines? How do you look at this issue? There will be always corporation pressure to upgrade to the latest, support consumerism and increase ROI for stakeholders. But for opensource, developer needs to have a better mindset. Especially they start maintain 10-15 years old projects - they have bigger responsibility than just cut x86 architecture. I'm not saying they need to support and test old OS actively. But they should not rewrite project source history like spaghetti. The least they could do is: 1) create new project file (prj) for new OS (my_project_w10.prj) and keeping the original my_project.prj intact 2) create SDL1 branch and archive it (which can be used in FreeDOS), so community can sometime backport some changes there. Instead they rewrite the files, delete the files and you get mess 3) use more clever architecture or design pattern, like Adapter, to provide a specific implementation for specific OS. Lets say they have OS X now and they migrate to OS Y. Instead of rewriting half of git project, they would encapsulate OS Y specific calls in a separate file and this file will be used instead of original file for OS X based on project compilation settings or based on runtime configuration What I currently fight with: 1) intolerant aggressive people, who should be smart (as a developers mostly are) 2) automatic response: this is unsupported, this is deprecated => this is like parrot, they have pre-programmed automatic response from aggressive corporation marketing strategies 3) lack of understanding that 10-15 years old project is not only about his personal needs, but it is about community of people, who use it for 10-15 years 4) lack of knowledge, no will or time to gain new knowledge => this results in 1) 5) lack of education what is opensource, what is preserving history for long time span projects and what is commercial oriented development So I forked several projects like that. Will fix them and record some Youtube video. I think I will also record some Youtube video about the content of this e-mail and provide some real life examples what was wrong on some project and how easy is it to fix it. For now, 90% of cases was only project configuration. Currently I am compiling some kernel driver and the only issue is project metadata were rewritten, so you cannot open and compile it on older OS. I post it here, because sometimes my argument is also: Hey, but because you think nobody is using it ,that is not true. Someone talk about it last month on
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS music creation software?
I have this Digidesign SampleCell II card hardware ISA sampler for PC. Does anyone have any experience with it? Some software? I would like to connect it to MPC Studio (hardware + software on another PC) On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 1:03 PM Björn Morell wrote: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAt1rWF-kqE > Den 2022-08-30 kl. 12:02, skrev Karen Lewellen: > > with all of the vintage gaming hinted at here, was wondering if anyone > knows of a simple pure DOS program that in theory allows one to treat their > computer keyboard like a music one? > Need not tap dance as it were, just allow for some basic work. > Ideas? > Karen > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Creating a minimal freeDOS bootable image that runs a single application
Regarding exiting the program. What about wrapping it in endless cycle?
Only hard reset or shutdown would break it. Something like while (true) {}
? Or just put it in bat multiple times, so if you exit, it start again and
user will ignore it few times :-D
On Mon 11. 7. 2022 at 1:23, Jim Hall wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 10, 2022 at 5:03 PM Nico via Freedos-user
> wrote:
> >
> > hi,
> > I would like to create a minimal bootable image for a USB drive (or
> > other formats, maybe even floppies, but USB is the focus) that boots
> > into a single application (in my case, a custom minimal word processor,
> > although freeDOS EDIT is a decent start for what I want) to create a
> > kind of "typewriter on a USB drive", that will work on any hardware you
> > throw it at and provide an environment for writing in. (I understand
> > that this is very niche)
> >
> > freeDOS seemed like an ideal platform for this to me, as it seems small,
> > boots very fast, runs on all kinds of PC hardware, lets me develop my
> > application in C without having to go bare-metal, etc.
> >
> > I understand that freeDOS can be installed from a booted USB drive, but
> > could I create a custom USB image that, instead of containing the
> > installer, contains my small word processor which starts at boot? Or is
> > freeDOS not a good base for this utility?
> >
>
>
> Yes, you can definitely do this. There are two ways you might do this:
>
> 1. Install FreeDOS, and add your word processor as the last line in
> FDAUTO.BAT, so that it always runs the word processor when you boot.
> Let's say you wanted to run FreeDOS EDIT every time FreeDOS boots up.
> You would put this line at the end of FDAUTO.BAT:
>
> EDIT
>
>
>
> 2. If you *only* need to run the word processor, you can create a
> custom FDCONFIG.SYS and list your word processor as the SHELL
> variable. I wrote an article showing how to do this as an "embedded"
> system: (An embedded system is basically a very minimal system that is
> dedicated to run a specific task.)
> https://opensource.com/article/21/6/freedos-embedded-system
>
> Let's say you wanted to run FreeDOS EDIT every time FreeDOS boots up.
> The full path to EDIT is C:\FREEDOS\BIN\EDIT.EXE, so you would create
> a custom FDCONFIG.SYS that probably looked like this:
>
> FILES=20
> BUFFERS=20
> SHELL=C:\FREEDOS\BIN\EDIT.EXE
>
>
> For #2, see also this note at the end of the article:
>
> > However, there's one limitation here. Embedded systems do not usually
> need
> > to exit back to a command prompt, so these dedicated applications don't
> > usually allow the user to quit to DOS. If you manage to exit the embedded
> > application, you'll likely see a "Bad or missing Command Interpreter"
> > prompt, where you'll need to enter the full path to a new shell. For a
> > user-focused desktop system, this would be a problem. But on an embedded
> > system that's dedicated to doing only one job, you should never need to
> > exit anyway.
>
>
> ___
> Freedos-user mailing list
> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>
___
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Re: [Freedos-user] New mTCP available
Hi, perfect! Good news! So, in the future, I could modify this RLoader DOS game browser library to include some IRC chat with chatbot and people: https://github.com/marco-sacchi/RLoader ...it could solve as a basis for DOS internet communication for retro gamers. Just show how many gamers online in the past 1 hour and option to ping someone for online play. Then there would be some additional setup required for IPX bridge over TCP/IP (use some modern machine on LAN or Raspberry Pi) and then it would be possible to start and communicate some online play on 386DX and 486DX and up (Doom, Duke, Warcraft, Need For Speed, Carmageddon). Perhaps also Serial link games over TCP/IP like Retaliator. I have this idea in my mind for the last few months. The game browser and IRC would act as an entrypoint to find people and negotiate. Because currently they are spread in different timezones in local Facebook groups and it is difficult to get the timing right with people. They often read the message late and after 1 hour nobody play anymore. Lukas On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 6:19 PM Jim Hall wrote: > > > On Fri, Jul 8, 2022, 7:39 PM Michael Brutman > wrote: > >> Just for a little bit ... :) >> >> Thanks! >> > > > > That's what I figured. That's why I only hid the mirror, but didn't delete > it. :-) > > Let me know when you're comfortable with it and I'll unhide the mirror > directory. > > Jim > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Quake2 for FreeDOS
Hi, that sounds great! On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:45 PM Michał Dec wrote: > > W dniu 23.01.2022 o 12:34, Jerome Shidel pisze: > > Without them, it would not be playable. > > This is not a problem in pretty much every Linux or BSD distribution. > They provide binaries of engines for Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3, Doom 1, > Doom 2, Doom 3, Duke Nukem 3D, RollerCoaster Tycoon, RollerCoaster > Tycoon 2, and many other games that require proprietary game data except > the engine is free/libre/opensource software. > > As for the LICENSE file, I could reach the authors and work it out with > them. Chances are they got it from the GPL release. > > Best regards, > > Michał > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Sound in (Free)DOS
DDMA is one of the options and it is not working on modern systems. This ESS Solo-1 has special WDMA mode, but it can be enabled only using a specific pci instructions that you need to manually send when booting DOS. I have added some comments at Vogons here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46=75420=20 You need to download the pciset.exe somewhere on the net and at Vogons download the bat file template for ESS Solo-1. You will need to play and adjust various settings. First I boot in Windows 98 SE, look at the values PnP OS set for this soundcard and how it manage to solve all the IRQ conflicts and base memory address. I wrote it down, then I boot to pure DOS and use these parameters as a basis for experimenting. I had to change from DMA 0 to DMA 3 as it was more stable. It is doable, but you need very very good PCI soundcard with quality drivers. Sound Blaster Live works, but needs EMM386 in order to work. On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 4:48 PM Michał Dec wrote: > How is this compatibility achieved? DDMA? > W dniu 02.10.2021 o 16:35, Lukas Satin pisze: > > I had success with ESS Solo-1. Also some C-Media is good I have heard or > Vortex PCI. It works without EMM386, so you can run Carmageddon 1 in 3dfx > DOS on Compaq Deskpro EN - Pentium III 1 GHz. The only downside is that you > need to use pciset.exe util and send few 0 a 1 bytes on PCI bus to > configure the PCI soundcard, enable sound blaster mode and set it like > IRQ=5, DMA=3, ADDRESS=240. It is not typical and autodetection of soundcard > will not work. But if you run setup.exe of some app and set it up manually > plus use SET BLASTER in Autoexec.bat, then it works fine in pure MS-DOS 7 > (Windows 98 SE machine). I was able to run 99% of DOS sound apps without > ISA. > > On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 3:10 PM Zbigniew wrote: > >> On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 02:58:40PM +0200, Michał Dec wrote: >> >> > This is really grasping at straws here, since this would require >> re-writing >> > HMI drivers to use said cards. Lots of DOS games either have them >> statically >> > linked into the exe file, or use them as loadable modules a'la dynamic >> > libraries. I'm not saying it's impossible, just tough. AFAICT nobody has >> > done that to date. >> >> Probably nobody ever will until Elon Musk (or Branson) offers a "bounty" >> ;) >> -- >> regards, >> Zbigniew >> >> >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing > listFreedos-user@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Sound in (Free)DOS
I had success with ESS Solo-1. Also some C-Media is good I have heard or Vortex PCI. It works without EMM386, so you can run Carmageddon 1 in 3dfx DOS on Compaq Deskpro EN - Pentium III 1 GHz. The only downside is that you need to use pciset.exe util and send few 0 a 1 bytes on PCI bus to configure the PCI soundcard, enable sound blaster mode and set it like IRQ=5, DMA=3, ADDRESS=240. It is not typical and autodetection of soundcard will not work. But if you run setup.exe of some app and set it up manually plus use SET BLASTER in Autoexec.bat, then it works fine in pure MS-DOS 7 (Windows 98 SE machine). I was able to run 99% of DOS sound apps without ISA. On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 3:10 PM Zbigniew wrote: > On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 02:58:40PM +0200, Michał Dec wrote: > > > This is really grasping at straws here, since this would require > re-writing > > HMI drivers to use said cards. Lots of DOS games either have them > statically > > linked into the exe file, or use them as loadable modules a'la dynamic > > libraries. I'm not saying it's impossible, just tough. AFAICT nobody has > > done that to date. > > Probably nobody ever will until Elon Musk (or Branson) offers a "bounty" ;) > -- > regards, > Zbigniew > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] media players in dos
Parameter -wss will mean Windows Sound System and from ISA sound cards I have only OPTi sound card that supports it ( https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=70060). Sound Blaster cards do not implement WSS by default. So I would not say it works in DOS. It needs to work through Allegro framework in order to be DOS compatible. OPTi sound card has WSS driver for Windows 3.11 and up. On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 7:50 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi! > > I have done a quick test with mpxplay and mplayer: > Mpxplay works out of the box for mp3 files on my > HDA hardware. With mplayer for DOS, the default > "aulib" only uses one speaker, but "-ao wss" will > select a driver which works in stereo. The option > "-ao allegro" fails to produce sound. Also, the > (only) VESA driver of mplayer fails to find MCGA > style modes, so 320x200, 8 bpp FLI fail to play. > Not sure which -vf or -vo could work this around? > > The bad news is that the mpxplay license is not > open enough and there has been no reaction to a > mail and a ticket by me about the issue. The used > mplayer version also is, as far as I remember, one > which have downloaded as pre-compiled binary, so I > am not sure how well the official open source DOS > version of mplayer works at the moment. > > Regards, Eric > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS get-together
I missed that. In the e-mail there was June 20. I was in a rush and read that just briefly. For meetings it is good to have some calendar reminder (like Gmail) and include a link. I read that email now, there were no instructions. Only BlueJeans. No URL. By the way, here in Europe they say: "Because of acquisition, BlueJeans is not available in your country anymore."Verizon, classic. Something like Zoom or Discord would be better. So see you next time :-) Lukas On Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 8:37 PM Jerome Shidel wrote: > Hi Jim and everyone, > > Had fun during the get-together. Playing around with Virtual Cameras, OBS > and live streaming the video from my good old Pentium Pro. > > :-) > > During the online get-together, Jim wanted to know what was the font I was > using in FreeDOS. > > It was one I created decades ago in my earlier DOS days. I wanted bigger > text in TEXT MODE on that tiny screen. So the LARGE.FNT was born and > LARGE.COM to make it permanent. Anyhow, I wasn’t using my normal computer > with email, bookmarks and such to easily send any links. > > You can get the TSR at > https://github.com/shidel/DustyTP7/raw/master/bin/LARGE.COM > > You can get the font itself at > https://github.com/shidel/DustyTP7/raw/master/COMASM/LARGE.FNT It is a > simple bitmap file and should work fine with programs that can change text > fonts. > > You can also view the source for the Turbo Pascal program that turns its > own EXE into a COM binary and the code for LARGE.PAS in the > https://github.com/shidel/DustyTP7/raw/master/COMASM/ directory. I > didn’t have a lot of money and could only afford one compiler. So, doing it > in Turbo Assembler, MASM or other assembler wasn’t an option. > > Also… He wanted to know more about my text mode SMOOTH SCROLLING directory > listing program. The source is in that Github repository. But, a direct > link to the compiled version is > https://github.com/shidel/DustyTP7/raw/master/bin/DS.EXE > > Please note, the smooth scrolling only works on REAL hardware and in > DOSBOX. I have not seen any other Virtual Machines that fully implement the > required VGA functions needed to accomplish this in text mode. If you run > it under VirtualBox, VMware, QEMU or one of those virtual machines, you > just get slow scrolling. :-( > > Anyhow… > > :-) > > Jerome > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DBCS question about dosbox-x
I use DOSBOX-X and you can notice they use completely different fonts and GUI. I think they use native Windows API, because the text looks like anti-aliased native app using HiDPI. Therefore this is something completely separate from DOS and it is Windows based font rendering feature. But that is just my quick guess from what I see when I see it. On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 3:28 PM ZB wrote: > Whatever you decide if it means additional overhead on kernel (very likely) > it would be good idea to separate "CJK-enabled" and "non-CJK" kernels, > since > this is very specific ability, not useful for everyone > -- > regards, > Zbigniew > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI SATA adapters with DOS
*does not see SATA drive On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 9:21 PM Lukas Satin wrote: > Hi Eric, good question! From what I understand, he cannot boot SATA drive > because BIOS does not see SATA driver during boot prompt due to add-on > controller card. If not, then my answer was not correct. > > Lukas > > On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 8:07 PM Eric Auer wrote: > >> >> Hi! >> >> I am not sure if we have understoood Jon's question correctly. >> >> Does he need any changes for the BIOS at all? Maybe the issue >> is simply that MS DOS can only use the first 8 GB of your disk, >> with at most 2 GB per partition, because it is FAT16 CHS only? >> >> Many old BIOSes already work fine for the first 128/137 GB if you >> have a LBA FAT32 DOS such as FreeDOS, EDR-DOS or Win98 DOS 7 :-) >> >> And as far as I have understood, he can boot either from onboard >> IDE (PATA) controllers or from his add-on SATA controller card. >> >> So I think I need to understand what exactly he can NOT do yet. >> >> Eric >> PS: Actually old PCI network cards work better than ISA ones. >> >> >> >> >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI SATA adapters with DOS
Hi Eric, good question! From what I understand, he cannot boot SATA drive because BIOS does not see SATA driver during boot prompt due to add-on controller card. If not, then my answer was not correct. Lukas On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 8:07 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi! > > I am not sure if we have understoood Jon's question correctly. > > Does he need any changes for the BIOS at all? Maybe the issue > is simply that MS DOS can only use the first 8 GB of your disk, > with at most 2 GB per partition, because it is FAT16 CHS only? > > Many old BIOSes already work fine for the first 128/137 GB if you > have a LBA FAT32 DOS such as FreeDOS, EDR-DOS or Win98 DOS 7 :-) > > And as far as I have understood, he can boot either from onboard > IDE (PATA) controllers or from his add-on SATA controller card. > > So I think I need to understand what exactly he can NOT do yet. > > Eric > PS: Actually old PCI network cards work better than ISA ones. > > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI SATA adapters with DOS
BTW: If you want to hack your Award BIOS directly and add support, it is doable. I think you will not get as broad support of features as XT IDE, but you should be able to get to 137GB size. Another Czech guy is developing project around Award BIOS customization for several years: http://rayer.g6.cz/romos/romos.htm ...we don't have money, but we have time, so we always hack our way around in a creative way, haha :-) On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 6:36 PM Lukas Satin wrote: > The XT IDE can be used in any controller card that allows it to hook into > that specific interrupt. For example network card works because of support > for network boot. There are also Compact Flash and IDE controllers with > this support. Basically anything where you can attach this EEPROM. I am > using it currently in both ISA and PCI network cards (Realtek and 3COM). > Thanks to this, I can have a 32GB SD card on the 486 and boot FreeDOS to > the FAT32 filesystem. > > These are the reasons why I got hooked on retro gaming and retro > computing. The possibilities today are very broad. Some people like to stay > "period correct", but I like to break the barriers and explore new > horizons. For example I co-developed an active converter from USB to AT > keyboard. Modern RGB mechanical gaming keyboard (with macro support) over > USB works on 386 or 486, thanks to Teensy controller running at 90 Mhz. > That is higher than the system CPU clock. You can even use a Bluetooth USB > dongle. It will take any USB composite HID device and convert it to PC/AT > or PC/XT. I did blow up the AmiKey keyboard controller on the motherboard > once, though. That is the price for development. The reason was improper AT > pin contact :-) > > Lukas > > On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:09 PM Frantisek Rysanek < > frantisek.rysa...@post.cz> wrote: > >> On 23 Jun 2021 at 14:59, Lukas Satin wrote: >> >> > ... Get XT IDE eeprom and put it in Ethernet NIC for example to get >> >> > boot options even for 386 and bypass size limitations >> >> Oh I see, you mean this: >> http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/ >> ...apparently the software project is still active :-) >> >> That's one lovely practical hack :-D >> >> My remaining ISA NIC's have ended up in the trash a few years ago. >> >> I'm wondering how much work it would be to inject this into an older >> Award BIOS. If memory serves, ISA option ROM's somehow did not load >> automatically... what did work was link the ROM as a PCI PnP option >> ROM and insert it into the BIOS image instead of the original PCI NIC >> option ROM (referring to its HW PCI ID's). Requires a NIC integrated >> on the motherboard. No such procedure is mentioned in the XTIDE >> docs... >> >> Frank >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI SATA adapters with DOS
The XT IDE can be used in any controller card that allows it to hook into that specific interrupt. For example network card works because of support for network boot. There are also Compact Flash and IDE controllers with this support. Basically anything where you can attach this EEPROM. I am using it currently in both ISA and PCI network cards (Realtek and 3COM). Thanks to this, I can have a 32GB SD card on the 486 and boot FreeDOS to the FAT32 filesystem. These are the reasons why I got hooked on retro gaming and retro computing. The possibilities today are very broad. Some people like to stay "period correct", but I like to break the barriers and explore new horizons. For example I co-developed an active converter from USB to AT keyboard. Modern RGB mechanical gaming keyboard (with macro support) over USB works on 386 or 486, thanks to Teensy controller running at 90 Mhz. That is higher than the system CPU clock. You can even use a Bluetooth USB dongle. It will take any USB composite HID device and convert it to PC/AT or PC/XT. I did blow up the AmiKey keyboard controller on the motherboard once, though. That is the price for development. The reason was improper AT pin contact :-) Lukas On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:09 PM Frantisek Rysanek wrote: > On 23 Jun 2021 at 14:59, Lukas Satin wrote: > > > ... Get XT IDE eeprom and put it in Ethernet NIC for example to get > > > boot options even for 386 and bypass size limitations > > Oh I see, you mean this: > http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/ > ...apparently the software project is still active :-) > > That's one lovely practical hack :-D > > My remaining ISA NIC's have ended up in the trash a few years ago. > > I'm wondering how much work it would be to inject this into an older > Award BIOS. If memory serves, ISA option ROM's somehow did not load > automatically... what did work was link the ROM as a PCI PnP option > ROM and insert it into the BIOS image instead of the original PCI NIC > option ROM (referring to its HW PCI ID's). Requires a NIC integrated > on the motherboard. No such procedure is mentioned in the XTIDE > docs... > > Frank > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PCI SATA adapters with DOS
Dobry den Franto, I will continue in English: 1) FreeDos should have some SATA driver because you can install it on new hardware, right? 2) Booting will be a problem on old MB. Get XT IDE eeprom and put it in Ethernet NIC for example to get boot options even for 386 and bypass size limitations 3) On old PC I found good Sata PCI that are PCI 2.1 compliant. Im on phone, I dont remember the name now. It should be doable even on 486 and Pentium 1. S pratelskym pozdravem, Lukas Satin On Wed 23. 6. 2021 at 13:43, Frantisek Rysanek wrote: > Dear Mr. Brase, > > thanks for the detailed report... I wasn't paying attention back in > March, so I don't recall what motherboard and BIOS you have there... > but in general that probably doesn't make too much of a difference > :-) What you're complaining about (boot sequence / ordering of disk > controller channels and drives) is primarily a BIOS issue, with > MS-DOS adding a handful of quirks of its own... > > I'd like to praise you for coping so well (scouting by way of > fighting). And, "Linux" is indeed the king of the hill, when it comes > to disk partitioning - or rather, the tools such as fdisk, gdisk and > others, coming in modern distroes (these tools keep evolving). Thumbs > up for learning about the underlying principles. > > Your SATA controller does have a BIOS option ROM baked in, which > fortunately is somewhat compatible with the BIOS on your motherboard. > There are several ways (some of them "feral", plus the BBS API) of > engaging the SATA option ROM or individual drives in the BIOS boot > sequence. Generally the SATA controller's OPROM can hook maybe two > different "software interrupts" (if memory serves) to force itself > before or after the onboard BIOS boot sequence, or it can offer the > disk drives detected as individual BIOS disk drives to the host BIOS > for its own boot sequence (thus leaving the ordering of individual > drives at the discretion of the host BIOS and its SETUP). > I recall seeing some disk controller OPROM that would give you a > choice, what method of hooking the boot sequence to use (INT18h, > INT19h, PnP BBS). > > On top of that, different brands, generations, versions, and > mobo-maker-flavours of BIOSes have different user-visible approaches > to boot device ordering. This alone would warrant a howto of its own. > Unfortunately some BIOSes were/are just stupid and limited in what > they allow you to do. > > If you don't like the way these issues are handled by your particular > combination of motherboard BIOS and the SATA controller's option ROM, > you should check for a BIOS update especially for the motherboard's > BIOS - if you haven't done that yet, chances are, that a more modern > BIOS, if available, has added some intelligence in that area. > > I recall trying some Russian hacker tools for vintage Award BIOSes, > that were able to improve support for large disk drives > http://www.rom.by/articles/BP/index_english.htm > Beware, this could brick your motherboard. I had a HW programmer as a > retreat path. > And, that project is really old now. It added support for disk drives > up to 137 GB - this particular boundary has long been exceeeded, we > are now past another boundary at 2 TB. > And, it probably does nothing about the way the BIOS Boot Sequence is > approached and manipulated by the SETUP of your BIOS (and its runtime > logic). > > Unless you install a device driver, DOS uses disk drives it learns > about from the BIOS - and accesses them via the BIOS Int 13h > services. Accepts them in the order as supplied by the BIOS. Windows > 95 and 98 would do the same for disks from controllers where they > don't have their own 32bit driver. > > What *drive* gets selected for loading the 1st-stage bootloader (in > the drive's MBR), that's strictly a choice on part of the BIOS > including any OPROMs hooking it. MS-DOS does not have a say. > What *partition* on that drive (or some other drive?) gets > chain-loaded next, that's the bootloader's choice. Actually it may be > a second boot-loader stage in the "active" partition's boot sector > (MS-DOS style), or it can be a file from a file system, or > whatever... depends on what bootloader starts in the first stage and > how capable it is. > > I recall noticing some shenanigans with primary vs. extended > partitions on disk drives... MS-DOS would give the letter C: to the > first primary partition it would find, following up with *primary* > partitions on other drives, and then any extended partitions would > follow. I seem to recall that multiple "primary" partitions per drive > were not supported at all? I.e. MS-DOS would not "see" primary > partitions other than the first one
Re: [Freedos-user] Which paint programs and image viewers for DOS do you prefer?
I came across source code of Deluxe Paint 1 by Electronic Arts, but it is not for distribution (just for your personal interest): https://computerhistory.org/blog/electronic-arts-deluxepaint-early-source-code/ On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 11:26 AM Bryan Kilgallin wrote: > Eric: > > > I wonder what > > YOUR impressions are regarding those, because I > > would suggest to add at least 1 paint and 1 image > > viewer app to our "full" collection of applications. > > A Wacom graphics-tablet is a USB device. Anything would have to support > that! > -- > members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/ > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Building Plan9's Sam text editor on FreeDOS? (+ Edlin without line numbers?)
BTW: DOjS is a piece of cake. I develop MS-DOS games since I was 8 years old (simple 16 colors). DOjS is based on Allegro, I worked on one Allegro game (Lunar lander clone) as a student within a team of other students. So it is just a matter of taking the regex stuff and some support for the syntax. It is TUI, not GUI. On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 9:49 PM Lukas Satin wrote: > @Tom I pointed out to Mart to try it himself. I think there is a high > chance that it will work. > > Haha, the minimum wage - someone can do it as a part time project. I don't > want to start this discussion, but minimum wage in Germany is not even > junior software developer salary in Ostrava (Czechia), my hometown. I > started as Java developer in Tieto (owned by Finland) in Ostrava and my > salary was half of your minimum wage! And we live next to each other. This > was only 8 years ago. That I quit after 3 months was something else, but > Ostrava companies always made me upset. They work directly for Germany or > under Germany and even after 10 years experience and working for Dubai > blockchain startup, they offered me very low salary. I decided not to > support this, packed my "two bags" and travelled 3 hours by train to > Prague. Now I have 3 times higher salary than in my hometown (difference in > rent is very small). So to end up this in a positive way: there are many > people in Europe who work for lower salary than German average and I'm sure > they could do it. Therefore it is doable :-) Have a nice day! > > On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 9:16 PM tom ehlert wrote: > >> >> > The only light at the end of the tunnel right now is something like >> > HX DOS, which allows you to run SIMPLE Win32 apps in DOS. Give it a >> > try: https://www.japheth.de/HX.html >> >> DOES IT WORK IN A REASONABLE WAY? >> >> >> >> > More realistic solution would be to crowdfund some developer to >> > write a DOS port in something like https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOjS >> > (but I'm not sure about performance on 486 and lower, running Pentium 1 >> would be more safe). >> >> have you even the slightest ide how nuch time it takes to write a DOS >> port? multiply this by the minimum wage law of your country. >> >> >> maybe Jim Hall should it port on his video channel. >> >> >> > Try to run it in FreeDOS again using HX GUI / HX RT. >> did this work for you? >> >> Tom >> >> >> >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Building Plan9's Sam text editor on FreeDOS? (+ Edlin without line numbers?)
@Tom I pointed out to Mart to try it himself. I think there is a high chance that it will work. Haha, the minimum wage - someone can do it as a part time project. I don't want to start this discussion, but minimum wage in Germany is not even junior software developer salary in Ostrava (Czechia), my hometown. I started as Java developer in Tieto (owned by Finland) in Ostrava and my salary was half of your minimum wage! And we live next to each other. This was only 8 years ago. That I quit after 3 months was something else, but Ostrava companies always made me upset. They work directly for Germany or under Germany and even after 10 years experience and working for Dubai blockchain startup, they offered me very low salary. I decided not to support this, packed my "two bags" and travelled 3 hours by train to Prague. Now I have 3 times higher salary than in my hometown (difference in rent is very small). So to end up this in a positive way: there are many people in Europe who work for lower salary than German average and I'm sure they could do it. Therefore it is doable :-) Have a nice day! On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 9:16 PM tom ehlert wrote: > > > The only light at the end of the tunnel right now is something like > > HX DOS, which allows you to run SIMPLE Win32 apps in DOS. Give it a > > try: https://www.japheth.de/HX.html > > DOES IT WORK IN A REASONABLE WAY? > > > > > More realistic solution would be to crowdfund some developer to > > write a DOS port in something like https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOjS > > (but I'm not sure about performance on 486 and lower, running Pentium 1 > would be more safe). > > have you even the slightest ide how nuch time it takes to write a DOS > port? multiply this by the minimum wage law of your country. > > > maybe Jim Hall should it port on his video channel. > > > > Try to run it in FreeDOS again using HX GUI / HX RT. > did this work for you? > > Tom > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Building Plan9's Sam text editor on FreeDOS? (+ Edlin without line numbers?)
Hi Liam & guys, thanks for interesting info and welcome to Prague. I just moved there few months ago as well. I was looking at some code repositories: https://github.com/deadpixi/sam https://github.com/9fans/plan9port The problem is that the Linux/Mac/PPC port relies on X11 GUI support. For Win32, the MingW compiler is also different and will have some sort of GUI layer. If it would be that simple and I could compile stuff like this in FreeDOS, that would be great. But it is not possible. The only light at the end of the tunnel right now is something like HX DOS, which allows you to run SIMPLE Win32 apps in DOS. Give it a try: https://www.japheth.de/HX.html More realistic solution would be to crowdfund some developer to write a DOS port in something like https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOjS (but I'm not sure about performance on 486 and lower, running Pentium 1 would be more safe). Try to run it in FreeDOS again using HX GUI / HX RT. Lukas On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 3:07 PM Liam Proven wrote: > On Mon, 21 Jun 2021 at 05:42, Mart Zirnask wrote: > > > > However, I am a fan of the Sam text editor, originally developed for > > the Plan 9 OS. > > SAM, Acme and the Plan 9 Rio environment were inspired by Niklaus > Wirth's Oberon environment. > > The UI is quite similar to the Oberon UI. > > Quick intro: > http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/04/22/oberon/ > > Wikipedia article: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system) > > Some of the history: > https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Articles/LeanSoftware.pdf > > Academic assessment: > > http://people.cis.ksu.edu//~danielwang/Investigation/System_Security/download.pdf > (Warning, non HTTPS link, but it's real, valid and safe.) > > Thus, you might find it interesting and instructive to check out Oberon. > > Modern versions run on top of Windows, macOS and Linux, but it also > used to run on top of DOS if that's what you want. > > > https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosoberon/files/DOS%20Oberon%20System%203%20Version%202.0/ > > -- > Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Creating a FreeDOS compatibility page in the wiki?
Some basic chart on Wiki could do. It would be great if everyone would be encouraged to add a separate wiki page for each software with step by step instructions how to fix it in the current state (it should be mentioned there). For example, I am working on some todo list for Chaos Engine CD rom release (USA version). I found you can download also two patches: one for soundblaster fix, second for keyboard fix. Some systems do need it. This happens when there are bugs in the software. None of the software was completely bug free. Lukas On Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 8:55 PM tom ehlert wrote: > for all of you that are missing a TLDR section of the post below: > > there are a lot of problems with many software, games are more > problematic. > > for many configurations there are some config.sys options to make > things work. > > unfortunately you have to work this out for yourself. > > Tom > > > > am Samstag, 19. Juni 2021 um 16:47 schrieben Sie: > > > > Hi Jim, virtual computer users, > > >>> http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Hardware_compatibility > > > How about adding advice about specific hardware to that? Some examples: > > > JEMM386 and JEMMEX may need options NOPGE, NOVME or NOINVLPG or > > for buggy versions of Qemu, Bochs, VirtualBox, VMware or VirtualPC > > and for 2017 Ryzen CPU: Those have VME, but it is buggy, so JEMM... > > would try to use it. Also, avoid I=TEST unless you know it works. > > > You may have to use X2MAX=32767 or EMX options of JEMM... for some > > games or manually override the A20METHOD if necessary. For some PCI > > sound blaster variant drivers, the SB JEMM... option will be needed. > > > The A20 method overrides also apply to HIMEM and similar drivers. > > With HIMEMX, use /X2MAX32 to limit XMS 2.0 to 32767k for old games. > > > For UHDD (and the older UIDE) you can use /E to disable UDMA and > > use slow BIOS I/O for all disks: Some versions of VirtualBox and > > mainboards older than 1995 may need this. On modern boards, you > > can use /O to overlap disk I/O with XMS access, but try whether > > it works before using it. For some old games, the /R15 or /R63 > > options for UHDD may be beeded to keep the first 16 or 64 MB of > > RAM free for the games, if they cannot access higher addresses. > > For old systems with broken DRQ, the /Q option might be useful. > > > For UDVD2, very few old LiteON drives report UDMA, but not support > > it properly: Use the /UX option for those. Do not use it by default, > > it drastically reduces speed! > > > All sorts of sound hardware have all sorts of special tricks needed > > at boot to get them work as intended. In particular, PCI ones are > > evil and may only fully work on mainboards which support DDMA. Any > > hardware Adlib / OPL3 FM emulation may work nevertheless. See above > > for software emulations: Special JEMM... options may be necessary > > and various games may be incompatible. For playing CD audio, some > > wiring between CD/DVD drive and mainboard/soundcard will be needed > > and special mixer volume control and driver settings will apply. > > > Windows 3.x must be run in standard mode, not 386enh mode, but > > in DOSEMU2, 386enh mode and Windows for Workgroups "non-safe" mode > > may work with some effort. Complicated topic, see tutorials etc. > > > I guess DPMIONE or similar could help you to run 386enh mode, too? > > And of course you can use Japheth's HX RT and HX GUI to directly > > run older or simpler Windows apps in DOS without any Windows :-) > > > Another relevant thing is: ALWAYS load XMS/HMA drivers if you can, > > HIMEM family, XMGR or, if your CPU is 286, at least FDXMS286. All > > is better than nothing and DOS=HIGH and FreeCOM command.com with > > XMS swap make a huge difference for having more of your 640k low > > DOS memory free. If you cannot load such drivers, consider using a > > KSSF disk-swapping version of FreeCOM instead of default XMS-swap. > > > In general, avoiding JEMM... or EMM386 can avoid problems, both > > with buggy hardware/BIOS and with buggy or old games, but you > > cannot load things to UMB without that unless you use UMBPCI and > > UMBPCI has limited compatibility itself (test before use!). One > > trick to get more free RAM is to use DEVLOAD to load UDVD2 and > > UHDD with their /H options to let them use HMA instead of UMB. > > > I am sure that I have forgotten MANY compatibility tricks here, but > > I would like to hear from all you "virtual computer" users out there > > which of the abovementioned suspected incompatibilities with Bochs, > > QEMU, VirtualBox, Virtual PC, VMware etc. actually still apply to the > > CURRENT versions of those :-) > > > Maybe somebody can add a more structured version of the above to the > > compatibility wiki page. I will not, I can only give you this dump > > of ideas from my memory and from various readme files here ;-) > > > Thanks for reviewing! Eric > > > PS: Interestingly, the PCEM UDVD2 combination find the track count, > > but not track
Re: [Freedos-user] Catching up on FreeDOS articles at OpenSource.com
Okay, thank you. The problem is that my friend is 350km away and we cannot make LAN party. There are some articles and even some Raspberry Pi project on Github for this. And it is also COVID safe solution for LAN party :-) I had some success with Retrozilla on W98SE. Even some VNCViewer solution with remote download would be nice. The jumping around and switching machines when you forget some patch or driver is not convenient. Although I just acquired ZIP250 drives for that purpose (five of them, one with USB for modern PC) as Ethernet RJ45 is not always possible when fixing some issue. Samba in Freedos is already working for me together with Windows 10 (MSCLIENT). Of course the security is lesser. I have nice solution with Asus RT AC87 router, where you can connect USB driver and create SMB share out of it. It works as fast workaround. Of course FTP or SFTP would be much better for some cases. Advantage of SMB is you can run app directly from netdrive or mount image over the network, which is not possible with FTP. I installed DosLFN tools and it complains about default FreeDOS codepage, so I need to change that. I will try dir /lfn. It would be nice to have some DOS Navigator / Commander with LFN support built in. Visual representation is always easier for me than remembering the tree structure on every machine. These were just my ideas for some articles in the future. On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 4:58 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Lukas, > > > I guess there is no good web browser that would actually work (only Lynx > > and similar). So it is impossible to download some driver for example. > Even > > Win98SE with 2000 NT kernel is not useable. Some port of Linux GUI... > > There are Arachne, Dillo, Links, Lynx and others, but they all > do not support the newest generation of HTTPS security and they > all do not support much JavaScript. Both are very widespread in > the modern world wide web, alas. One very fresh Links binary is > > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/net/links/2.23/ > > A while ago, I have tried a few "lightweight" browsers in Linux: > Otter Browser, Falkon and those mentioned already for DOS, with > the exception of Arachne. Because I was upset about Chrome and > Firefox burning gigabytes of RAM. Unfortunately, none of the > more lightweight browsers was able to display anywhere near > "most" of the websites I would have liked to visit with it. > > I think Firefox for DOS would not be the right answer either. > > > Some article about bridging old IPX/SPX DOS apps over TCP/IP would be > nice. > > I am sure that there are articles about that already, I hope > somebody else answers. But why bridging? For LAN game parties > which are proxied around the world instead of getting to meet > for them in person? :-) > > > Some real example of LFN (LDIR commands) would be nice. > > How about DIR /LFN for that? Already implemented ;-) > > > On default installation it does not like the codepage > > (I guess it is 852 or 850). > > You need to be more specific about that. > > > Cherry on top would be example with LFN and Samba. > > Note that MSCLIENT does not support modern Windows networks > and you will have a hard time to configure your server to > be old and insecure enough to use it from DOS at all. We do > have a SMBCLIENT for DOS, though, probably with LFN support? > > It works a bit like an FTP client, so you can use commands > to copy files. It does not "mount" the drive directly, so > you cannot just give it a drive letter. But again, MSCLIENT > is very outdated, so SMBCLIENT is probably still an idea. > > Note that we do have VMSMOUNT which "mounts" VMWare drives > using the guest/host interface provided for that by VMWare. > > Cheers, Eric > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Catching up on FreeDOS articles at OpenSource.com
Some refresh about FreeDOS internet use cases and perhaps graphical web browsers would be nice: https://opensource.com/article/17/6/freedos-still-cool-today 1) I guess there is no good web browser that would actually work (only Lynx and similar). So it is impossible to download some driver for example. Even Win98SE with 2000 NT kernel is not useable. Some port of Linux GUI web browser would be nice. 2) Some article about bridging old IPX/SPX DOS apps over TCP/IP would be nice. Cherry on top would be configuring OpenWRT router or Raspberry Pi middleware to route this IPX over TCP over Internet (probably some VPN tunnel) to use networking features with colleague remotely. 3) Some real example of LFN (LDIR commands) would be nice. On default installation it does not like the codepage (I guess it is 852 or 850). Cherry on top would be example with LFN and Samba. Mostly I am interested in integration of modern features on old hardware. That is also the reason why I use FreeDOS and not something else. So the focus on integration new with old is the most important subject for me. Lukas On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 3:27 PM Bryan Kilgallin wrote: > Joao: > > > Freedos is a the alternative to MS-DOS/PC-DOS in a modern computer and > > also old or older computer. > > I run FreeDOS on a 32 bit PC that's at least 17 years old! > > > There are some will use Freedos to run some program and other for games. > > > > The problem, for me is hardware. > I needed a hardware serial port. > > > The first limitation i encountered was how to copy games, usb pendrive > > 2.0, no support for usb 3 and then i ran a game and for stupid face no > > sound... speaker/sound blaster. > USB is only good for keyboard and mouse! > -- > members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/ > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Quake / Blood CD driver audio question
BTW: Yes, I have tested Quake1 on real hardware from real CD-Rom drive. Additional note: If I mount game with cd audio in Daemon Tools in Windows 98, the cd audio from virtual drive is not routed to soundcard. If I play this virtual drive in WinAmp, it will play audio, though. For games, only physical copy audio is properly routed on real hardware. Luas On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 2:27 PM Lukas Satin wrote: > I have tested Quake 1 with audiocd on UDVD2 in the current Freedos RC and > can confirm it is working with UDVD2 perfectly. The common mistake some > users make is that upon fresh install, some sound card drivers have CD > audio muted and they need to run sb16set (mixer utility) to set up the > volume. In the past there was UDVD2 driver issue with CDAudio, but that has > been fixed for over a year. > > Lukas > > On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 2:13 PM Eric Auer wrote: > >> >> Hi! Vladimiro writes: >> >> > following the topic of the udvd2 driver I wanted to add a bug >> > that I could not test on real hardware, I tried it in with the PcEm >> > (https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/), udvd2 does not play the audio tracks >> > of games, I tried it with two games, Quake and Blood. With another >> > standard cdrom driver it reproduces it. >> >> If somebody has those games: Do the audio tracks >> work on real hardware? I think there could be an >> incompatibility between the specific emulator and >> the driver here, because I remember that UDVD2 is >> able to play audio tracks in other contexts. >> >> Thanks for your feedback :-) Eric >> >> >> >> ___ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Quake / Blood CD driver audio question
I have tested Quake 1 with audiocd on UDVD2 in the current Freedos RC and can confirm it is working with UDVD2 perfectly. The common mistake some users make is that upon fresh install, some sound card drivers have CD audio muted and they need to run sb16set (mixer utility) to set up the volume. In the past there was UDVD2 driver issue with CDAudio, but that has been fixed for over a year. Lukas On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 2:13 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi! Vladimiro writes: > > > following the topic of the udvd2 driver I wanted to add a bug > > that I could not test on real hardware, I tried it in with the PcEm > > (https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/), udvd2 does not play the audio tracks > > of games, I tried it with two games, Quake and Blood. With another > > standard cdrom driver it reproduces it. > > If somebody has those games: Do the audio tracks > work on real hardware? I think there could be an > incompatibility between the specific emulator and > the driver here, because I remember that UDVD2 is > able to play audio tracks in other contexts. > > Thanks for your feedback :-) Eric > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3 driver selection, configuration and packaging wish list
Hi, that sounds great! I was planning to try HX RT. Thanks for the update. On Mon 7. 6. 2021 at 3:39, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi :-) > > I would like to refresh the discussion about 1.3 updates... > > *Part one, quick driver selection improvements* > > Questions about the next update of the 1.3 boot media, > has the following already been taken care of? Thanks! > > - provide XMGR as alternative for HIMEM at least in "full" >(it can have better compatibility than HIMEM or JEMMEX) > > - provide CTMOUSE 2.0 as alternative for 2.1 in "full" >(one uses BIOS, the other hardware I/O for PS/2 and >USB legacy support can be broken in one of the two) > > - move UIDE from "base" to "full"... >(UIDE is more for people who want tiny boot disks) > > - ...while moving UHDD from "bonus" to "base"! >(UHDD and UDVD2 together give best performance) > > - ...and moving LBACACHE from "base" to "full" >(CDRCACHE already is "full"-only, but see below!) > > The rationale for the latter is the following: If you want > to cache both harddisk/SSD and CD/DVD, you will either have > to load both LBACACHE and CDRCACHE, or have to load UHDD > before UDVD2. Because using UHDD allows sharing cache XMS > between harddisk and CD, that is the more modern method. > > Note that only UDVD2 uses UHDD cache. In every situation > where the ELTORITO driver is used, I recommend loading > CDRCACHE for ELTORITO. So the BOOT CONFIGURATION of the > installer should be able to use both: UHDD+UDVD2 in one > setting and ELTORITO+CDRCACHE in the other. Note how the > two styles differ in which part must be loaded first. > > See my 3 May 2021 mailS "Distro autoexec/config wishes" > which also discusses some other config issues. > > In case Lukas is reading this: You can also use CDRCACHE > with OAKCDROM, but let me know if that breaks your game > copy protection checks! Also note that some games need > to use XMS below the 16 MB boundary. Both XMS drivers > and some XMS-using drivers such as UHDD and RDISK have > command line options to keep "low" XMS free for games. > > Of course it would also be fine to have more drivers > in "base", but if only either UIDE or UHDD can be in > there, then it should be UHDD, not UIDE or LBACACHE. > > *Part two, slower package choice suggestions* > > Can we promote HX RT / HX GUI more? It runs Win32 apps. > If you are okay with the license, please include it. > > Can we promote XFDISK next to FDISK? "Upgrade" XFDISK > from "Bonus CD only" to "full" or even "base" for that. > > Can we add INFOPLUS (COMPINFO tends to crash) as "MSD"? > > Can we promote DOSZIP (and DN2?) as "DOSSHELL"? > Lukas' 2 June mail says DN2 is slower etc.? > > Can we promote DOS32A as cure for DOS4GW problems? > > Can we add the MPXPLAY media player, with AC97 and HDA > support, great to show off support for modern hardware! > > Please add FDSHIELD to "full" or even "base" again, > it is our resident (TSR) virus protection thingy :-) > > Please add RDISK next to SRDISK: While the latter > is resizeable, the former is very lightweight. > > In general, the Legacy CD is missing a number of things > compared to the Live CD (aka Full CD?) or the Full USB > medium. I would give all three the same set of packages > and make Lite USB less lite (at least 60 MB FAT16) but > you already know my issues with too small USB media. > > As people have to burn a CD anyway, Legacy need not be > Lite, but if you want to offer a Lite CD, you could > offer one with Legacy and one non-Legacy boot style: > The ISO would be small enough so you can offer both. > > I remember people have also missed RAREAD and RAWRITE. > Which other packages should be move to higher categories? > > Maybe ARJ and CABEXTRACT? Command and freecom probably > are not REALLY "less included" on various media? > > And why are LHA and UNRAR not included at all? > Any license problems I have overlooked? > > > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/previews/1.3-rc4/report.html > > Thanks for looking into those :-) Regards, Eric > > > > PS: I would have included 386SWAT (debugger) and DPMIONE > (DPMI host for DOS extenders etc.) but those are closed > source: http://www.sudleyplace.com/download.htm Still > cool enough to mention in this mail ;-) > > PS: Does ANY of you know contexts where CTMOUSE 1.9.1 > works, while 2.1 would not, even when the mouse wheel > mode of 2.1 is not activated via command line option? > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Fwd: FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Thanks for the info. I will test more combinations and get back. Yes, I have seen the reboot commands, so it should be fine. I try restart after leaving the app, simply from command line. None of the apps provide any docs that they would require OAKCDROM. I guess it will work with other Windows CD drivers as well. I can test more. I guess it will use some native calls to read a specific sectors on a CD. Perhaps somewhere in the header of the disc. Some combination of bit mangling and on UDVD2 it will perhaps throw some exception or return empty data. I don't know if the missing cd error is that the drive is being not detected by this app or that reading specific sectors returns some error. I hear floppy A seek, then it finds the CD drive, verify copy protection and run the app. Even I downloaded Mass Destruction, some updated version for DosBox, it did not run and it did complain about this CD drive as well. Another point against DosBox: I have a second machine with 2x Voodoo 2 SLI. That is very interesting. I did compare Glide wrappers for DosBox and also native OpenGL Geforce renderer in Quake 2 versus native Voodoo Glide. It is strange, but on Voodoo 2 native it looks much better. There is something about the texture filtering. On Geforce everything looks too much sharp. On Voodoo 2, the more far the scene is, the more it is blur. So some wall too far is mory blurry, which quite interesting, it makes it more nice and realistic. It works like some lense in VR. These imperfections make it look more appealing, but it might be subjective. Even DosBox glide wrapper cannot achieve this and it simply redirects OpenGL calls, which results that Geforce will render everything too sharp, like a software renderer. First time in my life I have 5.25'' floppy drive and Voodoo 2. So I enjoy it. I have a job, family and finally can afford the stuff I could not when I was a kid :-). For some kids, who started on Pentium 3, for them DosBox might be fine. But for someone who spent most of his life with 486DX2, 486DX4 and Pentium 1 133Mhz, DosBox does not yield the results that would immersively take me into the game. Also adventure games with Roland SoundCanvas SC-55 (MT-32) sound completely different. I know there are some SF SoundFonts you can load inside DosBox and use some virtual synth to play it, but it is just too much of stuff to set up and too many options and too many different soundfonts versions mixed with Roland+Korg. On long winter nights, I can analyze the differences. But having the real box, you just connect cable and go. That's what I like. Connect cable, hit button, done. Lukas On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 4:05 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Lukas, > > Glad to hear that you found a solution for copy protected games! > I assume none explicitly demanded OAKCDROM? What do the docs say? > > The question will be what exactly OAKCDROM does better than UDVD2, > regarding copy protected games. Not easy to say with closed source. > > But good to know that SHSUCDX works equally well as MSCDEX. > > I think DOS32A generally works better than old DOS4GW these days. > > > Now I need to solve Terminator 2029 from floppy, which gives JEMMEX > > exception. I guess it just needs more memory or something. > > Probably not. Simply try without JEMMEX, only loading HIMEM. > Background info: JEMMEX is HIMEM and EMM386 combined, while > JEMM386 is just EMM386. Most games only need HIMEM, so you > would use neither JEMMEX nor JEMM386. You can also try XMGR, > which is another alternative to HIMEM, if our HIMEM is not > what Terminator 2029 wants. > > Regarding the DN2 problems: Would you say DOSZIP is better? > > > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/doszip.html > > DOSZIP is also available on our FreeDOS CD, of course. > > > crash exception in DOS32A: warning (9003): real mode interrupt vector > > has been modified: INT 23h. And you will end up in command line. > > That is not necessarily a crash, but a warning about unclean > exit of apps. Many apps even show it for intentional exists. > > > Restarting with CTRL+ALT+DEL a.k.a. WARMBOOT according to your FDAUTO.BAT > > works only sometimes. Mostly after some DOS32A app changing the interrupt > > You mean WHILE you are in DOS32A apps? Or after you leave them? > Does this happen with JEMMEX, JEMM386 or without any EMM386? > > If it only happens with the two EMM386 variants, there are some > command line options for those to influence the reboot strategy. > > Regards, Eric > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Fwd: FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Hi, I got it fixed in FreeDOS! Thanks for explaining the level 1 and level 2 drivers. It helped me. The floppy disc of Windows 98 contains about 4 different CD-ROM drivers. I went with the first oneL OAKCDROM.SYS These are the results: 1) UDVD2 + SHSUCDX = NOT WORKING 2) OAKCDROM + SHSUCDX = WORKING 3) OAKCDROM + MSCDEX = WORKING 4) UDVD2 + MSCDEX = NOT WORKING Regarding FreeDOS installation. I don't remember exactly. The floppy loads the installation manager and then comply something about cannot install on that drive. Even I tried fdisk. I tried to not create any partition. Then I tried to create one primary partition. Then I tried to format partition as FAT32. None of these did help and the installer complain every time. With CD version, it worked out well. Perhaps for CD version I need to download different floppy - I think you have some FreeDOS boot only floppy without installer. I was not able to break the installer with F4 or F8 keys and go straight to console to run CD installation. That would come in handy. So regarding the Mass Destruction game: replacing CD driver is mandatory, but not enough. The original DOS4GW will then complain that it cannot find some file on HDD. Replacing it by DOS32A is the ultimate solution, where everything is working. Remaining bugs: BUG 1) Now I need to solve Terminator 2029 from floppy, which gives JEMMEX exception. I guess it just needs more memory or something. I'm going to retest in Windows 95 DOS mode as well. There are some additional JEMMEX exceptions that need to be solved and are also pointed out in Phil's video. For example Wing Commander or Bioforge. I remember with Bioforge I need tweak my config.sys a lot and make a lot of free memory. But if JEMMEX exceptions tend to happen often, maybe I would need to replace it with some MS-DOS alternative as well. I don't remember if it was HIMEM.SYS or some other file. BUG 2) There are some other things like Dos Navigator (DN2). It is often very slow when switching between shell apps and dos navigator. Norton Commander is much faster. For example editing file in DN2 and saving it will result in crash exception in DOS32A: warning (9003): real mode interrupt vector has been modified: INT 23h. And you will end up in command line. BUG 3) Restarting with CTRL+ALT+DEL a.k.a. WARMBOOT according to your FDAUTO.BAT works only sometimes. Mostly after some DOS32A app changing the interrupt vector, it will make machine unable to restart. Pressing CTRL ALT DEL will result in black screen and hangup. Need to restart using physical RESET button. But this CD-ROM driver was the most significant for me. I'm very happy I found a solution. Thanks to everyone for your time and interest! I can give FreeDOS a bigger chance now :-). I should record some video and prove to others that gaming in FreeDOS is possible, with small one liner fix. Lukas On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 2:20 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi! Forwarding a message from Lukas, accidentally sent only to me. > > To already reply to his points: It is a common problem that 486 can > not boot from CD-ROM, but we provide a boot floppy image with the > right drivers to boot your 486 and then start our CD installer :-) > > Note that our installer expects FreeDOS command.com, not others, > as it uses some extended functionality from that. > > You write that you have tried our floppy, but ran into other bugs: > Please explain which bugs you saw. I think Jerome would tell you > to switch to advanced mode while inside the installer to avoid the > bugs, but without knowing WHICH bugs, I cannot say for sure. > > Lukas, please keep us posted about the CD-ROM based games and the > drivers which they do or do not like, e.g. UDVD2, SHSUCDX, JEMM386 > (but remember: the best EMM386 version often is the one which you > do not load at all, unless the game really needs to use EMS). You > can also compare XMGR to HIMEM if any game would dislike our HIMEM, > or use our HIMEM command line options to limit RAM. Some games are > known to fail if they see more than 31 MB of XMS2: /X2MAX32 helps. > > What exactly made DOSBOX bad in playing your 486 games, by the way? > > That OSSC - http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php?title=OSSC - really > is fancy! It upscales SCART, Component or VGA input to HDMI or DVI > using small fractional N/M scaling factors in HARDWARE (an Altera > Cyclone IV FPGA, DVI out chip, analogue I/O chip, CPU/SoC, 110 EUR) > https://videogameperfection.com/products/open-source-scan-converter/ > Common modes seem to be deinterlace and multiplying lines by 2 to 5. > > Of course running 320x240 games on 4k screens is a bit strange, you > have to turn every retro pixel into 108 ultra high resolution ones, > but for those who happen to have 4k screens with bad built-in scalers > it still is a very elegant solution. You should ASK the DOSBOX people > to implement the scaling algorithm of your choice instead of just > telling US how bad DOSBOX looks according to your taste. > > You say you
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Hi, thank you. That comment on Phil's video by Lukas Satin - that's me. Phil has even FreeDOS starter pack, but it is for FreeDOS 1.2. I tried it. The driver VIDECDD is not working at all. It will not find my CD-ROM drive. Perhaps because 486 bios cannot find the CDROM. But driver such as MSCDEX or SHSUCDX will find the drive. Yes, he mentions that a lot of games will fail because they cannot find a CD drive at all. And this must be something specific to FreeDOS (I think it can be driver for CD or EMM386). You know I spent last 3 days with FreeDOS, trying to make it work. I don't think I'm impatient. We spent one day here and I did not have any solution or a possible solution. Therefore I will try hack my way around. Copy MSCDEX and EMM386. If that won't work, I will format the drive and install Windows 95. PS: CD Audio was fixed in Freedos 1.3 RC2 thanks to updated UDVD2 driver and I use XT-IDE custom BIOS attached on Realtek NIC. That allows to unlimited disk size (limited only by filesystem, 8TB for FAT32). I would copy few files, I think users are not lazy. But see, I'm a software developer, have a lot of other stuff to do and this is my hobby. I even took a vacation this week to solve stuff like this. Because I won auction with 15 retro gaming PCs after someone's brother deceased. And it was whole weekend for me with only FreeDOS installation crashing because of out of memory. Then other stuff and now I see the compatibility with MY MS-DOS software that I need to test is like 50%. I feel like in the old days, when you could install Redhat Linux on 486 and play DOOM there, but nothing else. I think FreeDOS is a little bit like Redhat 20 years ago. It is a little bit better of course, but still feels more like Unix system than native DOS system. You see how many subscribers and views Phil has. There are others like this on Youtube. Everyone from time to time tries FreeDOS for gaming hoping that this time it will be more modern and efficient solution for this type of use. Every discussion ends that it does not work and it is not worth it. And I think end of our discussion will be similar. This is a long term problem. I know open source is difficult and you don't have time to watch social media, what people say about FreeDOS. If there would be some Patreon or Kickstarter campaign to support FreeDOS development and these particular use cases would get focus, I would not hesitate to donate some money. Because it cost me time and a lot of users are unhappy. And I see this could be so good system. I would even accept the fact that developers will not spend time with corner cases compatibility, if there is some proven solution with copying a few original MS-DOS files to FreeDOS. I will try it tomorrow. But it's just a hit or miss situation and I did not find any help about this step. Thank you and have a nice rest of the day. Lukas On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 11:04 PM Michał Dec wrote: > >Not sure why Michał mentions Yamaha YMF724 > > I've lots of issues with this card. Shame on me for not getting a > motherboard with ISA slots. > > >No idea why Michał is so negative about our HIMEM and EMM386 versions > and even our filesystem checking and repair tools > > A lot of games I tried with JEMM386/JEMMEX had some really jarring > issues. They varied from the game gracefully crashing to outright raping > my ears or gradually eroding FAT away. FreeDOS' own FAT repair tools > couldn't help me. Only nuking everything and re-installing and > re-configuring everything. At this point I've included a special GRUB > entry that uses a Linux distro coupled with a custom init script to fix > my FDOS partition. I lost a lot of time and mental wellbeing on these > issues so it's really no surprise I'd rather live in a world where the > sources of my problems do not exist, can't hurt me anymore, and can't > hurt others. > > W dniu 01.06.2021 o 15:17, Eric Auer pisze: > > Hi Lukas, > > > >> Please help with solution, don't waste time with asking why and why > > You will have to ask specific questions when you want > > specific answers. If you want to visit your uncle, it > > does not help to tell your taxi driver "bring me to > > my uncle, do not ask me where he lives" either ;-) > > > > You will not have to "hack your way around", you simply > > have to patiently describe the problem so we can give > > answers which fit the problem, too. > > > > You mentioned that UDVD2 is outdated. Updates are here: > > http://mercurycoding.com/downloads.html#DOS > > > > I certainly agree with Michał that FDNET should be there, > > as far as network driver licensing permits distribution. > > For the rest, we should offer vendor download links. > > > > Not sure why Michał mentions Yamaha YMF724 drivers, do > > you have a
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
I told u I can install from cd. So list is working. Only launching game with some copy protection will not find cd. Some game will find cd in freedos. I sent screenshots of games that do not work. It is like 50% of games from cd. On Tue 1. 6. 2021 at 20:49, Lukas Satin wrote: > Ok, I was born 1987. Had 386 and 486. Today I am software developer. I > have cd in the tray. Tried to remove second hdd so it is on drive D and it > does not help. Same use case is working in Windows 98 and its ms dos. So it > is clearly some incompatibility in Freedos driver. > > Please look at youtube, PhilsComputerLab. He has Youtube video about > freedos gaming. He mentions exactly these issues and that he need to > replace some files, but I dont know which files to replace. > > Thank you, > Lukas > > On Tue 1. 6. 2021 at 19:57, Eric Auer wrote: > >> >> Hi Lukas, >> >> > Please please I solved sound. I shared only experience. Please focus on >> cd >> > drive not found. Forget dosbox. I use original floppy discs from 1992. >> Dont >> > overcomplicate. Can u recommend which files replace from ms dos? >> >> Okay then. So there was no sound problem, you just used a DOSBOX >> driver outside DOSBOX? If it is supposed to work with SB16 on real >> hardware, supporting MS EMM386 style I/O traps would still be one >> feature that I would like to see from Japheth in JEMMEX/JEMM386 :-) >> >> But you ask "please focus on CD drive not found". Then I ask: Please >> tell me, do you have the CD in the drive? Can you access the files >> on the CD? In other words, is only your game complaining, because it >> does some copy protection check which has compatibility issues? Or >> are you completely unable to access any files on the CD? Those are >> two different problems which have two different solutions. Please >> specify which versions of which drivers with which options you use. >> >> You also have not answered those questions: Out of which memory did >> the installer run? Why have you used a Windows boot floppy instead >> of the real FreeDOS installer boot floppy? As you have circumvented >> the problem, you are free to ignore that question if you have no >> time to tell me whether the installer would still fail if you use >> it properly, but I am curious. >> >> I assume AWEUTIL /EM and Intel ICU for ISA PnP is what you have now >> used to solve the MIDI sound problem, but it would be nice to know. >> >> Also, CTCM, CTSB16 and CTMMSYS are probably not perfect for AWE32: >> >> https://comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg.narkive.com/duCiqd7H/ot-configuring-sb16-for-dos >> But as long as it works for you, it is better to have a working than >> to have an overly elegant solution. >> >> As you do NOT want too complicated answers, you should wait with >> MSCLIENT and SAMBA attempts until you have the easy things fixed! >> This means you should not load IFSHLP at the moment, I think. >> >> I also assume that the mouse works fine with CTMOUSE and that >> your compact flash drive works great now? >> >> As nothing is known about the Terminator 2029 problem, you have >> several remaining problems, but ALL relate to the same issue: >> >> Games which are not able to access the game CD. >> >> To solve that problem, you could start by answering my question >> whether or not you can access files on the CD outside the game. >> >> For example, if the CD drive has letter D: then does DIR D: work >> fine and show you a directory listing of the CD contents? Or is >> there some error message? Which? Do you get error messages earlier >> while booting, from UDVD2 or from SHSUCDX? What do those messages >> say? You could also make screenshots if you prefer. You can press >> F8 when DOS starts to boot: Then it will ask you for confirmation >> for each line, which makes it easy to read or screenshot messages. >> >> >>> 3) Mass Destruction PC DOS game: installs from CD, fails to start. >> >>> Tried both DOS4GW and DOS32A >> >> >> >> It says DOS/32A warning 9003: real mode vector has >> >> been modified, and exits. >> >> According to http://dos32a.narechk.net/manual/html/user/8.htm >> this is the fault of Mass Destruction itself, when it exits >> without cleaning up vectors. Which leaves only the CD problem. >> >> Regards, Eric >> >> PS: This should be 123?DOS=HIGH and 23?DEVICE=...HIMEM... My >> earlier comments about I=TEST, I=B000-B7FF NOVME and NOINVLPG >> still apply. If games need EMS 3.2, you must also remove NOEMS >>
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Ok, I was born 1987. Had 386 and 486. Today I am software developer. I have cd in the tray. Tried to remove second hdd so it is on drive D and it does not help. Same use case is working in Windows 98 and its ms dos. So it is clearly some incompatibility in Freedos driver. Please look at youtube, PhilsComputerLab. He has Youtube video about freedos gaming. He mentions exactly these issues and that he need to replace some files, but I dont know which files to replace. Thank you, Lukas On Tue 1. 6. 2021 at 19:57, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Lukas, > > > Please please I solved sound. I shared only experience. Please focus on > cd > > drive not found. Forget dosbox. I use original floppy discs from 1992. > Dont > > overcomplicate. Can u recommend which files replace from ms dos? > > Okay then. So there was no sound problem, you just used a DOSBOX > driver outside DOSBOX? If it is supposed to work with SB16 on real > hardware, supporting MS EMM386 style I/O traps would still be one > feature that I would like to see from Japheth in JEMMEX/JEMM386 :-) > > But you ask "please focus on CD drive not found". Then I ask: Please > tell me, do you have the CD in the drive? Can you access the files > on the CD? In other words, is only your game complaining, because it > does some copy protection check which has compatibility issues? Or > are you completely unable to access any files on the CD? Those are > two different problems which have two different solutions. Please > specify which versions of which drivers with which options you use. > > You also have not answered those questions: Out of which memory did > the installer run? Why have you used a Windows boot floppy instead > of the real FreeDOS installer boot floppy? As you have circumvented > the problem, you are free to ignore that question if you have no > time to tell me whether the installer would still fail if you use > it properly, but I am curious. > > I assume AWEUTIL /EM and Intel ICU for ISA PnP is what you have now > used to solve the MIDI sound problem, but it would be nice to know. > > Also, CTCM, CTSB16 and CTMMSYS are probably not perfect for AWE32: > > https://comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg.narkive.com/duCiqd7H/ot-configuring-sb16-for-dos > But as long as it works for you, it is better to have a working than > to have an overly elegant solution. > > As you do NOT want too complicated answers, you should wait with > MSCLIENT and SAMBA attempts until you have the easy things fixed! > This means you should not load IFSHLP at the moment, I think. > > I also assume that the mouse works fine with CTMOUSE and that > your compact flash drive works great now? > > As nothing is known about the Terminator 2029 problem, you have > several remaining problems, but ALL relate to the same issue: > > Games which are not able to access the game CD. > > To solve that problem, you could start by answering my question > whether or not you can access files on the CD outside the game. > > For example, if the CD drive has letter D: then does DIR D: work > fine and show you a directory listing of the CD contents? Or is > there some error message? Which? Do you get error messages earlier > while booting, from UDVD2 or from SHSUCDX? What do those messages > say? You could also make screenshots if you prefer. You can press > F8 when DOS starts to boot: Then it will ask you for confirmation > for each line, which makes it easy to read or screenshot messages. > > >>> 3) Mass Destruction PC DOS game: installs from CD, fails to start. > >>> Tried both DOS4GW and DOS32A > >> > >> It says DOS/32A warning 9003: real mode vector has > >> been modified, and exits. > > According to http://dos32a.narechk.net/manual/html/user/8.htm > this is the fault of Mass Destruction itself, when it exits > without cleaning up vectors. Which leaves only the CD problem. > > Regards, Eric > > PS: This should be 123?DOS=HIGH and 23?DEVICE=...HIMEM... My > earlier comments about I=TEST, I=B000-B7FF NOVME and NOINVLPG > still apply. If games need EMS 3.2, you must also remove NOEMS > and you should not load IFSHLP until you have solved the rest. > > >> 12?DOS=HIGH > >> 12?DOS=UMB > >> 12?DOSDATA=UMB > >> 1?DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\JEMMEX.EXE NOEMS X=TEST I=TEST NOVME NOINVLPG > >> 234?DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE > >> 2?DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\JEMM386.EXE X=TEST I=TEST I=B000-B7FF NOVME > NOINVLPG > >> 34?SHELL=C:\FDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM C:\FDOS\BIN /E:1024 /P=C:\FDAUTO.BAT > >> 12?SHELLHIGH=C:\FDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM C:\FDOS\BIN /E:1024 > /P=C:\FDAUTO.BAT > >> 123?DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE > >> 123?DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5 > >> 123?DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS > >> 12?DEVICEHIGH=C:\NET\MSCLIENT\ifshlp.sys > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Please please I solved sound. I shared only experience. Please focus on cd drive not found. Forget dosbox. I use original floppy discs from 1992. Dont overcomplicate. Can u recommend which files replace from ms dos? On Tue 1. 6. 2021 at 17:09, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Lukas, > > > Guys, I built regular 486DX2 66Mhz. I would not be that guy and put PCI > > soundcard in that machine. Of course I have ISA soundcard. I have even > VLB > > slot, but I use TSENG 4000/W32p for ISA. In PCI, there is only Realtek > NIC > > with XT-IDE EEPROM. > > Actually Realtek PCI Network cards and older PCI, AGP and PCIe graphics > cards work really well with DOS, but you made a good choice to use an > ISA soundcard for your old games on that 486DX2 PC. > > As said, your ISA soundcard is supposed to come with appropriate tools. > If it is SB16 compatible, games should be happy, but you may still have > to load some activation or volume control tool, set BLASTER and other > environment variables, maybe set jumpers. If the card is PnP, you may > have to install that large Intel DOS PnP manager thing. > > > A) 486DX2 66Mhz, 32MB Ram, onboard 256kB cache. BIOS does not allow CDROM > > boot, but combination of Windows98 floppy to boot and running > installation > > from FreeDOS cd works. At the end there it will crash due to out of > memory. > > Out of DOS memory or out of XMS, EMS or other memory? Those 32 MB > should certainly be enough for our installer, so the problem will > be something more specific than your overall size of RAM. > > Note that your install style is very non-standard, because the > installer has not been tested with MS DOS 7 (from your Windows > floppy). I recommend that you use a FreeDOS boot floppy instead, > or even better, our special boot floppy for the install CD :-) > > The CD installer may expect specific drivers to be loaded, while > your Win98 boot floppy may be using completely different drivers. > > http://freedos.org/download/ explicitly mentions the boot floppy > for those who want to use the CD without booting it. Sorry that > you had to spent 4 hours searching other workaround approaches. > > > said it is memory issue and solved also by installing FreeDOS on hard > drive > > in Pentium machine. That's how I did it as well and it works. Even > > installing a lot of packages on 486, the fdimples will crash with out of > > memory while browsing packages tree and selecting many packages. > > That sounds as if FDIMPLES had too little DOS memory free? Anyway, > while the solution to install your target harddisk into a PC which > CAN boot from CD is very nice, it does not really tell me which > solution would have worked for the 486 and whether it was really > the amount of memory. 32 MB sounds very okay. Maybe it was the > amount of DOS memory, because the Win98 floppy loaded too many > unnecessary drivers or something like that? > > > B) I have Realtek original DOS packet driver, default interrupt 0x60. No > > problem with that. Just documentation for MTCP tells me to install FDNET > > Ah okay. I think if you have the Realtek (8139 or similar, I guess) > packet driver anyway, you only have to complete some config settings > for mTCP and the packet driver. No need to install extra components > as far as I know. Ask Michael Brutman (e.g. here) for config hints :-) > > > C) I have Sound Blaster AWE 32 and AWE 64. > > The AWE 32 is pretty cool for DOS games! I remember that it came > with a volume control tool and a setup-at-boot tool and that it > was recommended to install the intel plug and play configuration > utility: https://drivers.dosreloaded.de/Plug/Intel%20ICU/ > > > I have sound + cdrom + network (including Samba support) with dhcp + > > mouse + compact flash working. Everything is working on this side. > > Sound should be relatively easy. For CDROM, use the three drivers > which I have recommended. You may replace UDVD2 by whatever came > with your CD/DVD drive, but UDVD2 probably works better. > > Networking with Samba is a bit complicated to configure, but Bryan > and Frantisek have recently done that for Bryan's computers, so > they can probably share some tricks. > > Mouse (PS/2 or RS232) should be easy, too: Use CTMOUSE. If you have > USB mice, modern BIOS will have some legacy support which translates > it to a simulation of PS/2 which you can use in CTMOUSE. If you have > an old BIOS, you can try Bret Johnson's USB drivers. > > Not sure what you mean by compact flash, do you mean a card reader > or do you mean a purely mechanical adapter to connect CF to your > IDE/ATA connectors on the mainboard? The latter should work without > any drivers, but you cannot change "disks" while DOS is running and > you may have to be careful to use proper geometry and partitioning. > > > some games install from CD and won't run because they complain cannot > find > > CD. Mostly computer will seek floppy drive A: when searching for CD. I > > guess it is some kind of copy protection. > > No idea, but
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Hi, Eric. Yes I agree. Guys, I built regular 486DX2 66Mhz. I would not be that guy and put PCI soundcard in that machine. Of course I have ISA soundcard. I have even VLB slot, but I use TSENG 4000/W32p for ISA. In PCI, there is only Realtek NIC with XT-IDE EEPROM. What did I solve: A) 486DX2 66Mhz, 32MB Ram, onboard 256kB cache. BIOS does not allow CDROM boot, but combination of Windows98 floppy to boot and running installation from FreeDOS cd works. At the end there it will crash due to out of memory. It took me 4 hours to figure it out. Been changing CD Drives, burning new CDs, you can imagine. And I Googled and one guy had the same problem and he said it is memory issue and solved also by installing FreeDOS on hard drive in Pentium machine. That's how I did it as well and it works. Even installing a lot of packages on 486, the fdimples will crash with out of memory while browsing packages tree and selecting many packages. B) I have Realtek original DOS packet driver, default interrupt 0x60. No problem with that. Just documentation for MTCP tells me to install FDNET to configure packet driver and provide some default setup. But I guess MTCP alone with packet driver should work, right? They just recommend installing FDNET and their setup utility is looking for FDNET CFG file, I guess. C) I have Sound Blaster AWE 32 and AWE 64. I just tried to help with what I know. What I want to solve: I have sound + cdrom + network (including Samba support) with dhcp + mouse + compact flash working. Everything is working on this side. Only some games install from CD and won't run because they complain cannot find CD. Mostly computer will seek floppy drive A: when searching for CD. I guess it is some kind of copy protection. So making ISO image will not work unless you get some crack. And crack means changing some stuff in hex, which might make some stability problems (games often can crash in the middle). I have uploaded FDAuto.bat and FDConfig.sys together with screenshots on OneDrive here (you have permission to update it directly): https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq5X0D4OWWAThYBsnQ0sI1_Me83H5g?e=Nsstqv Screenshots in order as on OneDrive: 1) [OPTIONAL] SoftMPU crash JEMMEX Exception 06 2) Tried SoftMPU boot without both JEMMEX and JEMM386 3) Mass Destruction PC DOS game: installs from CD, fails to start. Tried both DOS4GW and DOS32A 4) Destruction Derby: install from CD, fail to start 5) Comanche Gold CD: install, fail to start 6) Terminator 2029: installation from floppy drive will throw some JEMM386 error. Booting without it does not help. 7) Booting to FreeDOS without memory manager does not help with Terminator 2029 either. Installation is from floppy drive. Game is from 1992 and requirements are 286 w/640k, 1MB Expanded Memory. My uneducated guess is replace SHUCDX with MSCDEX and replace JEMM386 with EMM386. Perhaps also replace Himem.sys or something like that. That could solve all the issues. Lukas On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 3:18 PM Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Lukas, > > > Please help with solution, don't waste time with asking why and why > > You will have to ask specific questions when you want > specific answers. If you want to visit your uncle, it > does not help to tell your taxi driver "bring me to > my uncle, do not ask me where he lives" either ;-) > > You will not have to "hack your way around", you simply > have to patiently describe the problem so we can give > answers which fit the problem, too. > > You mentioned that UDVD2 is outdated. Updates are here: > http://mercurycoding.com/downloads.html#DOS > > I certainly agree with Michał that FDNET should be there, > as far as network driver licensing permits distribution. > For the rest, we should offer vendor download links. > > Not sure why Michał mentions Yamaha YMF724 drivers, do > you have a Sound Blaster 16? Or do you have a sound card > based on Yamaha YMF724? Which sound card do you two have? > > As Michał already said: If your game has a problem with > our brand of EMM386, simply try without EMM386. Easier > than hoping for MS EMM386 to work better, which may or > may not be the case :-) > > Also, in the unlikely case that your game even has some > problem with our HIMEM, you can use XMGR instead, same > download link mentioned above. > > No idea why Michał is so negative about our HIMEM and > EMM386 versions and even our filesystem checking and > repair tools. Actually FreeDOS includes DOSFSCK which > is the same tool which you would also use in Linux :-p > The Linux DOSFSCK version is updated more often, though. > > I disagree with Michał about completely avoiding parts > of MS DOS. I kept QBASIC from MS DOS for quite a while, > as far as I remember. Now there is the big FreeBASIC. > > Of course this is no option when you have no license for > MS DOS, but even if you have one, MS DOS is extremely old > and for many components, the FreeDOS versions are better. > > Cheers, Eric > > > > ___ > Freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
CDAudio: Freedos 1.3 since RC2 features upgraded UDVD2 driver, which fixes CDAudio problem. The solution for you is to download UDVD2 driver from author's website and replace it with what you have now. That is the ultimate solution. One hint: sound card mixer have some utilities and they might set zero volume for CD Audio. Get drivers for Yamaha and there should be some setup utility or mixer. Please help with solution, don't waste time with asking why and why and why. Because I ask for it. And I ask kindly. I want FreeDOS. That's why I'm here. If I have to hack my way around and replace some files from original MS-DOS discs I have here on my table. Then yes I will do it because I need FAT32 support and I want FreeDOS ecosystem with apps. Thank you, Lukas On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 2:49 PM Michał Dec wrote: > >CDAudio is working, but you have to install proper Sound Blaster drivers > > Would be nice if you could be more specific. I can't get it working on my > Yamaha YMF724. > > >FDNET has been removed > > Good job devs. Remove the kernel next time. That should help make FreeDOS > better. > > >*3)* A lot of games will crash because of JEMM386 exception ==> how to > fix? > > Run without drivers. It will start FreeDOS in real mode without a memory > manager. Most games will not be very happy with FreeDOS' own memory > managers and will run into strange issues. Use the memory manager only if > you really need it. And you know what? With "strange issues" in FreeDOS > it's a guaranteed domino effect that may lead to OS annihilation. Let's > say, your game crashes and hangs the entire system due to reasons. You have > no way of recovering other than forcibly restarting the computer. Now good > luck if that game was in the middle of writing anything to the FAT > partition, because if that's so, your FAT partition is now slightly more > screwed up than it used to be. Keep doing it over and over and eventually > the corruption will eat away your FreeDOS files. Don't count on FreeDOS' > own FAT filesystem checking tools. They're useless. Consider dualbooting > Linux with FreeDOS just so you can have a filesystem repair tool that > actually works. > > >any mention of copying anything from proprietary DOS > > What's the point of running FreeDOS then if you're just gonna end up > gluing together parts of FreeDOS and Microsoft's proprietary ecosystem? > Might as well get the full Monty and install MS-DOS. > W dniu 01.06.2021 o 14:31, Lukas Satin pisze: > > Hi, the current status for FreeDOS 1.3 RC4: > A) cannot install from CD on 486 due to low cache or low memory => > solution is to install on Pentium, then put the drive in 486 > > B) FDNET has been removed, for networking download FDNET from FreeDOS 1.2 > if you need > > C) CDAudio is working, but you have to install proper Sound Blaster > drivers and also open the mixer to unmute CD Audio (set volume) > > *I NEED HELP WITH THIS:* > *1)* If game has problem with DOS4GW.EXE, just replace it by DOS32A.EXE > from C:\FDOS\BIN (copy and rename to DOS4GW.EXE in game's directory => > sometime can even speed up the game) > > *2)* Most of CD games will report CD is missing and are unable to start > ==> this is important => how to fix it? Use MSCDEX? > > *3)* A lot of games will crash because of JEMM386 exception ==> how to > fix? Use MS-DOS 6.22 or Windows 98 MS-DOS 7.1 EMM386? What do you think? > Can you please help what to copy from DOS 7.1 or DOS 6.22? I have original > discs. > > *CONCLUSION:* > FreeDOS right now is very powerful and offer a lot of new software and new > networking possibilities. > > Can 100% MS-DOS gaming compatibility be made by copying some files from > MS-DOS? > > Can you please help me with this one? > > I struggle for 2 days already. > > Some example of working FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT with these files would > be very nice! > > Thank you! > Lukas > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing > listFreedos-user@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FreeDOS make better compatibility with DOS games [current status]
Hi, the current status for FreeDOS 1.3 RC4: A) cannot install from CD on 486 due to low cache or low memory => solution is to install on Pentium, then put the drive in 486 B) FDNET has been removed, for networking download FDNET from FreeDOS 1.2 if you need C) CDAudio is working, but you have to install proper Sound Blaster drivers and also open the mixer to unmute CD Audio (set volume) *I NEED HELP WITH THIS:* *1)* If game has problem with DOS4GW.EXE, just replace it by DOS32A.EXE from C:\FDOS\BIN (copy and rename to DOS4GW.EXE in game's directory => sometime can even speed up the game) *2)* Most of CD games will report CD is missing and are unable to start ==> this is important => how to fix it? Use MSCDEX? *3)* A lot of games will crash because of JEMM386 exception ==> how to fix? Use MS-DOS 6.22 or Windows 98 MS-DOS 7.1 EMM386? What do you think? Can you please help what to copy from DOS 7.1 or DOS 6.22? I have original discs. *CONCLUSION:* FreeDOS right now is very powerful and offer a lot of new software and new networking possibilities. Can 100% MS-DOS gaming compatibility be made by copying some files from MS-DOS? Can you please help me with this one? I struggle for 2 days already. Some example of working FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT with these files would be very nice! Thank you! Lukas ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
