Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi Karen, On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 10:18 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: > > As many may recall I run msdos 7.1 instead of freedos for several personal > reasons. Do the volunteers (engineers?) who help you set up your systems forcibly demand MS-DOS 7.1 exactly? We've discussed this before, so I'm not really trying to change your mind on it, just curious. (Why specifically MS-DOS? Why not DR-DOS? Or Datalight ROM-DOS?) > I recently had a new machine built, just before Christmas, which also > included my installing an external dectalk card, I have an ISA slot, the > ling kind on this board. > While the synthesizer works well, using it to support my writing this > message, I have an odd problem. > The dectalk software has a conflict that seems to impact cdrom drives, or > the driver provided by Microsoft. Can't you just edit a CONFIG.SYS menu option to let you optionally boot without DecTalk when needing to access a physical CD-ROM? (BTW, dual boot with another OS is another possibility.) > It is more than addresses, dectalk provides a way to locate a free one, > user guides for both dectalk 4.1, what I am running, and 4.2 reference the > driver issue. > The suggested solution did not work..however I need a cd rom drive for > scores of reasons. I assume you mean a modern DVD drive (20x speed or whatever) or possibly DVD-RW or such. > leading to my question. > Often on list I have read that freedos is in many ways better than MS DOS, > with programs able to run under freedos. FreeDOS is strongly compatible and "Free" (libre), but not necessarily "better" in all ways, no. > I now have a chance to test that theory, swapping in the cd rom driver > freedos provides as a test? > my driver again is not specific to my cd rom..never has been. > Instead I use the basic driver supplied with ms dos 7.1, never having a > problem until now. MS-DOS 7.1 was never a standalone product (unlike MS-DOS 6.22). It was bundled as part of Win95 or Win98 or whatever variant. So I don't know what came with it: OAKCDROM.SYS? > What does Freedos provide with that kind of universal flexibility? I can only point you to the FreeDOS mirror on iBiblio: * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/cdrom/ But it's been years since I've bothered with physical CDs. (My 2022 Linux laptop has no optical drive, for instance.) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?
Hi, On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 4:30 AM Frantisek Rysanek via Freedos-user wrote: > > my first PC at home was a 386DX/40 in about 1991/1992 I'm American, but we're roughly the same age, and I started with a 486 SX/25 in 1994. > All the school had at the time was Pascal with objects I've become a big fan of Pascal in the past decade or so. Turbo Pascal was really well done, but there were others too. > I recall that two of the best students coded a software app in > Borland Pascal with Turbovision for creating daily/weekly teaching > schedules for the school. A pretty advanced piece of software, > considering use of objects / "dynamic data", the data model, and the > algorithmic manipulation / application of constraints etc. Impressive! Niklaus Wirth (RIP) did a lot of teaching, writing, and programming over the course of his career. His work (Pascal, Modula-2, Oberon, et al.) either directly helped or inspired a ton of people. Even if you ignore DOS and Turbo Pascal (or even Delphi), there's still plenty to learn from him and followers of such languages. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?
Hi, On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 6:04 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 5:39 PM andrew fabbro via Freedos-user > wrote: > > > > Whatever programs are most representative, they might have been > > distributed as shareware. There's still "trial software" today but > > not like going to a BBS and seeing hundreds of shareware packages, > > or getting a CD stuffed with them. > > I agree! I first used DOS when DOS was new (1981) but by the time I > moved to university (1990) shareware had definitely taken hold. And > shareware was just as powerful as the "commercial off the shelf" > software but a fraction of the price. And that was a huge deal for a > university student. Although I never had any professional use for higher maths (and have thus forgotten what little I learned in school), there was a cool shareware calculator UCALC by Daniel Corbier. * https://www.sac.sk/download/educult/ucalc32.zip ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What DOS programs represent the 1980s and early 90s?
Hi, On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 10:34 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: > > I'm thinking about doing a video that shows how to do real work on DOS. > I sometimes see comments on YouTube with people asking "could you really do > *work* with DOS?" > And the answer is of course you can, that happened every day. > > So I'm collecting a list of things you'd do in the 80s and 90s with DOS to do > work. > Sure, I'll put a game it two in there, but I'm focusing on getting work done. > > What programs or types of programs would you like to see? If you insist on a game, I suggest something ASCII-based like a roguelike, maybe UMoria? * http://ftp.lanet.lv/ftp/mirror/x2ftp/msdos/programming/gamesrc/mor55src.zip (Although Doom did just turn 30, and its source code release in late 1997 got a very quick DOS port with DJGPP.) While I'm the last person to suggest "UNIX is the answer to life, the universe, and everything!", they did have some useful tools that had DOS ports. Sed and AWK come to mind. * http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/unix/sed15x.zip (HHsed, compiled by Turbo C, circa 1991) * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/stmsdos9709/disk2/DISC2/GNU/GNUISH/MAWK122X.ZIP (dual DOS + OS/2, circa 1996) Text editors were also good, e.g. DJGPP's GNU Emacs or RHIDE or (real mode) TDE: * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/simtel9703/disk1/DISC2/DJGPP/V2GNU/00_INDEX.TXT * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/simtel9703/disk1/DISC2/DJGPP/V2APPS/ * http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/goldies/tde40.zip (circa 1994) Another cool hex editor / viewer / assembler that everyone loved was HIEW: * http://ftp.lanet.lv/ftp/mirror/x2ftp/msdos/programming/utils/hiew44.zip (but I only remember 6.x or such) Simtel also had NASM 0.97, which I used to write a really simple utility (public domain) and uploaded back in 1999. * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/simtel0101/simtel/asmutl/nasm097.zip (A86/D86 was also very good for shareware, last updated in 2000.) In summary: Simtel, Garbo, x2ftp, DJGPP ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Is networking unsupported on QEMU? Pilot error suspected.
Hi, On Wed, Dec 27, 2023 at 1:05 PM andrew fabbro via Freedos-user wrote: > > I'm a bit perplexed trying to get networking working for FreeDOS 1.3 on QEMU. > My physical host is an M1 Mac (Apple Silicon). Which version of QEMU? 8.2? > FreeDOS installs and boots fine, but I get this message: > > QEMU network detected. > Physical hardware networking is not supported at this time. > > Here is my QEMU invocation: > > qemu-system-i386 -boot order=cd -m 32M -k en-us -name FreeDOS1 -cdrom > FD13BNS.iso -drive FreeDOS1.img,format=raw,media=disk -net nic,model=pcnet > -net user > > I've also tried model=ne2k_pci, model=e1000, etc. Also tried similar setup > in UTM, which is a graphical front end for QEMU. > > But looking at FreeDOS's startup scripts, I'm thinking maybe QEMU networking > is not supported...? QEMU should work (but I haven't tried lately): * https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/net/fdnet/-/blob/master/BIN/FDNET.BAT?ref_type=heads > So is networking under QEMU completely unsupported? > > Strangely, I found this forum post in which someone has it working just fine, > so I'm thinking that maybe I'm doing something wrong? It should work. Try MetaDOS! * https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-sleTc26Qi8drmn5OPIsp8_SegSz0hTd/view?usp=sharing * https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-lFX0Z--zXbMS03TqT01bWMOLZmsnmXN/view?usp=sharing ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] freedos, or dos based mail clients?
Hi, On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 4:17 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: > > Google intends removing all access to basic HTML, and is forcing the issue > as of today. Did they state a reason? Maintenance burden? Or just better security? Because email was always plain text and pretty insecure. Realistically, I wonder if there are supported Chromebooks for sale with good accessibility options for basic tasks (emails, word processing, browsing the web). (In some ways, I feel they aren't tested well or aren't supported for long or just scattered in obscure locations with little promotion.) > A second option would be a command line browser tool that substituted > for the gmail interface, but that, if I could not use it directly from > DOS, could be set up in the Ubuntu shell I have with shellworld. I assume Ubuntu is much, much better supported. Surely somebody on Linux (or BSD) does email via terminal / commandline. > My question is this. > is there a DOS only based email client, in freedos, in djppp or something > that might meet this need? Text-based? Probably not. Though I always say it's not impossible ... but, in reality, there are so few DJGPP volunteers that a lot doesn't get done. Georg Potthast did a graphical (FLTK) FLmail a while back. I never tested it (and it's probably somewhat unstable), but I bet that mostly works. "FLMAIL91.zipFlMail email client version 0.91" "FLMAIL91.zip2014-11-145.2 MB" * https://sourceforge.net/projects/fltk-dos/files/Applications/Binary%20versions%20of%20FLTK%20applications/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] piping .BATs (input and output)
"%COMSPEC% /c work.bat >file.txt" will succeed. Everyone knows that. What I'm wondering is if the following (piping into a .BAT) is considered acceptable or "standard" for DOS. "prog1.exe | %COMSPEC% /c work.bat | %COMSPEC% /c fixups.bat >some.txt" Does that work like I'd expect? (Seems to ... barely.) Is it rare? Is it buggy? Is there a better way? I've explored several other ways in DOS, including other shells (4DOS, DJGPP's Bash) or just a simple wrapper .C (system) or .PAS (exec) program. Does anyone have experience or advice with this? (Timo Salmi's BAT FAQ didn't quite cover it, from a quick glance.) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] MSdos 7.1 question
Hi, On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 12:31 PM Ralf Quint via Freedos-user wrote: > > In which way is "FreeDOS" limited to 2GB sized files? (Sorry, never > bothered wit such large files on DOS (any DOS)? The file size entry in > the FAT32 directory entry is a 4 byte integer. As a filesize can't be > negative, this should be a UINT_32/unsigned long and thus allow for > files up to 4GB. I'm not exactly sure, but I think 4 GB files were somewhat uncommon (in DOS programs). And I'm not entirely sure NT (Win XP etc.) ever supported such a thing atop FAT32 either (via DOS calls). DJGPP 2.04 "beta" (and 2.05 "current") apps *should* work, but I don't know for sure (ask Martin Stromberg). I do know that DJGPP's *nix file utilities like "df" and "du" only use the corresponding FAT32 calls if the DOS major version is reported as 7. > If the FAT32 enabled file functions of INT 21h do > handle this properly with a unsigned long, any program that does the > same and the programmer of an application didn't get lazy and just > assumes "signed long is big enough for everyone", then this should be a > problem of that application, not FreeDOS. I believe it's something weird like int 21h, 716Ch is needed to create the file. (Maybe ecm can chime in, I think we've had this conversation before.) > If the respective routines in > the FreeDOS kernel do in fact handle the FAT32 file size entry as a > signed long, than this is a bug that needs to be fixed IMHO... Yes, that's precisely the problem (according to Eric Auer, years ago). > > FAT32 is free, but IIRC there a patents problems with other newer formats > FAT32 itself was never patented, it was the long file name format and > handling that was covered by patents, which by now have expired. As of 2017, yes, supposedly the LFN patents are expired. The main problem with LFNs (besides the fact that you don't *need* them half the time) is that the DOS drivers (e.g. DOSLFN) are super slow. > exFAT is not really an extension like FAT12->FAT16->FAT32 where and doesn't > have such limitations, just doesn't have all that journal stuff that is > included in NTFS, which has become the standard file system ever since > Windows 2000 (and Microsoft intentionally limits the use/format of FAT32 > partitions larger than 32GB). Not sure I'd even want exFAT support in FreeDOS, personally. I'd prefer HPFS or ext2 instead. > Disk size limit should be 8TB, just like with any other FAT32 implementation. I still occasionally use a 128 GB USB jump drive with (only) FreeDOS (FAT32) installed on my old (2010) Dell laptop without any obvious problems. Granted, that's an older install (older 2041 kernel, older stable shell 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap). In recent months I was writing a lot of Pascal code (ISO 7185 but 99% TP compatible so that a simple script will let it compile either way). But none of that needed large files at all. (I also typically test atop a 200 MB FAT16 RAM disk.) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] MSdos 7.1 question
Hi, On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 2:55 PM Michał Dec via Freedos-user wrote: > > Do you know maybe where do these limits come from? > > I thought it should be 4GiB for both since this is the file size limit > for FAT32. IIRC, FAT16 in something like classic MS-DOS 6.22 supports max ~65000 files and 2 GB max file size and 2 GB max partition size. (But you can have four primary partitions.) FreeDOS supports FAT32 of much larger partition (2 TB?) and 2 GB max per file. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] gminer.exe game needs an emulation friendly wait_vsync()
Hi,
I'm not very knowledgeable about systems programming or DPMI, but I
don't think you can (normally) access ports under ring 3 (e.g.
CWSDPMI). Try CWSDPR0.EXE (ring 0) or WDOSX (run "stubit") instead.
Who knows what this was tested under (Win9x? JEMM386?).
On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 7:14 PM Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user
wrote:
>
> I discovered that if I comment out the two while (in vga.c):
> void wait_vsync()
> {
> //while (inportb(0x3da) & 8);
> //while (!(inportb(0x3da) & 8));
> }
>
> Then the game under dosbox run just like under VirtualBox.
>
> I have tried all the available options for emulated graphics "card" under
> VirtualBox... no change.
>
> So... I guess what I/we need, is a more emulation friendly wait_vsync()
> function.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Planning the FreeDOS "2024" calendar
Hi, On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 1:13 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: > > I'm making a FreeDOS "2024" calendar, and looking for suggestions of > what screenshots to include in it. Any ideas? > > Looking for suggestions of what screenshots you think would be great > to have in the calendar. RHIDE, based upon SETedit, still looks quite nice to me. Or GNU Emacs (DJGPP port). You were also always fond of Commander Keen, and I think BioMenace used one of the same engines. (I do have a screenshot of that game's menu screen running under DOSBox-X atop FreeDOS also showing the DOSBox-X menu.) I don't know, boring cmdline stuff isn't quite photogenic! But I'd rather it wasn't all just games either (although Paku Paku is pretty iconic, 160x100 CGA text mode, right?). Maybe a Links2 (graphical) screenshot of the FreeDOS website? > Also: Any important FreeDOS-related or DOS-related or "classic > PC"-related dates that you think should be marked on the calendar? June 29 for the start of FreeDOS? Or maybe Sep. 3 for the big FreeDOS 1.0 release? In terms of DOS history, I mainly think in years. E.g. Free Pascal 3.0.0 (now with cross compiler support for i8086-msdos) was released in 2015. So was DJGPP 2.05. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] How do I change screen resolution?
Hi, On Mon, Aug 7, 2023 at 3:33 PM Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > Assuming that you just want to have MORE text on your screen, > without actually wanting to use graphics mode, you can select > quite a few modes with MODE CON or with various VESA tools. Here's an old thread about it: * https://freedos-user.narkive.com/iKOZ0sY6/vertical-lines-bands-in-lcd-display-but-ok-on-crt Some reference info: * https://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/cnfigsys/screen.htm * https://www.computerhope.com/modehlp.htm Some utilities: * http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/user/setmxx.zip * http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/user/svgatextmode/ * http://web.archive.org/web/20110807104438/http://omniplex.om.funpic.de/dos/setlines.htm ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] How do I update certificates in FreeDOS?
Hi, On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 3:18 PM Louis Santillan via Freedos-user wrote: > > I daily drive Fedora Linux myself. But curling DOS software zip files on it > is not as useful as doing that directly on 386 Dell I have sitting 3 feet > away when I want to run a bit of new software on it. What version of Curl was the original user using again? IIRC, the official Curl website points to Michael Kostylev's (frequently-updated) builds. * https://curl.se/download.html (Curl 8.2.1) * http://mik.dyndns.pro/dos-stuff/ (DJGPP builds of Curl 8.1.2) So obviously they should try the latest build (for DOS). ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] the freedos 1.3 floppy install edition.
Hi, On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 4:48 AM Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user wrote: > > Finally, the primary installer currently uses grep (requires 386+) to parse > some of the package lists. DJGPP grep? Why not Xgrep? It's not as overpowered, but it works well and is 8086-friendly. (N.B. It can be rebuilt with JWasm.) * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/xgrep.html ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] My curiosity
Hi, On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 3:47 PM Daniel Essin via Freedos-user wrote: > > What are others using freedos for: business, curiosity, running retro > games and apps for fun, to avoid total dependence on the evil empire, or > something else? Evil empire? "Which one??" ;-) What evil are we escaping or avoiding? My main curiosity with FreeDOS isn't what it can run but rather ... what can it build? "Ask not what your OS can do for you, but what you can do for your OS." DJGPP, OpenWatcom, FreePascal, FreeBASIC, NASM, FASM ... plenty of tools to get started. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Accessing usb stick from freedos.
Hi, On Sat, Jul 22, 2023 at 2:44 AM John Vella via Freedos-user wrote: > > Thanks for the quick reply, Ralf. I have a work around, which did the trick. > I just created four partitions, each less than 32gb on the stick, and freedos > is happy with that. Assuming your FreeDOS kernel has FAT32 compiled in (which most do, omitting it only saves like 2 kb of file size of KERNEL.SYS), it should be fine. I still use my old Dell laptop from 2010 to boot FreeDOS on a (128 GB, FAT32) USB jump drive made by RUFUS. I don't need any third-party USB drivers because the BIOS treats it as a hard disk (but, of course, you can't swap USB sticks, you have to reboot if you want to use a different one). (... more comments below ...) > On Sat, 22 Jul 2023, 03:23 Ralf Quint via Freedos-user, > wrote: >> On 7/21/2023 2:01 PM, John Vella via Freedos-user wrote: >> > >> I had never had the need to use such large partitions with (any) DOS, >> and don't use it for anything else, as it is limited to 4GB file size too. The alleged 4 GB file size doesn't work on some OSes (FreeDOS, Windows NT?), only on old Win9x. So you're only guaranteed 2 GB individual file sizes, universally. You'd need DJGPP 2.04 or 2.05 just to (maybe) handle it. Even then, last I checked, they hardcoded a check for "version 7 DOS" before enabling FAT32 support (e.g. du or df). My old 4 GB FreeDOS partition filled up pretty quickly. I was using at least 1 GB for DJGPP stuff (mostly backup .ZIPs). I would not recommend using FAT16 for anything above (roughly) 510 MB. Use FAT32 instead (if possible, which is well-supported by most DOSes, not counting ancient MS-DOS 6.22 and DR-DOS 7.03). >> Theoretically, FAT32 could handle up to 2TB in partition size, while >> newer Windows (and some other OS) limit it to 32GB. I believe the Windows limitation was in "creating" FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB because MS found that it was otherwise too slow under real-mode MS-DOS 7. Vista (and newer Windows) won't even boot from FAT anymore (too slow, security issues). FYI, Windows 11 is 64-bit host only nowadays and supposedly takes up 25 GB of space. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Basic freedos question before I try this?
Hi, On Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 3:56 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: > > My goal is supporting the built in Ethernet infrastructure on the > thinkpad. > My understanding, perhaps incorrect, is that freedos has networking > infrastructure in the system itself? No, FreeDOS isn't special, it just uses pre-existing packet drivers (usually for old hardware). ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
