Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Aitor Santamaría]

Hello,


On Wed, 7 Jun 2023 at 11:27,  wrote:

> On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 13:26, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>
>>
>> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?
>>
>
> It does not: KEYB /9 should work on 8088 class machines.
>
>
> Wow, this is an old thread (over 3 years)!
>
Well I am a little behind on mail  ;)


> KEYB requiring a 286 or better is based solely on:
>
> $ grep 286 *
> KEYBMSG.DE:STR2_7 = 'KEYB braucht (immer noch) einen AT/286 oder besser';
> KEYBMSG.NLS:STR2_7 = 'Keyb (still) requires an AT/286 or better';
>
> Being an English language and keyboard user, I neither use nor possess
> knowledge on using various NLS support programs like KEYB. So if there is
> support for hardware older than a 286 or options that provide
> compatibility, I would not know they exist.
>
> Watching it, I would say it requires a test, but my answer was based on
two facts:
(1) The G- compiler directive
(2) The fact that originally, it was based on int15h (as mkeyb), but I
wrote the /9 code, to precisely emulate the call of int9h => int 15h.

Sadly, my XT 8088 ceased to work time ago :(

Aitor
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/7/2023 3:44 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Wed, 7 Jun 2023 at 10:28,  wrote:


Being an English language and keyboard user, I neither use nor possess 
knowledge on using various NLS support programs like KEYB.

Small but important point. The majority of English speakers are not
Americans and we don't use the American keyboard layout. EVERY English
language PC I ever set up in my >30y career ran some sort of keyboard
mapping tool to get my native English language, the language of
England, you know, us, the people who invented it, supported and
working.

keyb uk 437 c:\dos\keyboard.sys

Well, to be fair, the differences between the US and UK keyboard layout 
have pretty much nothing really to do with the language itself... ;-)



Ralf




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Liam Proven]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2023 at 10:28,  wrote:

> Being an English language and keyboard user, I neither use nor possess 
> knowledge on using various NLS support programs like KEYB.

Small but important point. The majority of English speakers are not
Americans and we don't use the American keyboard layout. EVERY English
language PC I ever set up in my >30y career ran some sort of keyboard
mapping tool to get my native English language, the language of
England, you know, us, the people who invented it, supported and
working.

keyb uk 437 c:\dos\keyboard.sys

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884
Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[jerome]

Hi Aitor,

> On Jun 6, 2023, at 6:19 PM, Aitor Santamaría  wrote:
> 
> Hello Jerome,
> 
> On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 13:26, Jerome Shidel  > wrote:
> 
> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?
> 
> It does not: KEYB /9 should work on 8088 class machines.

Wow, this is an old thread (over 3 years)!

KEYB requiring a 286 or better is based solely on:

$ grep 286 *
KEYBMSG.DE:STR2_7 = 'KEYB braucht (immer noch) einen AT/286 oder besser';
KEYBMSG.NLS:STR2_7 = 'Keyb (still) requires an AT/286 or better';

Being an English language and keyboard user, I neither use nor possess 
knowledge on using various NLS support programs like KEYB. So if there is 
support for hardware older than a 286 or options that provide compatibility, I 
would not know they exist.

:-)

Jerome

> 
> Aitor
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Aitor Santamaría]

Hello Jerome,

On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 13:26, Jerome Shidel  wrote:

>
> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?
>

It does not: KEYB /9 should work on 8088 class machines.

Aitor
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[C. Masloch]

On at 2020-05-29 20:54 -0500, Rugxulo wrote:
> There may have been a bug in older FreeDOS boot sectors requiring
> 186?? But I thought that was fixed (by ecm).

I don't think I ever contributed to the boot sector loaders. I actually
checked but there doesn't seem to be any such contribution.

https://github.com/PerditionC/fdkernel/tree/master/boot -- all are from svn

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/svn/1835/log/?path=/kernel/trunk/boot/boot32.asm
-- last change 2004

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/svn/1835/log/?path=/kernel/trunk/boot/boot32lb.asm
-- also last change 2004. Note that this requires a 386 and doesn't
check for it. My take on a FAT32 boot sector loader allows to load
FreeDOS KERNEL.SYS too, but automatically detects either CHS or LBA and
is supposed to work even on 8086:
https://hg.ulukai.org/ecm/ldosboot/file/3b98bf84db45/boot32.asm (It
requires part of it be installed to the FSINFO sector, which is how it
can do so much more.)

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/svn/1835/log/?path=/kernel/trunk/boot/oemboot.asm
-- last change 2009, but not by me

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/svn/1481/log/?path=/kernel/branches/UNSTABLE/boot/oemboot.asm
-- last change 2005

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/svn/1835/log/?path=/kernel/trunk/boot/boot.asm
-- last change 2009, not by me

> Not aware of other
> problems (although, yes, newer FreeCOM 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap [standard
> 2006 build] uses 186 code sometimes, but XMS needs a 286 anyways.

That's https://github.com/FDOS/freecom/issues/15 where I noted that the
XMS handling uses 186+ code; this was fixed. And my fork of 8086tiny did
offer XMS without full 186+ instruction set support, though by now I
have updated it to add the latter.

Regards,
ecm


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 11:04 AM Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>
> > On May 25, 2020, at 10:12 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> > I guess you could save some disk space by merging some of the
> > tools into fewer, more versatile tools, due to cluster sizes?
>
> Sure, I “could do that”. But, I’m not going to. For two main reasons.
>
> FIrst, loading and unloading everything for each and every call
> will really slow things down even more.
>
> Second, they are designed to cooperate with each other. But, be
> completely independent from each other. So, lets say you have a boot
> floppy and all you need is to test if it a 286 or 386. All you need is to
> stick the 2.8k vinfo program on there and not drag the rest of the stuff
> along for the ride.

I've mentioned ARK.EXE before (for combining small .COM files), IIRC it's GPLv2:

* https://www.sac.sk/download/pack/ark101.zip

However, it's probably not that big of a deal.

> Not an issue, The main USB/CD installer requires a 386 (do to the use of some
> external utilities, like grep). Find me a consumer 386 that did not ship with
> EGA compatibility. Requiring a 386 is not really a problem either. USB was not
> around and our CD drivers require a 386 as well.

Xgrep is 8086 asm code, and it works well. But it has quite different
(less?) features than the bloated (useful!) DJGPP GNU grep.

> Maybe zip has a reason to want a 286. But, IDK.

Unlikely, but I haven't checked. I presume you mean 186 here. It might
be a compiler (PEBKAC) error of whoever built it (same as with old
NASM 0.98.39 16-bit, built for 186).

I don't recall any 286 pmode builds of Info-Zip at all. There was at
least one, maybe two, 16-bit Zip builds (Small model?), but they ran
out of memory quickly. Better than nothing but not perfect. Most
people just use the DJGPP (386+) build (LFNs!).

> As for unzip. I can’t see a good reason for requiring a 386.
> Mateusz’s FDINST unzip’s packages just fine and is supposed
> to be 8086 compatible.

Don't know which exact binary (or version) of Unzip you're referring to here.

P.S. Thanks for your efforts. Keep up the good work.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 6:26 AM Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>
> > On May 24, 2020, at 1:39 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> The extremely limited number of
> machines out there that can run FreeDOS and don’t have EGA or
> better graphics makes this a very low priority.

Didn't Mateusz lightly patch and rebuild FreeCOM for his CGA machine?
I think he made a floppy image, too. Wasn't that Svarog86?

* http://svarog86.sourceforge.net/

But let's not wear ourselves out too badly on theoretical
compatibility. Jerome, you're already doing more than good enough.

> Why does Zip support 286, but Unzip needs a 386?

The 16-bit Unzip runs out of memory faster and doesn't support LFNs.
(DJGPP, FTW!) Other than that, I dunno.

> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?

AT BIOS compatibility needed?

> Why does ctmouse need a 286?

286 or 186? Dunno, presumably 186, not pmode stuff. Probably not direly needed.

> It was required for most CGA and up games on our old 8086 clone.
> It really is a critical driver.

I wouldn't call games critical, but I see your point.

> Why does FDAPM have no support at all for < 286.

Are there any APM BIOSes on older machines? I was surprised that my
2011 Lenovo desktop machine supported it! (RIP CSM.)

> Why does dosfsck need a 386? Couldn’t 8088,8086,80186 and 80286 disk have 
> issues as well?

Large FAT32 drives would take a lot of memory. IIRC, it was compiled
by DJGPP (386+) and tweaked quite a bit by Eric to be memory
efficient.

CHKDSK is the older 16-bit tool. (Also, older cpus probably had
smaller drives, so less difficult to manually repair or copy,
presumably.)

> You can’t tell me it needs 32-bit code. I just spent half a day writing 
> 16-bit 8086 assembler code
> to do some manipulation, math and display 64-bit integers.

Doing 32-bit arithmetic in 16-bit is easy enough, but doing 64-bit is
much harder. There is "some" partial support in some HLL compilers,
but overall most people don't even bother. (Obviously ADD/ADC and
SUB/SBB are easy.) There's also other outstanding problems, usually,
so people often give up. (OpenWatcom has some support, but it also
doesn't fully support C99. FreePascal has some int64 support, but few
FreeDOS programs use that.) BCD and FPU are yet another ball of wax,
ugh.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 6:56 AM Deposite Pirate  wrote:
>
> May 24, 2020 4:07 AM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:
> >
> > I may someday add support to V8PT for CGA. But, not soon. I even wonder why 
> > I limit my ASM code to
> > 8086, when the kernel won’t even work on one. I think the lowest anyone has 
> > had success booting the
> > FreeDOS kernel was a 80186.
>
> FreeDOS 0.9 does work on a 8086 (Amstrad PC1512), however it's crippled 
> compared to MS/PC/DR DOS, because freecom
> cannot be reloaded from disk to free conventional memory for programs.

Older FreeCOM 0.82pl3 at least supported KSSF and VSPAWN, so you could
"call /s" if needing that extra 100 kb of conventional memory. I used
that on my old (2008-ish) BARE_DOS floppy image. It worked under
8086tinyplus [186-ish], at least. But I've not tested it on actual
8086 hardware.

* https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/BARE_DOS.ZIP?attredirects=0
* https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/bare_dos.txt?attredirects=0

There may have been a bug in older FreeDOS boot sectors requiring
186?? But I thought that was fixed (by ecm). Not aware of other
problems (although, yes, newer FreeCOM 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap [standard
2006 build] uses 186 code sometimes, but XMS needs a 286 anyways. Not
sure if the KSSF/VSPAWN hacks were kept in working order for that
version.)


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi,

> On May 25, 2020, at 12:25 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> 
> On 25/05/2020 17:29, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>> I wouldn’t get anything lower than a 286 to Run the current kernl86.sys.
> 
> Svarog86 is a FreeDOS distribution that uses the kernl86.sys. Works on my 
> 8086 with no troubles, although it has a few things turned off (for memory 
> saving, not 8086 compatibility).
> 
> Mateusz

version 2042?

Good to know it can work.

Wonder if one of the options is the culprit. 

Anyhow, not really my area(s) of focus. 

IDK.

Just know, I couldn’t get anything in PCem less than a 286 to work with the 
stock kernl86.sys

:-)

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Mateusz Viste]

On 25/05/2020 17:29, Jerome Shidel wrote:

I wouldn’t get anything lower than a 286 to Run the current kernl86.sys.


Svarog86 is a FreeDOS distribution that uses the kernl86.sys. Works on 
my 8086 with no troubles, although it has a few things turned off (for 
memory saving, not 8086 compatibility).


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Eric,

> On May 25, 2020, at 10:12 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jerome,
> 
>> I thought you knew [that V8 means V8 Power Tools] Anyhow...
> 
> Me maybe, but some who are interested in floppy distros not yet ;-)
> 
>> They are a set of command line utilities written in assembly that
>> can provide a Text based User Interface (TUI) and other...
> 
> I guess you could save some disk space by merging some of the
> tools into fewer, more versatile tools, due to cluster sizes?

Sure, I “could do that”. But, I’m not going to. For two main reasons.

FIrst, loading and unloading everything for each and every call 
will really slow things down even more. Especially, on things like
QEMU on the PI where disk speed is horrible to begin with.

Second, they are designed to cooperate with each other. But, be 
completely independent from each other. So, lets say you have a boot
floppy and all you need is to test if it a 286 or 386. All you need is to 
stick the 2.8k vinfo program on there and not drag the rest of the stuff 
along for the ride.

> 
>> several text features it can do that require an EGA or better card. 
>> Then there are some that are just easier without needing to support
>> sub-EGA cards. I could list the exact features it uses that require EGA
> 
> That actually would be quite interesting :-) And I wonder whether
> the installer could degrade gracefully when EGA is not available,
> for example skip some fancy decorations but keep interacting :-)

Not an issue, The main USB/CD installer requires a 386 (do to the use of some
external utilities, like grep). Find me a consumer 386 that did not ship with 
EGA compatibility. Requiring a 386 is not really a problem either. USB was not 
around and our CD drivers require a 386 as well.

> 
>> Thats an easy one. It doesn’t boot.
> 
> Which version exactly does not boot on 8086 and which version
> and options of SYS have you used? Which messages are shown?
> 
>> "it hangs after printing C: HD1, Pri stuff"
> 
> While the person testing made sure to use a 8086 compiled binary?

Latest 2042 Kernl86.sys and accompanying SYS.
More like what options didn’t I try. IDK, may have missed one.
When I say did not boot, I mean it did not boot. I don’t mean it crashed.
All it did was sit there, no output.

If you are interested, you can try to get it work in there. But, I spent 
almost two full days playing around with PCem. I’m done with that.
I’ve got other things needing done.


> 
>> Why does Zip support 286, but Unzip needs a 386?
> 
> A very good question! In general, I think unzip is
> also likely to need sufficient RAM. I believe some
> of our installers use zip libraries instead of the
> info-zip command line tool, but I do not remember
> which CPU and RAM requirements the installers had.

Maybe zip has a reason to want a 286. But, IDK.

As for unzip. I can’t see a good reason for requiring a 386. 
Mateusz’s FDINST unzip’s packages just fine and is supposed
to be 8086 compatible. 

> 
>> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?
> 
> For a small distro, I would rather suggest MKEYB.
> But I have not checked whether that works on 8086?

But, may need options only available in keyb. I personally
use neither and only vaguely familiar with them, 

> 
>> Why does ctmouse need a 286?
> 
> Let me check... Those actually were planned as compile
> time options: You can select whether 286/386 with pusha,
> popa and shift by constant number of bits are available
> or not, but at closer inspection, count2x.mac fails to
> omit one shr ah,4 for the 8086 case :-p
> 
> If you like, I could send you a suggested set of 8086
> compatible sources you could compile and try out :-)
> 
>> It was required for most CGA and up games on our old 8086 clone.
> 
> How is that possible when it has not worked on 8086 yet?

My old man had used a Logitech Serial mouse on his 
Laser XT Turbo (4/8mhz 8086, PC XT Clone) 

It’s been a long time, maybe the CGA games were keyboard only.
But, I don’t honestly recall if stuff like Wheel of Fortune and 
the like used a mouse. But, you pretty much needed it to
play any of those 320x200 VGA games (Police Quest, Kings Quest,
Leisure Suite Larry, etc)

So, there should be mouse support for 8086 & 80286.

> 
>> Why does FDAPM have no support at all for < 286.
> 
> I have tried to avoid non-8086 instructions outside
> functions which only a 386 would have anyway, so my
> intention was that FDAPM just has no effect on older
> PC because neither BIOS nor hardware support APM on
> those, but it should not crash. Did it crash for you?

No. It just complained and quit. 

But, there a lots of things (like reboot), that it could do on
an 8086 that are sometimes useful. Just because it couldn’t
do everything it does on a 386, doesn’t mean what could be
done on a 286 or 8086 wouldn't be appreciated.

> 
>> Why does dosfsck need a 386?
> 
> Now THAT is easy to answer: For FAT12 and FAT16, you
> should use CHKDSK. Porting DOSFSCK to 32-bit DOS is
> mainly for FAT32 

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Deposite Pirate]

May 25, 2020 5:30 PM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:
> I agree and have said several times, Emulation is not Hardware.
> 
> I wouldn’t get anything lower than a 286 to Run the current kernl86.sys.
> 
> But, as I said, the one tester in the IIRC had been running it on the NEC v30 
> w/a 80186. Did a CPU
> swap. And it would crash on boot.
> 
> So, IDK. I don’t have an 8086 to test it. I have a Pentium Pro (i686) and may 
> still have a
> 486/DX2-66 Notebook in the attic. But, don’t know if it is still up there or 
> if it works. Neither,
> suitable for testing 8086 compatibility.

Whenever I find a way to get my 1512 repaired I'll be happy to test.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi,

> On May 25, 2020, at 11:02 AM, Deposite Pirate  wrote:
> 
> I wouldn't be too confident that PCem does not have bugs. I've played a lot 
> with it recently because my 1512's monitor needs to be repaired and I have 
> yet to find somewhere I can get that done. There are several things that 
> don't work with PCem's 1512 emulation that should. I couldn't get a 720k 
> floppy to work as drive B with the required DRIVPARM and DRIVE.SYS settings, 
> and I know for a fact that this is possible because I've seen it work as 
> expected on a real 1512. Then the GEM that comes with the 1512 system 
> floppies just doesn't work with PCem either so there must be a problem in the 
> video code. There are other weird things that I noted that happen with PCem 
> that would not happen with a real 1512. Current FreeDOS indeed doesn't work 
> with PCem emulating a 1512. But I have FreeDOS 0.9 installed to a MFM hard 
> drive on my real 1512. And it does work. I used it with PLIP to transfer 
> stuff on it because I had no other computer with a 360k/1.2M drive. And it's 
> definitely not a NEC V30 CPU in there but an AMD 8086.

I agree and have said several  times, Emulation is not Hardware.

I wouldn’t get anything lower than a 286 to Run the current kernl86.sys. 

But, as I said, the one tester in the IIRC had been running it on the NEC v30 
w/a 80186. Did a CPU swap. And it would crash on boot. 

So, IDK. I don’t have an 8086 to test it. I have a Pentium Pro (i686) and may 
still have a 486/DX2-66 Notebook in the attic. But, don’t know if it is still 
up there or if it works. Neither, suitable for testing 8086 compatibility.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Deposite Pirate]

I wouldn't be too confident that PCem does not have bugs. I've played a lot 
with it recently because my 1512's monitor needs to be repaired and I have yet 
to find somewhere I can get that done. There are several things that don't work 
with PCem's 1512 emulation that should. I couldn't get a 720k floppy to work as 
drive B with the required DRIVPARM and DRIVE.SYS settings, and I know for a 
fact that this is possible because I've seen it work as expected on a real 
1512. Then the GEM that comes with the 1512 system floppies just doesn't work 
with PCem either so there must be a problem in the video code. There are other 
weird things that I noted that happen with PCem that would not happen with a 
real 1512. Current FreeDOS indeed doesn't work with PCem emulating a 1512. But 
I have FreeDOS 0.9 installed to a MFM hard drive on my real 1512. And it does 
work. I used it with PLIP to transfer stuff on it because I had no other 
computer with a 360k/1.2M drive. And it's definitely not a NEC V30 CPU in there 
but an AMD 8086.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News / 8086 compatibility

[Eric Auer]

Hi Jerome,

> I thought you knew [that V8 means V8 Power Tools] Anyhow...

Me maybe, but some who are interested in floppy distros not yet ;-)

> They are a set of command line utilities written in assembly that
> can provide a Text based User Interface (TUI) and other...

I guess you could save some disk space by merging some of the
tools into fewer, more versatile tools, due to cluster sizes?

> several text features it can do that require an EGA or better card. 
> Then there are some that are just easier without needing to support
> sub-EGA cards. I could list the exact features it uses that require EGA

That actually would be quite interesting :-) And I wonder whether
the installer could degrade gracefully when EGA is not available,
for example skip some fancy decorations but keep interacting :-)

> Thats an easy one. It doesn’t boot.

Which version exactly does not boot on 8086 and which version
and options of SYS have you used? Which messages are shown?

> "it hangs after printing C: HD1, Pri stuff"

While the person testing made sure to use a 8086 compiled binary?

> Why does Zip support 286, but Unzip needs a 386?

A very good question! In general, I think unzip is
also likely to need sufficient RAM. I believe some
of our installers use zip libraries instead of the
info-zip command line tool, but I do not remember
which CPU and RAM requirements the installers had.

> Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?

For a small distro, I would rather suggest MKEYB.
But I have not checked whether that works on 8086?

> Why does ctmouse need a 286?

Let me check... Those actually were planned as compile
time options: You can select whether 286/386 with pusha,
popa and shift by constant number of bits are available
or not, but at closer inspection, count2x.mac fails to
omit one shr ah,4 for the 8086 case :-p

If you like, I could send you a suggested set of 8086
compatible sources you could compile and try out :-)

> It was required for most CGA and up games on our old 8086 clone.

How is that possible when it has not worked on 8086 yet?

> Why does FDAPM have no support at all for < 286.

I have tried to avoid non-8086 instructions outside
functions which only a 386 would have anyway, so my
intention was that FDAPM just has no effect on older
PC because neither BIOS nor hardware support APM on
those, but it should not crash. Did it crash for you?

> Why does dosfsck need a 386?

Now THAT is easy to answer: For FAT12 and FAT16, you
should use CHKDSK. Porting DOSFSCK to 32-bit DOS is
mainly for FAT32 audience and proper checking of such
partitions can need several megabytes of RAM. There
is no support for checking FAT32 partitions on older
computers, sorry. Actually I expect DOSFSCK to run
out of RAM for larger partitions even on common 386
RAM sizes. I remember even booting Windows 95 on a
386 took roughly 10 minutes when I put the harddisk
of a 486 into a 386 PC and started in safe mode :-p

About Format:

Regarding FORMAT for 360k: I believe that some people
with actual 360k drives have tried it, so maybe this
is just an issue with QEMU or PCem behaving in ways
not expected by FORMAT? Of course it would be nice to
improve the ability of FORMAT to work even there, so
feel free to send FORMAT /F:360 /4 /D logs. You could
also try /1 one-sided and /8 8-sector formats for fun.
Use /4 for 360k in 1.2M drives, no /4 for 360k drives.
See the FORMAT /z:longhelp descriptions :-)

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Eric

> On May 24, 2020, at 1:39 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jerome,
> 
> what is V8PT and which beyond-text features does it need?

I thought you knew this… Anyhow...
V8PT (occasionally just V8) is short for V8Power Tools for DOS. 
They are a set of command line utilities written in assembly that
can provide a Text based User Interface (TUI) and other enhanced
features to DOS batch files without any Terminate-and-Say-Resident 
(TSR) programs, device drivers or a persistent memory footprint. 
V8PT is the backbone for the FreeDOS Installer (FDI) and without 
them only a primitive batch install would be possible with 
extremely limited and rudimentary capabilities. 

No beyond-text features are used by V8PT. However, there are 
several text features it can do that require an EGA or better card. 
Then there are some that are just easier without needing to support
sub-EGA cards. I could list the exact features it uses that require EGA,
but that is just non-relevant trivia. There are only so many hours in a 
day and I choose to provide the additional features. Maybe someday,
I will incorporate support for cards below EGA where possible. But, not 
today nor probably very soon. The extremely limited number of 
machines out there that can run FreeDOS and don’t have EGA or 
better graphics makes this a very low priority.

> 
> If the FreeDOS kernel does not boot on 8086, that would
> definitely be a bug. Remember that it is a compile time
> option whether you want 8086 compatible or whether it is
> okay to optimize for 186 / 286 / 386. I do not think we
> use any optimizations for newer than 386.
> 
> Please describe your experiences with 8086 boot problems.

Thats an easy one. It doesn’t boot.

:-)

Go grab PCem, see if you can get FreeDOS to boot on any machine with 
less than a 286 CPU.

Also, user that has been running FreeDOS on a NEC V30 with 80186, did a 
quick test by swapping the CPU with an 8086. and said "it hangs after printing
C: HD1, Pri… stuff"

> 
>> On top of that, most drivers require 286 or better, and several are 386+.
> 
> Your floppy distro can check for that and at least some
> of the "higher CPU needed" drivers do have checks which
> let them abort safely on older CPU. You can probably do
> some tests on virtual computers, or check the sources :-)

I already did that. (However, Only able to verifyy down to 286)

I also did a quick grep on the remaining sources. to check for “286” strings.

All of that led me to some interesting questions.

Why does Zip support 286, but Unzip needs a 386?

Why keyb need a 286, it’s a keyboard mapper?

Why does ctmouse need a 286? 
It was required for most CGA and up games on our old 8086 clone. 
It really is a critical driver.

Why does FDAPM have no support at all for < 286. 

Why does dosfsck need a 386? Couldn’t 8088,8086,80186 and 80286 disk have 
issues as well? 
You can’t tel me it needs 32-bit code. I just spent half a day writing 16-bit 
8086 assembler code 
to do some manipulation, math and display 64-bit integers. 

> 
>> supporting less than 8086 are a very low priority to me.
> 
> But then, supporting floppy install does have some for you.

very, very, very low priority.

> 
>> had serious issues trying to get FreeDOS to format a 360k.
> 
> Please explain. FORMAT should support 360k, both on 1.2 MB
> drives and on drives which can only do up to 360k. There are
> command line options for that, too.

Not really, much to explain. Tried in QEMU, and with a couple PCem
iterrations. Sometimes with a 1.2mib drive, sometimes with a 360k drive,
Some with various format switch and the like. All failed. Mostly controller 
error.

> 
>> While it isn’t impossible to get the FE running off 360k
> 
> What is FE?

FE is just super short for Floppy Edition. Which is short for FreeDOS Floppy 
Diskette Edition.

It gets to be a bit much always typing “FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 Floppy Diskette 
Edition”. But, I do
have text expander, so if you all want to see such things…. :-)

> 
> Regards, Eric

:-)

Jerome

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Deposite Pirate]

May 24, 2020 4:07 AM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:
> 
> I may someday add support to V8PT for CGA. But, not soon. I even wonder why I 
> limit my ASM code to
> 8086, when the kernel won’t even work on one. I think the lowest anyone has 
> had success booting the
> FreeDOS kernel was a 80186.

FreeDOS 0.9 does work on a 8086 (Amstrad PC1512), however it's crippled 
compared to MS/PC/DR DOS, because freecom
cannot be reloaded from disk to free conventional memory for programs.

> On top of that, most drivers require 286 or better, and several are 386+.

Most drivers are not needed or useful on a 8086 anyway.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Eric Auer]

Hi Jerome,

what is V8PT and which beyond-text features does it need?

If the FreeDOS kernel does not boot on 8086, that would
definitely be a bug. Remember that it is a compile time
option whether you want 8086 compatible or whether it is
okay to optimize for 186 / 286 / 386. I do not think we
use any optimizations for newer than 386.

Please describe your experiences with 8086 boot problems.

> On top of that, most drivers require 286 or better, and several are 386+.

Your floppy distro can check for that and at least some
of the "higher CPU needed" drivers do have checks which
let them abort safely on older CPU. You can probably do
some tests on virtual computers, or check the sources :-)

> supporting less than 8086 are a very low priority to me.

But then, supporting floppy install does have some for you.

> had serious issues trying to get FreeDOS to format a 360k.

Please explain. FORMAT should support 360k, both on 1.2 MB
drives and on drives which can only do up to 360k. There are
command line options for that, too.

>  While it isn’t impossible to get the FE running off 360k

What is FE?

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Eric,

> On May 23, 2020, at 9:02 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jerome,
> 
>> https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2020/05/freedos-13-rc3-coming-soon--update-on-floppy-edition/
> 
> The page (by Jim and Aitor, it says) writes:
> 
>> FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 coming soon + update on Floppy Edition
>> 
>> Work on FreeDOS 1.3 has slowed since FreeDOS 1.3-RC2, but things are
>> still moving forward. We have been tracking FreeDOS 1.3 packages on
>> the FreeDOS wiki. Jerome has been doing most of the package work on
>> this, and has also been working on updates to the FreeDOS 1.3
>> installer. We don't have the FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 ready yet, but wanted to
>> share this extra update:
>> 
>> Jerome is planning to add a special "Floppy Edition" of the FreeDOS
>> 1.3 distribution, for those folks who run classic PC hardware that
>> don't support CD-ROM media. Jerome shares these notes on the Floppy
>> Edition: + Should run on any PC hardware that runs FreeDOS, maybe
>> even 8086 (requires EGA though) + Requires 720k or higher capacity
>> floppies (not enough capacity on 360k floppies to hold everything for
>> the installer) + Only runs in ADV (advanced mode) or AUTO (automatic
>> headless mode) and a few other things + Supports a preset install
>> path from the command (for example, SETUP AUTO ADV C:\FREEDOS) +
>> Skips installing programs not supported on your CPU (on a '286, this
>> skips 386-only programs like CWSDPMI) + Don't forget to read the
>> Readme file. Would you like to test the new Floppy Edition? Testers
>> needed! You can find the test release of the new FreeDOS 1.3-RC3
>> Floppy Edition at our files archive on ibiblio.
> 
> The last time when I had a 8086 at home was when a school gave away
> some really old classroom computers. Which is what motivated me to
> tinker on that tiny terminal somebody later made a BIOS extension
> variant from :-) The thing was: Most of the computers did NOT have
> EGA, that really was a luxury. They also tended to have only small
> floppy drives. So if you really want to target such hardware, there
> should be plain text mode support :-) And remember: XT are very slow.

The first PC compatible computer we had (4th computer we owned) was a Laser XT 
Turbo. It ran at 4/8mhz and shipped with a 360k, CGA, 640k and maybe 20mb hdd. 
Not long after, my Dad upgraded it to VGA, 1.2m, EMS board and 60mb hdd. 

I may someday add support to V8PT for CGA. But, not soon. I even wonder why I 
limit my ASM code to 8086, when the kernel won’t even work on one. I think the 
lowest anyone has had success booting the FreeDOS kernel was a 80186. 

On top of that, most drivers require 286 or better, and several are 386+.

So, supporting less than 8086 are a very low priority to me.

> How far away are 360k disks from containing the installer, by the way?

First... had serious issues trying to get FreeDOS to format a 360k.  While it 
isn’t impossible to get the FE running off 360k, it would require some 
additional overhead. It would be easier to just make a personal 360k boot disk 
with fdisk, format and sys (most of the 360 gone). And put the rest on a 
separate 360k, or even easier to just copy the installer (and all diskettes) to 
a subdir and run it from there. 

> 
> Regards, Eric
> 
> PS: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=16677 says
> HWiNFO 6.1.1 for DOS is available. Thanks RayeR, Vogons and author!
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 News!

[Eric Auer]

Hi Jerome,

> https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2020/05/freedos-13-rc3-coming-soon--update-on-floppy-edition/

The page (by Jim and Aitor, it says) writes:

> FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 coming soon + update on Floppy Edition
> 
> Work on FreeDOS 1.3 has slowed since FreeDOS 1.3-RC2, but things are
> still moving forward. We have been tracking FreeDOS 1.3 packages on
> the FreeDOS wiki. Jerome has been doing most of the package work on
> this, and has also been working on updates to the FreeDOS 1.3
> installer. We don't have the FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 ready yet, but wanted to
> share this extra update:
> 
> Jerome is planning to add a special "Floppy Edition" of the FreeDOS
> 1.3 distribution, for those folks who run classic PC hardware that
> don't support CD-ROM media. Jerome shares these notes on the Floppy
> Edition: + Should run on any PC hardware that runs FreeDOS, maybe
> even 8086 (requires EGA though) + Requires 720k or higher capacity
> floppies (not enough capacity on 360k floppies to hold everything for
> the installer) + Only runs in ADV (advanced mode) or AUTO (automatic
> headless mode) and a few other things + Supports a preset install
> path from the command (for example, SETUP AUTO ADV C:\FREEDOS) +
> Skips installing programs not supported on your CPU (on a '286, this
> skips 386-only programs like CWSDPMI) + Don't forget to read the
> Readme file. Would you like to test the new Floppy Edition? Testers
> needed! You can find the test release of the new FreeDOS 1.3-RC3
> Floppy Edition at our files archive on ibiblio.

The last time when I had a 8086 at home was when a school gave away
some really old classroom computers. Which is what motivated me to
tinker on that tiny terminal somebody later made a BIOS extension
variant from :-) The thing was: Most of the computers did NOT have
EGA, that really was a luxury. They also tended to have only small
floppy drives. So if you really want to target such hardware, there
should be plain text mode support :-) And remember: XT are very slow.

How far away are 360k disks from containing the installer, by the way?

Regards, Eric

PS: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=16677 says
HWiNFO 6.1.1 for DOS is available. Thanks RayeR, Vogons and author!



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