Hello, everyone. Didn't see anything resembling posting guidelines so just posting here anyway, there are dev ideas below after all.
I grew up with DOS and finally got around to installing FreeDos in my old Pentium I 200Mhz, 48MB RAM which now boots (much!) faster than any of the newest computers I use, at least 1000x more powerful (say 2Ghz, 4GB Ram). Delightful. :) Congrats for the great work.
Managed to get TCP working! In DOS, how awesome is that? And everything up to this point was so quick and easy I was wondering why I've bothered going through LFS (Linux from Scratch) anyway? LOL! Even though I was curious as to whether FreeDOS OTB NIC drivers would work, I preferred to just test the system using the original disk for my card. (and now I'm 2 lazy to test that)
Except for a crash in the game Wing (I followed the tutorial/book, very good!), which appears to be Allegro's fault, everything is going smooth.
So, here's some ideas: Checking the Dev apps, I see you got a DOS _javascript_ canvas! (you could also add to the description that it can handle files as well, since it's a very interesting feature, see below) This can help solve some of the 'problems'/requests/suggestions I've noticed here, while skimming the mailing list. For example:
-- More programming language support: There have been a lot of effort over the last few years to compile next to every single language to JS. Check out asm.js / WebAssembly (though here is the perfect place to find actual asm programmers that will cringe to the nomenclature :-) those people never had to deal with the intricacies of x86 assembly! )
Want FreeDos to support Common Lisp? Throw in some Parenscript, possibly with the Emacs modes to compile with the click of a button and you're good to go. Similar projects exists for most other languages.
-- "Threads" : The more I thought about it, the more JS seemed like the perfect fit for DOS. It can handle all those heavy loaded web servers and yet it is single threaded, rather similar to DOS :-) I wonder if node.js could be ported over, perhaps having a dynamic web DOS server would improve our relevancy further; Maybe security would be a big plus, being single user, single threaded, etc..
-- UEFI support : Suppose the above is true, now there is much more impetus to leverage FreeDOS appeal for embedded systems/application, considering all the new SBC's coming out and much more to come due to IoT. There would be interest in booting from the newer standard.
-- High Level language for OS development: Check out Douglas Crockford's ideas on high level vs low level languages for OS dev, the apps above the OS should be programmed with the higher level language you could support, that way we can make more and higher quality applications. He's the author of "_javascript_ the good parts", which is also relevant to this argument. As I mentioned, since DOjS support files and other OS calls, it is perfect for this, even as a compilation target.
It may sound like all my ideas are based on JS but this could work with anything that already has translation support to something you already have. It just happens to have been a lot of effort in that front for JS ('cause the webs).. and if we could piggyback on that, all the better.
-- Another idea I'd like to suggest is including an Amiga emulator, to "complete" the emulation support of all 8-bit classics. Perhaps some MAME too? FD can be installed on newer machines (with legacy BIOS support anyway) so power should not be a concern even for newer games. Speaking of "completing emulation", 16-bit consoles are lacking a Genesis emulator it seems, I don't think MEKA does it. (though SMS is the best of all, in any number of bits, so if you're not going for completion, at least scratch everything EXCEPT meka! ;)
-- An even crazier idea: Porting WINE to DOS o.O` imagine running any software from windows one might need that is not yet on DOS! ON DOS! Not to mention some people seem to install FreeDos then turn around and slap a windows on it, I just find this somewhat distasteful :-D
-- The installation process: I believe could be improved by having an "Advanced" tab where one could check and ideally select the target and source drives. One of the reasons I postponed trying FD out was that my old box doesn't have a CD drive (and I prefer not to have to burn them and have them lying around) and there was some uncertainty/trial and error into doing the "same hd" installation, the instructions were kinda hidden, I believe in the readme and not widely available (site? wiki? don't remember) and the FD installer is quite particular about installing itself on the C: drive, active partition, AND first IDE port even (in case you have more than one with hds plugged in).. perhaps a closer integration with fdisk could ease this process?
I realize some of these are long term or maybe not desirable/feasible? But hey, one can dream.. here's a simpler one: Emacs client mode, so you can bypass the DJGPP limitations (from what I've read) by connecting to a server instead or fixing it ( one can easily run emacs as server on one's own LAN, for instance) This is perhaps already working on the djgpp port? Or even Freemacs could already support or have a dev willing to hack it?
Anyways, I hope that's inspiring, you guys sure inspire me! :) Thanks for FreeDOS and Godspeed!
Regards,
Flamengo.
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