On Fri, 27 Jan 2023 at 15:54, tom ehlert <t...@drivesnapshot.de> wrote: > > Hi, > > most people around here already have a working machine, most likely > Windows or Linux.
Are these people the target market for FreeDOS? Is there an overlap between this demographic and the users? > any reason you don't download VirtualBox for your platform, select > proper devices (there is even a Soundblaster16 emulated), install DOS > on it and go. Ever tried? I have and I wrote up the result. The main reason is that it's extremely hard to get any communications between the host and the guest. If you download DOS apps it is very difficult to get them into the VM, or any files you create out again. So in fact DOSbox is a better tool for this, and DOSbox is a rival to FreeDOS: it includes its own DOS emulator and its users don't need FreeDOS. (Which is why I've been urging support for DOSemu 2, but that's an aside. And it has its own DOS now anyway.) > VirtualBox isn't perfect, but probably much better then 'UEFI, virtual > BIOS and virtual hardware' will ever dream to be. Not at all. I submit that several core FreeDOS use cases are not covered by any VM: * BIOS flashing * Access to parallel-port devices * Access to ISA devices * Emergency diagnostics booted from removable media > And it's probably getting better over time. Not for any of these reasons I've given it isn't, no. In fact it's getting worse as the host OS requirements increase. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel