> I believe CTMOUSE does have support for a wheel and maybe some extra > buttons, but of course there are no apps in DOS which would use > them.
CTMOUSE does indeed support a (single) wheel, and there are a few programs that can use it. >> 5. Is there a DOS driver for USB joysticks? I know that analog >> joysticks on the MIDI port (gameport) will likely work, but do >> digital protocols work as well? > The problem is that the analog joystick is "horribly" easy to read > in DOS game software, so nobody ever used the BIOS interface to > read it. Actually, no. Analog joysticks are relatively simple, but they are far from "horribly easy" to read. In fact there were a lot of broken BIOSes in the past that didn't work correctly with joysticks, largely because the CPU speeds kept increasing and the BIOS writers didn't adjust for it (reading game port devices is very timing-dependent). There were even hardware manufacturers that made after-market game ports that supposedly fixed the problems with the broken BIOSes. There are actually multiple reasons for game writers to not use the joystick BIOS, but it being "just as easy" or even "easier" to do it directly is not one of them. > Because of that, a DOS driver for USB joysticks COULD give access to > the joystick situation in the BIOS interface, but no game would > care! A few games do use the joystick BIOS, but you are correct that most of them don't. > In other words, a DOS driver for USB joysticks will have the same > evil problem as a DOS "driver" for modern sound chips: It will have > to use protected mode to create the illusion of analog joystick > hardware, to force old games to actually process the USB joystick > signals... That is correct, but it is possible to do even in "real" DOS given the right combination of software. Unfortunately, FreeDOS doesn't include what is needed. What is needed is a way to virtualize low-level I/O ports, which as Eric noted must be done via protected mode. Later versions of Microsoft EMM386 included an interface that allows I/O virtualization, and so did 386MAX. None of the FreeDOS equivalents to EMM386 support that interface. My USB joystick driver does leverage the I/O virtualization interface if it exists (if EMM386 or 3896MAX are installed), which can allow you to use a USB joystick with almost any DOS program (not just games). My programs are far from flawless, but do allow you to use USB devices in DOS in some cases without actually needing to resort to a Virtual Machine. But, Virtual Machines are almost always the easier road to take with modern hardware. ____________________________________________________________ Blazeray Deemed: One Household Item Everyone Should Have In Any Emergency http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/57685b593588d5b58631fst02vuc ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and traffic patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols are consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow, J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity planning reports. http://sdm.link/zohomanageengine _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
