[Freedos-user] Announce: FORMAT 0.91v - floppy and UI improvements

[Eric Auer]

Hi all, please check the updated FORMAT 0.91v at
http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~eric/stuff/soft/by-others/format-0.91v.zip
... This might not be the 100% final 0.91v, as Alain wants to
add one extra feature: Should it be possible to abort with Ctrl-C
or is the current (only Ctrl-Break aborts) implementation okay?
After all aborting in the middle of the format process should not
be too easy ;-). Votes please!

Anyway, you can consider the current version to be "the real 0.91v"
already, so please test. Thanks a lot to Alain for the detailled
feedback which made this update possible. Most changes are specific
to diskette handling and to how and which messages are displayed in
that context. Note that the "int 21.32" protection is specific to
MS kernels: MS kernels throw a critical error if you try to access
a diskette with invalid boot sector. FreeDOS kernels only throw a
critical error if the boot sector is physically unreadable - they
SIMULATE a normal boot sector if the contents are invalid. I think
we should use MS style error handling here, too.

  Changes by Eric Auer fixing bugs found by Alain Mouette:
  - fixed prf.c, which had no %h... short int modifier support
  - do not attempt to let DOS read the BPB (int 21.32) of a
disk which has a readable but nonsensical boot sector
  - avoid truename subst/join check on possibly lowlevel-
unformatted a:/b: (seems to be no problem on harddisks)
  - return errorlevel 1 if bad clusters found during format,
but only if /d or /y or /z:seriously option active
  - fixed off by one diskette bad sector map recording bug
  - allow disk change right before start of lowlevel format
  - nicer Ask_User_To_Insert_Disk in redirected-output case
  - small floppy changes, new notes about gap length / 2M

Some test questions: Does FORMAT's "detection of existing format"
now work on all kinds of diskettes and harddisks, both formatted
and unformatted? The update should fix the main problem that 0.91u
did not "dare" to reformat a lowlevel-unformatted or lowlevel-mal-
formatted diskette in most combinations of /u and/or /q modes.
It should also fix the problem that FORMAT triggered "abort retry fail"
messages while testing disks for existing format and while testing
whether a disk is SUBSTed/JOINed/ASSIGNed. I hope it will not add a
new problem: The "existing format" check is now more biased towards
"no, no existing format". So FORMAT might decide against saving
unformat information more (but probably not too) often.

I hope you also enjoy the new errorlevels for "some bad clusters
encountered". And I wonder if anybody had noticed the bad sector
map off by one error. Alain found it because he had a diskette
for which other tools told him the exact places of the bad sectors :-).

The updated prf.c might be useful for other people as well: It is
a drop-in replacement for the printf() family of functions. As it
has no floating point support, it is smaller than the normal
implementation. Yet you only have to add it at the link step, no
changes to your source code required. The update makes prf.c use-
able for more programs - the old version failed to handle "%hx"
and similar format strings correctly, it was too stripped down.

Enjoy :-)

Eric

PS: How about using the name 0.92 for this and 0.93 for Blair's
project of kittenizing the whole thing (100s of messages...)  ?
Or maybe even 1.0, who knows? ;-)





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Re: [Freedos-user] re: FDOS boot

[Florian Xaver]

DEVICE=duse.exe MEM=190 SEC=2048 DRIVES=1 NOCD EMU

What is DUSE ?


It is the only USB 2.0 driver for extern hard disc which works on my 
computer.


Bye
 Flo
--
Florian Xaver 
SWORD - a nice GUI library for DOS/DJGPP

Unofficial Dr-DOS page 









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Re: [Freedos-user] Happy New Year - XCDROM V1.4

[Florian Xaver]

Hi!

I tested it - and i like it. It also shows the "names" and compandies...

Thanks!
 Flo


- Local-stack, load-time 80386+ check, and user switch options
- UltraDMA support (with XDMA v3.o or above)
- Audio ability can be disabled to save space
- Support 2 CD-ROM drive


--
Florian Xaver 
SWORD - a nice GUI library for DOS/DJGPP

Unofficial Dr-DOS page 



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Re: [Freedos-user] re: FDOS boot

[Robert Riebisch]

Ray Davison wrote:

> What is DUSE ?

A USB driver.

>> DEVICE=xcdrom.sys /D:FDCD001
>
> I tried DEVICE rather than DEVICEHIGH, still only one drive.

Did you read the manual? You have to load XCDROM.SYS twice, if you want to
access two drives.

Robert Riebisch
-- 
BTTR Software
http://www.bttr-software.de/


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Re: [Freedos-user] re: FDOS boot

[Ray Davison]

Florian Xaver wrote:



You got any problem?


XCDROM does not see the second drive.  OAKCDROM and VIDE-CDD do see it.


I have 2, and the driver found them (look at the config.sys).



DEVICE=duse.exe MEM=190 SEC=2048 DRIVES=1 NOCD EMU


What is DUSE ?


DEVICE=xcdrom.sys /D:FDCD001


I tried DEVICE rather than DEVICEHIGH, still only one drive.

Ray




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Re: [Freedos-user] re: FDOS boot

[Florian Xaver]

You got any problem?


XCDROM does not see the second drive.  OAKCDROM and VIDE-CDD do see it.


I have 2, and the driver found them (look at the config.sys).

Bye
 Flo
--
Florian Xaver 
SWORD - a nice GUI library for DOS/DJGPP

Unofficial Dr-DOS page 







DOS=HIGH,UMB
country=049,850
files=50
stacks=9,256
buffers=30
LASTDRIVE=Z

device=himem.exe /VERBOSE
device=xdma.sys
DEVICE=duse.exe MEM=190 SEC=2048 DRIVES=1 NOCD EMU
install=ctmouse.exe
rem DEVICE=atapicdd.sys /d:FDCD001
DEVICE=xcdrom.sys /D:FDCD001

Re: [Freedos-user] re: FDOS boot

[Ray Davison]

Johnson Lam wrote:

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:46:55 -0800, you wrote:
Hi Ray,


What about the CD\DVD issue?


You got any problem?

XCDROM does not see the second drive.  OAKCDROM and VIDE-CDD do see it.



And what about the use and configuration of the drivers at
http://johnson.tmfc.net/freedos/frame.html


Sorry but don't understand ... 
You mean XDMA/XCDROM? They have detailed examples in README.TXT.


I was not very good at determining what switches to use.

Ray


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[Freedos-user] ANNOUNCE: FD-KEYB 2.0 pre-release 4

[aitorsm]

Hi all,

I hereby announce the new version of KEYB, FD-KEYB 2.0 pre-release 4, a
major bugfix release since the previous version.

You can get it at ibiblio as usual:
BINARY:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/kb2pre4x.zip
SOURCE:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/kb2pre4s.zip

FEATURES:
- 8088 compatible. I have removed all the 80286+ specific code, so it
should now run even in PC/XT. Testings welcome.
- New switch:  /L=m
Allows the choice of a submapping at boot (provided that it is compatible
with current codepage). Useful for some layouts, such as Russian, having
different submappings for the same codepage, so that you can boot KEYB as
either cirylic or latin.
- Whenever KEYBOARD.SYS DOES exist, but does NOT contain the layout
sought, then .KL is tried

BUGFIXES:
- A bug in the loading high of the data has been fixed, so that the
correct allocation strategy is restored. This was found by the DOSBOX
developers (MANY THANKS TO THEM!). I hope this also clears the strange
problems at loading high with FreeCOM (?)
- Strange missbehaviour of the DEL key with the chosen decimal character
(FIXED)
- STRINGS not working (FIXED)
- Unable to load a read-only (R attribute on file system) file (FIXED)
- When trying to find a layout in a library, the first layout to START AS
the given layout is loaded (instead of the first layout to MATCH the given
layout)
- The int 9h handler is chained with STRINGS, even in PC/AT machines or
with /E (FIXED: it is only chained in PC/XT or /9)
- Copyright year is missprinted (FIXED)
- Strange output in certain error cases (FIXED)
- README.TXT quite outdated (updated, and help file too)

Now I'll be touching some minor things on KC/KLIB (the compiler and
librarian), but I give a brief list of what's forthcomming for the next
release of KEYB, the last one before I freeze code for the 2.0 final
release):
- Include the LFN support that I was contributed (not in this version, sorry)
- Allow to execute commands within Strings
- SAFE MODE: prevention for KEYB bombs and such
- Beeping

Cheers to all and happy testing!
Please report any problem/bug found with this KEYB or KC/KLIB.

Aitor



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