[Freedos-user] Is Windows 3.1 worth it and wordprocessing?
I notice that I can run Windows 98 SE on my old 486 DX2 66 with 32 megs of ram. Windows 98 SE supports more recent programs than Windows 3.1 does. Gem is nice, but it can't support windows apps and it isn't meant to. I'm not certain that I really want to try WordPerfect Suite 8 for Windows 95 on 98se. I don't think a 486 is fast enough to handle all the background processes that will be created. That abandonware site doesn't have Wordperfect 6.1 for Windows sadly. The disks for that sitting on the shelf seem to have corrupted. Same story for Wordperfect 6.0 dos which I'm trying to use from a backup. I'm getting weird results. It'll say it can't find a macro that is clearly on the hard disk or it will ask for the product activation code. The problem with software from the end of the dos era is that CDs had barely caught on at that point and a lot of software was distributed on disks. Well, the problem with that is that disks go bad. For old word processors, printer support among other things can be a problem. The printers that are available change over time and nowadays, network printing is common. I wish there was an open source word processor which will run on 386s and 486s running freedos. It would be nice if it was compatible with say CUPS. I would like to be able to launch this word processor from gem. It would be ideal if this word processor saved in open document format, but that might be too much for a 386/486 era computer. Openoffice is nice, but you need a lot of computer to run it and you have an option of running it under either Windows XP/Vista/etcetera or Linux. There is abiword, but again same thing. I tried to install abiword to 98se and found that I couldn't. The abandonware site I mentioned before offers Wordperfect 5.1, but I never owned a copy so I'm leery of downloading it. I'll admit that I downloaded Warcraft I, but I don't think Blizzard particularly cares at this point. If freedos had a gui with a nice networking interface that understands Windows networking, I practically wouldn't need Windows 98SE anymore. I'd love a copy of Wordperfect 6.1 for Windows if anyone has an image of the install media that is good. I'd also love a copy of the installation media for Wordperfect 6.0 dos. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What is the trick to get Windows 3.1 to run on freedos???
On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 7:50 PM, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi :-) > > > Realistically, someone should make a clone of Windows 3.1. > > This makes more sense than making freedos unstable. > > Unstable is only needed for 386 enh mode or wfworkgroups. > > > Windows 3.1 isn't that heavy > > Depends... On the other hand, reactos and hxgui are strong. > I do not think reactos is years away, in any case re-win3 > from scratch would be even further away ;-). Not sure how > heavy either will be - which hardware do you have in mind? > > > 3) There are many date problems and possibly other bugs. > > You could get a y2k fix download from microsoft a while ago. > > > 4) Freedos seems to become unstable when Windows 3.x is run > >on top of it. > > In what way? I guess using dos apps and dos boxes inside > freedos could indeed cause stability problems. > > Eric > > If you put it that way Then it seems like it would be easier to mobilize the entire FreeDOS user list to get Microsoft to open source Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I don't think anyone can really accomplish that though. Even so, a good portion of Windows 3.11 would not have to be rewritten. For example, by using Nano-X with Wine/ReactOS code along with HX DOS Extender, you effectively replaced the WIN.COM loader, the shell initialization, and implemented a good portion of Win32 and if we could bring in more Wine code, also Win16, which is implemented in Wine, but not ReactOS. Although, using Nano-X and HX DOS Extender effectively kills using old Windows 3.x drivers right away. Later on it could be implemented, but I don't think it could be done right from the start. On second thought, why not mobilize the people? The only obstacle would be that Microsoft wouldn't listen, but I don't think they have any real reason to keep that old code closed source anyway, so they might -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] deleting/overwriting files from bat file;
Hi, > If I want to delete/overwrite files from a script(batch), then either way, > it will interogate me:"are you sure?y/n"; > but I want the script to run unattended; is there a way to make it fully > 'hands free'?, possibly with a redirection > away from the keyboard, or some such thing? I think DELTREE has a way for this, maybe some /Y option. > PS: when deleting a file, there > is usually a 'deleted copy' of it > that can be 'undeleted', but when overwriting a file, is the original > definately destroyed? In theory, yes. In practice, if your disk is in fact a flash storage (USB stick etc) then load balancing in the hardware might mean that the overwriting data is written to a fresh sector and the old sector is just put back into some pool and not actually over- written with the data you use to overwrite... This problem is independent of which filesystem and which operating system you use. Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] New problems with Windows 3.1...
Hi, > Not workgroup. > > If I don't load emm386.exe, freedos version, I get an error that I > have an unsupported dos version. > > If I try loading windows 3.1 in standard mode, I get an error that > there isn't enough extended memory. Did you try using jemm386 instead? And of course: Maybe you do not have too little but too much memory? Himemx and jemm386 support command line options to limit the amount of memory visible to DOS and Windows :-) Do not forget to try DOS=HIGH or DOS=HIGH,UMB or other settings. Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What is the trick to get Windows 3.1 to run on freedos???
Hi :-) > I got Windows 3.1 running on Freedos using win /s, > the Msdos 6.2x himem.sys and the MSDOS 6.2x emm386.exe. > I also found out that share from freedos needs to be > loaded low. I think WIN /S will even work with the freedos versions of HIMEM or HIMEMX, maybe even with JEMM386 as well. > Great, it ran. Trouble is, my mouse is on com4 and there > are no windows drivers for a logitech mouse on com4. Argh! You could plug it to another port or reconfigure your ports to get other numbers assigned... > Something I noticed, maybe because I'm using the unstable > kernel instead of the stable 2036 one, deltree doesn't work > anymore. Simple: If you only use WIN /S then you can use the stable 2036 or stable 2038 kernel. The latter is on http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ as binary snapshot. There are a few pending improvements before 2038 can be put on "sourceforge file releases"... The sources already are on sourceforge in our svn, of course :-) > Realistically, someone should make a clone of Windows 3.1. > This makes more sense than making freedos unstable. Unstable is only needed for 386 enh mode or wfworkgroups. > Windows 3.1 isn't that heavy Depends... On the other hand, reactos and hxgui are strong. I do not think reactos is years away, in any case re-win3 from scratch would be even further away ;-). Not sure how heavy either will be - which hardware do you have in mind? > 3) There are many date problems and possibly other bugs. You could get a y2k fix download from microsoft a while ago. > 4) Freedos seems to become unstable when Windows 3.x is run >on top of it. In what way? I guess using dos apps and dos boxes inside freedos could indeed cause stability problems. Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Compressed folders?
Hi, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleSpace > >> Note also that I have FreeDOS installed on a SD card in my PDA. Not sure >> these "hard disk" utilities will work in this case. > > Those tools use the standard Int13h interface. So they don't care about > SD or CF... On the other hand, DoubleSpace is old and might have no support for LBA or for disks about N GB where N is a very small number... And of course DoubleSpace is not freeware. Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone know why 386 enhanced mode doesn't work Windows 3.1???
Hi, > Using MS-DOS 6.2x himem.sys and MS-DOS 6.2x emm386.exe, > I have Windows 3.1 running on freedos 1. What I wonder > is why 386 enhanced mode errs out with incorrect dos > version??? I'm using the unstable kernel that came > with freedos 1. Is anyone working on it to get it > stable? No, but you could say it is stable enough for you ;-) The main problem is that you need to use the WINKERNEL from 1.0 which is the unstable kernel but with those extra experimental 386 enhanced patches activated. You may also have to: Load SHARE, not load EMM386, or use the MS versions of EMM386 and/or HIMEM. The latter two might be tricky to configure right on modern hardware. > I'm still getting the 2 near fnodes error with fdupdate. > If I could look at the source for fdupdate 0.54, maybe > I can figure out where it crashes. FDUPDATE is written in FreeBASIC and FreeBASIC might have issues if your CPU has no or no relatively modern FPU... I think Rugxulo knows a workaround for that and will mail about the issue with Mateusz. Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Do you want to help the FreeDOS project?
Hi :-) > You are a coder: If you do know how to debug programs, > you could help by fixing/improving existing FreeDOS programs. For example FreeCOM and FDISK - but make sure to ask the current maintainer for a very fresh copy before you edit. > For example UNDELETE still needs a complete FAT32 support, Note that UNDELETE FAT32 exists but is "beta", as it has a few known glitches: For example it could take more care to keep the free/used space stats data updated on undelete. > we have no installer so far for the v1.1 distro The old installer is not bad, we can "undust" it and fix a few annoying things such as the flicker and then use it. > FDPKG should get compatible with mixed "binaries+sources" > packages, the FreeDOS kernel require some work to be pushed > into STABLE state, etc... The stable branch already is stable but: - there are some suggested patches which need testers or review - there are some bugs that would be nice to fix before 1.1 - there are some features from the unstable branch which would be nice to port to the stable branch for 1.1 (country sys...) > - The packaging for v1.1 is still incomplete (see > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/fdupdate/ > to get an idea of what's done so far, all other tools and programs > needs to be packaged into FreeDOS-structured zip files), it would > be nice to have a full and complete list of "what is done / what's > missing". You can also check out each package to see if it is in > its latest available version or not. To avoid duplicate work, the list should have priority. If you checked some packages, you could send your insights about what is done and what is missing among those to Mateusz :-). > - You may do some testings. Installing FreeDOS on a PC, > and testing all things you can, to find any possible bugs Even if you only install in a virtual system, it is still helpful to test for example which of the bugs listed in our old bugzilla actually are already fixed with new software. I think sometimes bugs just got fixed as side-effect of some other improvement and nobody noticed it yet ;-). Eric -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing programs on FreeDOS v1.1
Hello, I think that it's a good idea overall that one can decide the folder where one can install the "big" programs, as could be to have a OpenWatcom or FreePascal distribution, whereas the single-binary ones (or equally smaller) should be merged into the freedos\bin directory. 2009/4/6 Eric Auer : > devel - mostly compilers and libraries, several could go > into global lib/ and compile/ directories and a few big > ones would have their own directory, eg watcom What would that "global lib/" folder be about? If it is about storing LIB files, I remind you that "we" (or more specifically, you) voted against having FREEDOS\LIB for such thing long ago (whereas I lined "for" and lost), with the argument that such stuff should go preferably uncompiled, and in any case under "SOURCE" folder. ;) In any case, I don't think it's a good idea for devel stuff: if it's a small compiler, such as NASM, UPX, then it can fit in \freedos\bin. As for the big ones (e.g. OpenWatcom), they need not be treated different from any other big stuff (like Arachne). Cheers, Aitor -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] patents - was: LFN in FreeDOS kernel? - was: aimed compatibility?
Travis Siegel wrote: > Personally, I fail to see how lfn could be patented in the first place. US Patent Law is screwed up. For example the company that I just left has a patent on putting hardware on carts for delivery to clients. Something like that should never have been allowed. But even if its wrong we have to follow it if there is ever a chance that FreeDos end users are ever to be more than a few hobby users. And who knows, if we come up with an elegant solution Linux and other Open Source OSes will pick it up and vendors and users like TomTom will be safe. FreeDos, since it only uses FAT is probably closer to the problem than most. The best work around solution will probably come from here. Just my two cents :) usul -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Compressed folders?
Michael Horvath wrote: > Yes, I am using an x86 emulator on my PDA. I would also like the > compressed files to be readable by my Pocket PC's native operating system. No way until you write some compatible software for the PDA. Robert Riebisch -- BTTR Software http://www.bttr-software.de/ -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] patents - was: LFN in FreeDOS kernel? - was: aimed compatibility?
On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:52 PM, usul wrote: > There is always another way to do it. > > "receiving a long file name in a long file name format; > storing the received long file name in a first file entry of the tree > structure along with a file storage indicator indicating the location > of the file in the memory; > automatically generating a short file name in a short file name > format; and > storing the generated short file name in a second file entry of the > tree structure along with the file storage indicator indicating the > location of the file in the memory, the second file entry being > different from the first file entry; and " > > now I dont understand legalees but I speak geek > this is talking about storing values in tree, I am assuming thats is > in the FAT itself > > So why cant we just create a "database/table - file" that allows > lookup in a second area, either a file on > the hard drive or a separate partition. then based on the > file/directory "ID" and store that in the database table completely > separate from the FAT if we don't touch fat it should be fine. If we > are using a different method and system we are safe. > > in that database/table we could also add fields for whatever we want. > could even extend it to give linux like attributes. > to help with porting etc > > then in the kernal FAT code go lookup values in that table "intercept" > calls and redirect them to and from our storage. > instead of FAT. if we need to sync them make that a separate TSR and > keep it out of the Kernel. > > same result different method. > > I could be way off base here not knowing DOS programming nor > legaleese. But still different method and system > is still different. > > I would expect this type of thinking to defeat the patent. This is basically what the file descript.ion used by the command.com replacement 4dos does, and it worked just fine, so yes, something like that could easily be done. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] patents - was: LFN in FreeDOS kernel? - was: aimed compatibility?
Personally, I fail to see how lfn could be patented in the first place. All it does is add a continuation char as the last letter of the filename, and if that char is there, then you include the next entry in the file table, and so on until thee is no more continuation characters, then you have the whole filename. It's just a hack (and a piss poor one if you ask me), and I fail to see how such a thing could be patentable, but I'm not the least bit interested in lawyer-type things, so I'm apparently missing something. However, using the description of the way it works, ms can't accuse you of stealing their patent, since you didn't use any ms code to do so. Of course, I have no doubt that if they so desired, they'd try to do just that anyhow. Overall though, I doubt ms would do anything of the sort, since they're not the least bit interested in dos anymore, and a free alternative isn't goind to cut into their profits, which is usually the reason for them trying to force compliance via suit, since there's no monitary gain here. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
