Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 8:48 PM, Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
>
> And Eric -- I'm sorry for sounding like a total newbie, but how am I
> supposed to create a bootable USB drive with a "full" version of
> FreeDOS? I'm looking at the files from SourceForge and I can't make head
> or tail of the installation instructions.

IIRC, there is an option in RUFUS to use the fd11src.iso file for
installation. Otherwise it just uses what is bundled with RUFUS
itself, which is extremely minimal bare bones.

You can find the .iso on iBiblio mirror, or you can just grab
individual .ZIP packages from iBiblio as well, so you don't need to
have it all (e.g. full "BASE").

7-Zip's (cmdline) 7z [sic] will unpack an .iso , if you need that.
(The GUI can also do it, I think that's called 7zFm.exe , if you find
that more convenient.)

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 7:30 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
> However, your listing seems to be incomplete -
> no kernel or command.com are shown, but obviously you
> must have them, otherwise you could not have made the listing :-)

Just a hunch, but presumably they are "hidden" (+H). Thus, he probably
did "DIR" instead of "DIR /A", so they didn't (directly) show up in
the dir listing.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Open Source and/or Free Software?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

Just coming back to this  I hope this isn't too (accidentally) polemical.

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 8:25 PM, dmccunney  wrote:
> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 5:19 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> For the developers and communicants of the open source religion, the
> critical part is "Free as in freedom".  You can get the source to what
> you run.

For some, that is the entire point because their goal is to solve
technical problems, serve others (literally), even do something else
that isn't directly related to software or money itself. Some tasks
literally cannot be solved without freely-available sources (or, at
the very least, would be exponentially more difficult).

> For the vast majority of end users *running* open source code, the
> critical part is "Free as in beer."  They don't have to *pay* for it.

Very rarely are people forced to do anything in software. More or
less, you are free to not use software if it doesn't suit you. I know
some schools and governments may force certain decisions, but overall
end users can buy or rent or develop whatever they want. (Draconian
legalese hurts more than it helps.)

My point is that they never "had" to pay for it. They were free to use
something else. That's why we have so many compilers, archivers, text
editors, graphics viewers, audio players, etc. You are (almost) always
free to look for alternatives or even write your own. It's not always
easy, but it's definitely not impossible (for the most part).

Money is not the only decision maker, nor should it be. It's a very
naive view that "money solves all problems". Similarly you could say
that open/free doesn't either. So there really is no
one-size-fits-all, no panacea for every hindrance.

> The majority of *users* of open source products don't *need* the
> source, and couldn't use it if they had it.  They aren't programmers,
> wouldn't understand the code, couldn't fix bugs or make enhancements,
> and couldn't reproduce the build environment and build a duplicate of
> the binary they got on their own machine.  The just want
> free-as-in-beer code that does what they need and they don't have to
> pay for.

That's not quite true. There have always been scripting environments
and similar interpreters for end users. They were always allowed to do
some reasonable things. Maybe not modify the kernel itself or build
world, but they certainly had enough room to fiddle. (You already
mentioned Lisp, which blurs the lines between data and code.) Awk,
Sed, Sh, Bc/Dc, Rexx, Debug, QBasic, Lua, Javascript, Forth, etc.

It's more than just editing a configuration file or a simple command
batch script. It's more than just simple arithmetic or file
manipulation. Heck, it's even more than just arrays or raw pointers.
Some things just can't be done with canned (proprietary) binaries,
esp. those that run on no other OS or architecture (which is most of
them), which are soon obsoleted. Proprietary binaries are only of
limited use "if" they have been exhaustively tested. (Of course, you
could say that about all software, but proprietary moreso because it
can't be easily fixed. Of course, too many fixes/changes ruin
stability.)

>> These days, I think "open source software" and "free software" are
>> pretty much the same. I use the terms interchangeably.
>
> The question becomes whether you mean Free as in Freedom, or Free as
> in Beer. :-)

Honestly, I think all the talk of money here is overly cynical and a
waste of time. It's not a good way to solve technical problems by
constantly worrying about money. It may be a necessary evil,
sometimes, but it's certainly counter-productive for most
conversations.

Do you want your software to be used? Does it need improvements? Has
it been heavily tested? Do you need money? Do those goals conflict?
Will circumstances change in the future? Who is the target audience?

> If you *only* wanted software in a FreeDOS distro that met Stallman's
> requirements, you might have problems actually making a distro.  Too
> much of what you might like to include won't be under a GPL license.
> If you relax your licensing requirements, things become easier.

Even RMS has to know that licensing is a tricky minefield, and that
relicensing isn't even always possible. But even he can't be so
destructive as to throw everything away at every impassible hurdle.
Sometimes you have to accept things as imperfect, whether you like it
or not, or you'll have nothing to work with.

Even if you don't like or prefer GPL, he still has a point: without
the freedom to modify and redistribute software, it's much harder to
get "real work" done. You can try living without but eventually you
hit a wall.

Not everyone is meant to make their own OS distribution, but it's
certainly a difficult and thankless task. For anything trying to reach
as wide an audience as possible, it's much more reasonable to be as
free as possible than overly restrict end users (which would be
short-sighted 

Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
> Dennis --
>
> As much as I hate to disillusion your apparent preference for DOSBox,
> such promotion is not really the purpose of this mailing list or of our
> current discussion. I am certainly aware of DOSBox and have played Lure
> Of The Temptress without any problems in DOSBox, but my goal in this
> conversation is to see whether it will run as well in FreeDOS.

Your message did not indicate you were familiar with DOSBox and had
played the game in question under it.  Since what you appeared to want
to do was play a DOS game, DOSBox was the simplest solution.
Confusion would have been avoided had you mentioned that you already
knew of and had played the game under DOSBox, and wanted to try
getting it running under FreeDOS.

> Brandon Taylor
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Brandon Taylor]

Dennis --

As much as I hate to disillusion your apparent preference for DOSBox, 
such promotion is not really the purpose of this mailing list or of our 
current discussion. I am certainly aware of DOSBox and have played Lure 
Of The Temptress without any problems in DOSBox, but my goal in this 
conversation is to see whether it will run as well in FreeDOS.

And Eric -- I'm sorry for sounding like a total newbie, but how am I 
supposed to create a bootable USB drive with a "full" version of 
FreeDOS? I'm looking at the files from SourceForge and I can't make head 
or tail of the installation instructions.

Brandon Taylor

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Eric Auer]

Hi! As Rufus only gives you the minimal files to boot DOS at all,
you should probably download some additional drivers to play your
game. In particular, try HIMEM. However, your listing seems to be
incomplete - no kernel or command.com are shown, but obviously you
must have them, otherwise you could not have made the listing :-)

Eric

> http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=himemx





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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
> Here is the directory listing of the FreeDOS environment created by Rufus,
> as well as the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file it generates. There is no
> CONFIG.SYS file.

Just enough to boot DOS, and configure display and keyboard locale.
Not enough to do what you want.

Once again, look at DOSBox.

> Brandon Taylor
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Brandon Taylor]

Here is the directory listing of the FreeDOS environment created by Rufus, as 
well as the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file it generates. There is no 
CONFIG.SYS file.

Brandon Taylor

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

--Directory Listing--
 Volume in drive H is FREEDOS
 Volume Serial Number is 848E-F2C8

 Directory of H:\

06/17/2016  06:25 PM  LOCALE
06/17/2016  06:25 PM96 AUTOEXEC.BAT
06/17/2016  06:25 PM   206 autorun.inf
06/17/2016  06:25 PM34,494 autorun.ico
   3 File(s) 34,796 bytes

 Directory of H:\LOCALE

06/17/2016  06:25 PM  .
06/17/2016  06:25 PM  ..
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 3,648 DISPLAY.EXE
06/17/2016  06:25 PM11,446 KEYB.EXE
06/17/2016  06:25 PM16,254 MODE.COM
06/17/2016  06:25 PM40,360 KEYBOARD.SYS
06/17/2016  06:25 PM29,750 KEYBRD2.SYS
06/17/2016  06:25 PM32,178 KEYBRD3.SYS
06/17/2016  06:25 PM13,105 KEYBRD4.SYS
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 6,464 ega.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,059 ega2.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 5,469 ega3.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 4,431 ega4.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,217 ega5.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,409 ega6.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 5,387 ega7.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 6,973 ega8.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 5,785 ega9.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 5,543 ega10.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,228 ega11.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 8,119 ega12.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 6,281 ega13.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,758 ega14.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 6,458 ega15.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 7,793 ega16.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 8,929 ega17.cpx
06/17/2016  06:25 PM 5,158 ega18.cpx
  25 File(s)266,202 bytes

 Directory of H:\System Volume Information

06/17/2016  06:25 PM  .
06/17/2016  06:25 PM  ..
06/17/2016  06:25 PM76 IndexerVolumeGuid
   1 File(s) 76 bytes

 Total Files Listed:
  29 File(s)301,074 bytes
   5 Dir(s)   2,032,508,928 bytes free
   
AUTOEXEC.BAT-
@echo off
set PATH=.;\;\LOCALE
echo Using US-English keyboard with US-English codepage [437]
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 6:17 PM, Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
> Well, now, this is very odd indeed. The copy of FreeDOS that I got with
> Rufus apparently does not come with a MEM command. Possibly it’s an old
> version, or a stripped-down version, or just broken? Anyway, I’ll try
> downloading FreeDOS from SourceForge and see what happens next.

See my earlier comments about looking at DOSBox.

But the Rufus version may not include MEM.  MEM is part of a full DOS
distribution, and I suspect what Rufus installed was just enough to
boot DOS.

PCs running DOS had a 640K limit on conventional memory.  This was an
architectural limitation originally imposed by IBM.  The 8088 CPU
early DOS PCs used had a 1MB address space, but IBM chose to reserve
memory above 640K for system functions.

When you booted a PC, DOS itself got loaded into that 640 K, in the
form of two system files, and then COMMAND.COM was loaded, and served
as the shell you interacted with.  It would relocate itself to the top
of available memory, and was in two parts - a resident portion, and a
transient portion that contained the interpreter you talked to.  Load
a program from the command line, and the program was loaded into space
occupied by the transient portion.  Exit the program, and the resident
portion reloaded the transient part from disk.  You probably had about
600K free memory after DOS was loaded for use by programs.

DOS looked for the files CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT when it booted.
CONFIG.SYS was where you specified drivers you wanted to load on boot.
AUTOEXEC.BAT was processed by COMMAND.COM, and where you did things
like set your PATH and load any Terminate and Stay Resident programs
you used.

It was possible to install more than 640K of RAM, and various tricks
were used to make use of it.  You could configure the additional
memory as Expanded (EMS) or Extended (XMS) memory, and programs
written to make use of them could get access.

The technique involved creating a 64K window in the address space
above 640 K, and making EMS or XMS available in 64K chunks in that
window.  You could also implement a "High" memory area in that address
space, and load drivers and TSRs there to get them out of the
convention memory your programs wanted to use.  The MEM command was
designed to let you examine memory and see how you could configure
things.

To use EMS or XMS memory, or activate the HMA and load things there,
you needed drivers loaded in CONFIG.SYS.  Look at whether there is a
CONFIG.SYS file or AUTOEXEC.BAT file created by the Rufus install, and
post what's currently in them.  (They are plain text files, view-able
and modifiable in an editor.)  The first step is to see what
environment Rufus creates by default.

> Brandon Taylor
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[Brandon Taylor]

Well, now, this is very odd indeed. The copy of FreeDOS that I got with Rufus 
apparently does not come with a MEM command. Possibly it’s an old version, or a 
stripped-down version, or just broken? Anyway, I’ll try downloading FreeDOS 
from SourceForge and see what happens next.

Brandon Taylor

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[dmccunney]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
> I just acquired FreeDOS via Rufus, a program that lets me create bootable
> USB drives. I’m trying to play some DOS games, such as “Lure Of The
> Temptress,” but the game won’t run – it says “Not enough memory to run the
> game.” As I have not had a lot of experience with the DOS family of
> operating systems (I was raised on Windows), I don’t know what to do, if
> there’s anything I can do, to get this game to work. It sounds like a
> typical problem with DOS’s 640KB limitation, but I don’t know how to get
> around it. Can anyone help me out here?

You might start by looking at DOSBox.  DOSBox is a specialized
emulator intended to let people play old DOS games with graphics and
sound support on things that aren't DOS PCs.  DOSBox is available for
Windows, Linux, and OS/X.  It implements an Intel x86 architecture
CPU, graphics and sound support, and enough of DOS to run games.  (I
have an Android port of DOSBox and run some non-game DOS stuff on my
7" Android tablet using it.  The tablet has an ARM Cortex 7 CPU, but
DOSBox provides a virtual x86 processor and things work as expected.)

See https://www.dosbox.com/

Lure of the Temptress is listed as supported:
https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=164=L

You may not need full  FreeDOS if what you want is to play old DOS games.

> Brandon Taylor
__
Dennis

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games

[John Hupp]

On 6/17/2016 5:12 PM, Brandon Taylor wrote:


I just acquired FreeDOS via Rufus, a program that lets me create 
bootable USB drives. I’m trying to play some DOS games, such as “Lure 
Of The Temptress,” but the game won’t run – it says “Not enough memory 
to run the game.” As I have not had a lot of experience with the DOS 
family of operating systems (I was raised on Windows), I don’t know 
what to do, if there’s anything I /can/ do, to get this game to work. 
It sounds like a typical problem with DOS’s 640KB limitation, but I 
don’t know how to get around it. Can anyone help me out here?


Brandon Taylor



I don't know anything about Rufus, this game is only supposed to require 
640KB minimum RAM.


Try running MEM /C /N to get a look at memory usage.
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[Freedos-user] Games

[Brandon Taylor]

I just acquired FreeDOS via Rufus, a program that lets me create bootable USB 
drives. I’m trying to play some DOS games, such as “Lure Of The Temptress,” but 
the game won’t run – it says “Not enough memory to run the game.” As I have not 
had a lot of experience with the DOS family of operating systems (I was raised 
on Windows), I don’t know what to do, if there’s anything I can do, to get this 
game to work. It sounds like a typical problem with DOS’s 640KB limitation, but 
I don’t know how to get around it. Can anyone help me out here?

Brandon Taylor

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

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