Re: [Freedos-user] A new mTCP is available ...
Why not just include a txt version of the documentation, then mention the url for a full featured version of the manual in pdf format. That would help those that can't get to the pdf, but allow those wanting the formatting/colorization/so on to grab the documentation in pdf format. The text documentation won't be nearly as large as the pdf, so it won't take up 3MB in the archive. On 10/26/2024 4:55 AM, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Mike, On Oct 24, 2024, at 6:36 PM, jer...@shidel.net wrote: On Oct 23, 2024, at 9:08 PM, Michael Brutman via Freedos-user wrote: I'd like to ensure that you get it for the next test releases, but yes, I'd like to have some way to gauge interest too ... Another potential discussion point is the PDF documentation - it's large. Would shipping a text file that says "find the full documentation at this location" be a problem? I feel bad shipping a 3MB PDF file on FreeDOS knowing that most people are not going to open it under FreeDOS. (If they are so bold I can even include the command line for the HTGET program to fetch the PDF.) Well, I guess since there is not a good way to view it under DOS, it won’t matter if the PDF is not included. I have not looked at the latest release yet. But, it would be nice if there was at least some subset or partial manual included that covered the more common things. Which could point to the online PDF for more detailed or additional information. But, it is probably simpler and safer to just include a note that says “go here” to read the manual. :-) I was working on updating the mTCP package for the next FreeDOS Interim Test Build (T2411) and I noticed a small issue. While it includes the NetDrive binaries, there are no NetDrive sources in the sources zip file. I could not find a separate sources file for NetDrive on your site. I know in previous discussions you mentioned that eventually you would make the sources for NetDrive available. But at that time, you were not ready to do that. Since we need to include sources in the package for FreeDOS, I can simple remove NetDrive from our package until you are ready to provide the sources for it. Since the previous package for mTCP include the PDF documentation, I’ve will included it for now in the new package. But, I think it is of limited use under DOS. Plus as you mentioned, it is large and a note with the URL or a batch to download it may be a far better choice. :-) Jerome ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Agena - a procedural programming language for DOS with some OOP
Check the archives. You'll see this isn't the first time this topic has been mentioned. Apparently, multiple folks really like this scripting language. On 10/24/2024 11:51 AM, Alexander Walz via Freedos-user wrote: Hello, I would like to introduce you to a programming language called Agena. Agena can be used in scientific, educational, linguistic, graphical, and many other applications, including scripting. The syntax resembles very simplified Algol 68 with elements taken from Maple, Lua and SQL. You may download Agena, its sources and manual from http://agena.sourceforge.net Agena binaries are available for DOS, OS/2, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. Yours, Alex ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] PDF documentation
Me personally, I turn most pdf files into html or plain text before viewing, since it loads my browser to view the stupid thing, I figure it may as well be in a native format. The only problem is, the pdftohtml program puts each page in it's own file, which is fine for some things, not so much for others. I do use a lot of text, but unfortunately, there's absolutely no attempt made to maintain formatting when it converts to text, so we get lines that are typically too long for most editors. I use it anyway, because it works with things liek grep, more and other text manipulation tools, which pdf does not. *grumble* On 10/24/2024 10:56 PM, Ben Collver via Freedos-user wrote: Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:58:30 +0200 From: Jose Senna Michael Brutman said: > I feel bad shipping a 3MB PDF file on FreeDOS knowing > that most people are not going to open it under FreeDOS. What are the present means to open a .PDF file under FreeDOS (or any DOS, BTW) ? There are several options, but i prefer to convert a .PDF to 72 DPI jpeg pages, then use an image viewer. gs -r72x72 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -dTextAlphaBits=4 -sDEVICE=jpeg -dJPEGQ=90 -o page%03d.jpg file.pdf The AlphaBits options cause ghostscript to use antialiasing. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dos on raspberry pi.
Useless. end of life, and over 100 bucks, neither one of which is my target goal for building dos based devices with SBC components. Good catch though, they could have been helpful had I known about them 10 years ago. On 10/19/2024 8:54 AM, G.W. Haywood via Freedos-user wrote: Hi there, On Sat, 19 Oct 2024, tsiegel--- via Freedos-user wrote: ... That one the guys on that forum made is (currently) the only one I've found that doesn't cost more than 100 bucks for an X86 SBC capable of running dos. ... I don't know if you're looking for something you can buy off the shelf new, or if you'd consider used devices. I've had very good experience using the old Alix SBCs - with Linux only - for many years. I've run many of them 24/7 and I've never had one fail in any way. Not a single crash. It's claimed DOS will run on them but I've never tried it myself. :/ https://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm I've no experience of the later (APU2 etc.) models. They *might* be available used for under 100 USD. I'd never sell one. :) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dos on raspberry pi.
Yeah, all of the x86 single board computers are well over the $100 mark, and some are as high as 400, so that's a nonstarter. I have yet to find one that is an X86 SBC for a lower price point. If I was going to spend 400 bucks, I'd not bother with a single board computer, I'd get a real one. That's the issue I keep finding. That one the guys on that forum made is (currently) the only one I've found that doesn't cose more than 100 bucks for an X86 SBC capable of running dos. They're using for running dos games, but no reason we can't use it for other things. On 10/18/2024 11:43 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi! Just to clarify: I am *not* planning to transform a RPi into a standalone "DOS computer that talks". That was Eric's idea. A perfectly valid idea with possible practical applications, but outside of my specific interest. Not transform. You run DOS in an emulator. Only the emulator runs on the RPi hardware, DOS does not. As Mateusz has shown with EMUBNS, you can tell an emulator that the virtual serial port has to be connected to something virtual. This can be, for example, a simulation of a speech synthesizer connected to that, not actually existing, serial port. The simulation uses a Linux software speech synthesizer, but it looks like a hardware one for the DOS inside the emulator and for DOS, it makes no difference on which hardware the emulator is physically is running. It may even be running on a phone. Of course, using linux and virtual emulation to make a dos subsystem can work, and that's how dosemu works (well, now there's dosemu2, which I can't get to work), but again, those use emulation... Yet that is what I actually meant. DOS in an emulator on a machine which runs a speech synthesizer software, while DOS thinks it is connected to a speech synthesizer hardware. The ORIGINAL suggestion was to turn the RPi into a HARDWARE simulation of a speech synthesizer. So you connect another computer to the serial port of the RPi and the RPi uses a collection of software to pretend that the RPi IS a speech synthesizer hardware. The other computer, which can be a computer physically capable of running DOS without needing an emulator, will not be able to tell the difference. As far as running dosemu2 on RPi, the maintainers of that software think it should be easy to compile for the RPi, but because they have no RPi, they cannot provide pre compiled binaries for the RPi. Having to compile dosemu2 oneself is a bit tedious, so maybe somebody could help us by compiling it and sharing the binaries with more people. A quick search for x86 single board computers suggests: - Normal computers in the smaller standard form factors Mini ITX, Nano ITX and Pico ITX - All-in-one single board computers such as the LattePanda family, ODROID H3, UDOO Bolt and similar http://docs.lattepanda.com/content/3rd_delta_edition/specification/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h3/ https://www.makeuseof.com/5-best-x86-single-board-computers-in-2023/ However, I have significant doubts that such SBC with x86 processor still come with a DOS compatible BIOS. They may be limited to running UEFI compatible operating systems. Does anybody here have one of those? Can they run DOS? a real shame, there's so much legacy software out there that could benefit from such a system, I'm honestly extremely surprised... Modern computers simply have too much power, so you can just run DOS at full speed on emulators instead, even if those run on hardware which has nothing to do with DOS any more. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dos on raspberry pi.
On 10/18/2024 8:07 AM, Mateusz Viste via Freedos-user wrote: I am *not* planning to transform a RPi into a standalone "DOS computer that talks". That was Eric's idea. A perfectly valid idea with possible practical applications, but outside of my specific interest. Won't work. Dos itself uses a *lot* of interrupt calls to do things. The raspberry pies run processors that don't support interrupts. Therefore, porting a stand-alone version of dos to the pie just won't work. Of course, using linux and virtual emulation to make a dos subsystem can work, and that's how dosemu works (well, now there's dosemu2, which I can't get to work), but again, those use emulation. I'm still looking for an inexpensive X86 type SBC that can be used to build a dos only machine. That would be awesome, but inexpensive doesn't seem to be a buzzword when it comes to x86 compatible single board computers, which is a real shame, there's so much legacy software out there that could benefit from such a system, I'm honestly extremely surprised such a system does not currently exist. I've seen do it yourself forums where folks have built such machines, and one of them is still pretty active, but you need to send the board design to a company to do the building for you, since circuit boards are involved, and several surface mount chips are needed. It does work though, and perhaps I'll be able to get into the queue at some point, and have some of those built, then I can implement any number of dos projects, but that's probably 2 years or more away for me. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Accessibility question.
No they aren't. Most raspberry pi computers are considerably less than 100 bucks. You can order a pi4 with 1GB of ram for just $35 from digikey, and a pi4 with 8GB of ram for $75 from adafruit. Obviously the ones with 2GB and 4GB are going to priced in between these two extremes. The over 100 dollar price tags you're seeing are for kits that contain considerably more than just the pie itself. I.E. you can order a kit from amazon for $172 that contains a raspberry pi 4 8GB version that comes with the pie, a 128GB SD card, Aluminum case, heat sync, Power supply, 2 HDMI adapter cables and an on/off switch. If you're after the latest and greatest, you can pick up a raspberry pie 5 8GB version for $80 for just the pie, or $160 if you want a whole pile of things with it, it contains: a 128GB SD card, A case, A cooling fan, A heat sync, 45W power supply and 2 HDMI cables. So, depending on what you're after, a raspberry pie can be had for considerably less than $100. On 10/18/2024 9:20 AM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: How do you use a keyboard with it? You cannot. The Pi Pico is not a full computer for desktop use. As said, the smallest Pi which can be used as a full computer is the Pi Zero: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w/ It has USB, Wifi, Bluetooth and HDMI, but only 0.5 GB RAM and only one microSD card slot to use instead of a harddisk. It costs 3 times as much as the Pico, but still very little. Note that the Pi Zero has no audio output connector, but you can probably use Bluetooth or HDMI to connect audio things. Larger models of the Raspberry Pi series have more features, more RAM, faster CPU, some have 2 HDMI outputs, gigabit LAN, multiple USB 2 and 3 ports etc. and are more like 100 USD. Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Accessibility question.
I'm not sure about porting espeak to dos, I'd be inclined to believe it would take a heck of a lot of work if it's even possible, since for the most part, it depends on linux api calls and kernel functions to do most of it's work. Not to say it couldn't be done, but it wuld be a quite different product once it was made dos compatible. To answer your question though, there are no dos screen readers that I'm aware of that use software synthesizers, with the exception of one I can't remember the name of that used the soundblaster for output, it's possible that could be made to use the host system soundblaster emulation if you're running in a virtual machine, but it isn't likely to work on straight dos. On the other hand, I know that provox is free to use, and obtaining a used speech synthesizer that it handles shouldn't be too much of an issue, since most folks don't use said devices anymore (with the exception of a few odd folks like myself), so getting an external synthesizer that works with provox shouldn't be a major hurtle. That assumes of course you're using dos on bare metal. If you're using it in a virtual machine, you may be able to leverage the host operating system screen reader, but I've not tried that. For what it's worth, I did ask about getting provox added to the freedos distribution, and was told that since it's written in a86, (an assembler that was not a free one), it isn't likely it will be added to the distribution. I was told that if I could port it to masm/tasm/something else that is free, it might be included. Odd that, since masm/tasm aren't shareware, but commercial products, although I believe tasm version 1.0 is free for use these days. I don't know enough assembly language to make this happen though, so it isn't likely the task will get done without additional assistance. Hope this helps. On 10/14/2024 4:01 AM, Mike Coulombe via Freedos-user wrote: Hi, if this isn't the correct list for this question please let me know which list I should try. I'm visually impaired and would like to use free dos. Has any work been done on including a screen reader with software speech? Dos was my main operating system for several years. I don't have a hardware speech synthesizer anymore, but do still have my dos screen readers. If software speech could be added to free dos there are at least two dos screen readers I know of that have been released as freeware. Or maybe someone has already created a talking boot disk of free dos? If any programmers are on this list I wonder if the free software speech called e-speak could be ported to dos? Thanks in advance for any help. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Is FreeDOS exactly like MSDOS? Let me explain.
Found the english/ebook addition here: https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Multi-threaded-Kernel-Scratch-multitasking-ebook/dp/B0CMK2PM3J?ref_=ast_author_mpb It's even in the kindle unlimited program, which is really nice, but unfortunately, it doesn't allow text-to-speech, so reading it on the computer will be problematic. I'm stuck only reading it on the Iphone if I want to get a copy of this book, which really stinks, that makes reading code segments infinitely more complex. *growl* Don't know why publishers disable such features, they all help somebody somehow, but oh well. I might pick up a copy of this anyway. Assembly language is *not* my strong point, and I've been trying to study os development for years. I even have source for both opendos and pts dos, and at one point, I had a copy of the leaked MSDOS source code, but that's long since disappeared with one of my numerous computer switches in the last 20 years or so. On 10/3/2024 7:39 AM, Gabriel González via Freedos-user wrote: *Care to divulge the book title/ISBN?* Yes , of course. Those books come from a Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@dragonzapeducation) . For me , this guy is the new "Peter Norton" . He has also written books/courses about developing drivers on Linux and other topics. The books can be found on Amazon , and are 2 volumes ( buy both) . The books are like "amateur books" , and very cheap but for me with incredible content , I did not find anything like it is to jump into this world of kernels development. You can find videos on youtube but it looks like everybody copy-paste-record the video and does not explain anything. I also read the mythical book of Peter Norton "Guide of IBM For programmers -The pink shirt" and nothing has changed 40 years later ( I mean the fundamentals ) so now , all ideas are in contact in my mind and I can understand better what I'm reading on these kernel books. Volume 1: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0CMNWQYP7?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title Volume 2: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0CMNWWCPG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title */Gabriel González González/* El jue, 3 oct 2024 a las 6:03, Roger via Freedos-user () escribió: > On Wed, Oct 02, 2024 at 04:51:13PM +0100, Gabriel González via Freedos-user wrote: ... >Really I'm studying how to develop a Kernel ( I'm reading a book about this >, it is a guide to writing the Kernel code on C and at the same time theory >and explanations ) . This Kernel is a "baby MSDOS" but the books explain >the basics. Create a Vector Table ... create customs calls ... Care to divulge the book title/ISBN? Roger ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Seeking advice on installing FreeDOS with Screen Readers
The one I have (well, had, that computer got lost in my last move, unfortunately, since it had all of my dos stuff on it), is called provox. The zip file name you want to search for is provox7.zip. It comes with two parts, one of which is the synthesizer driver, and one that is the screen reader itself. I don't know if it's possible to use it with a software synthesizer like most of the windows screen readers do or not, I had intended to rewrite parts of the program to make it acceptable to the free dos project, so it could be included with freedos distributions, but I never got that far. I'm fairly certain you can find it on the NFB file archives, though I don't have an exact link, a quick google search should turn up the file you need. There was another free one that worked with soundblasters, which might be more to your liking since it's difficult (if not impossible) to make a hardware synthesizer work on virtual copies of dos, especially when there's no physical serial port, which is what most of them need to connect. I'm pretty sure it was called smooth talker, but that could just be a sample sb program I had that spoke text but wasn't the screen reader, the name might be something else, it's been too many years since I had the program in hand. But, if you can find it, it might just be what you need. On 9/27/2024 12:30 PM, Lawrence Perez via Freedos-user wrote: Hello everyone, I managed to get FreeDOS installed. When it restarts, the DVD disc asks if you want to boot from the C: drive. The Orca screen reader didn't read this menu correctly due to the timer, so without realizing it, I inadvertently pressed Enter on the "Boot from C:" option, and the disk tried to load from C:. The best way I found to get around this is to wait for the boot timer to time out, which automatically loads the DOS environment from the DVD drive by default, and then type `setup.bat`. I plan to contact the DOSEMU2 team and ask about Raspberry Pi support. An open-source screen reader for DOS was mentioned in this thread. Could you please tell me where I could find the screen reader? I’d like to try to get it working in my virtual FreeDOS environment. Sincerely, Lawrence Sent from my iPhone On Sep 26, 2024, at 1:32 AM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hello! According to the images, that keyboard has the same chips as the first https://ardent-tool.com/keyboard/Model_M.html#PS2_PCBs http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/keyboard/Keyboard.html#Model_M_PCB Not sure which of the 2 copies of that website is the original one. It has a 4x4 block with the keys 1 2 3 A 4 5 6 B 7 8 9 C * 0 ? ? The two ? keys actually are unmarked grey keys, others are white. Right of the 4x4 block, there is a double height HELP key on top and a double height STOP key below it. "Despite using a PS/2 cable, the Screen Reader Keypad is not a typical PS/2 device. It was intended to be connected through either a PS/2 mouse port or a PS/2 port on a drop-in ISA expansion card for PC/XT and PC/AT systems called the IBM Screen Reader Adapter (P/N 57F1588, assembly P/N 57F1587, FRU 33F4842)." The page also links to https://sharktastica.co.uk/wiki?id=modelmsrk which gives more details. There, the keys below 9 and C are listed as # and D respectively, which is plausible. Regards, Eric Hello. Here I found information about the special keypad. https://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_Screen_Reader_Keypad It still insist that it worked on DOS, but as I told you, I had never seen it running. Regards. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Seeking advice on installing FreeDOS with Screen Readers
That particular screen reader (as far as I know), only worked on os/2. There was no windows/dos version of that particular screen reader. The Dos screen readers that I personally used were: iartic Technologies artic vision, business vision (artic vision's big brother), ASAP, jaws, and a couple free ones, smoothtalker (or something similar), which worked with the soundblaster soundcard, and provox, which was an opensource one. Obviously, some worked better than others, and this is by no means a complete list of dos screen readers, but it gives you an idea of what's tout there. On 9/25/2024 11:54 PM, Martin Iturbide via Freedos-user wrote: Hello I'm sorry I'm going the other way here talking about screen readers under DOS, instead of the "installing FreeDOS with a screen reader" topic. IBM used to have a technology for blind people that used to run on DOS and OS/2. It was called the IBM Screen Reader. What is the issue here? It required some specific synthesizer cards and a special numeric keypad. I never saw this running on OS/2 or DOS, I'm looking forward to eventually seeing a YouTube video about this. Or even someone trying to run this old IBM software under FreeDOS and/or vintage hardware. I only have some information: - https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=Screen_Reader/2 - https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/a-brief-history-of-screen-readers - https://archive.org/download/IBMScreenReader Regards On Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 2:51 PM Lawrence Perez via Freedos-user wrote: Hello everyone, I'm reaching out to seek advice regarding FreeDOS and its accessibility, particularly for blind users like myself who rely on a screen reader. I’m using the Orca screen reader on Raspberry Pi OS, and I also have access to a Mac with the VoiceOver screen reader. I’m interested in experimenting with DOS and retro technology, including playing older text-based games, but I’ve encountered many accessibility challenges. I have tried to use other emulators such as DOSBox and DOSEMU. DOSBox doesn’t support sending output to the terminal and will send all output to a GUI that my screen readers can’t interact with. I’ve heard DOSEMU has this option, but I don’t have a Linux computer that can support it. After some experimentation, I managed to get the FreeDOS installer to output to the terminal using QEMU, which is currently the only method I’ve found that works with my screen readers. With this method, I am able to type DOS commands and have their output spoken by the screen reader. I'm running QEMU in no graphics mode to avoid opening another window and to redirect all output to the terminal. However, I’m encountering an issue during the installation of FreeDOS. DOS prompts me to partition the virtual drive and requires a restart, giving me a yes or no prompt. Once I type Y and the system restarts, the terminal displays the normal boot sequence and doesn’t respond to any further commands. From my research, I believe this issue is related to the virtual serial interface that sends output to the terminal, but I’m not familiar with how DOS handles this, as I am new to DOS. Since I can get the installer to work, is it possible to copy all the installer files to a virtual QEMU disk and make it bootable, without the disadvantage that the system will be read-only? How could I do this? Alternatively, can I use DOS as is, using only the ISO image? Finally, what unique text-based DOS games / software do you recommend I try when installation succeeds? I appreciate any insights or guidance you can offer. Sincerely, Lawrence Sent from my iPhone ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Martín Itúrbide http://www.os2world.com mar...@os2world.com martiniturb...@gmail.com Quito - Ecuador ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Seeking advice on installing FreeDOS with Screen Readers
Having used dos with screen readers for nearly 20 years, I can honestly say, if you get a plain dos install working, you will run into programs that work well, some that work enough to get the job done, and some that won't work at all, (just like on any other platform). Generally, if they use bios to write to the screen, tehy'll work just fine. (although, even those can talk too much in a few circumstances). If they use direct screen writes, they still work, only you need to do the reading, since the synthesizer (generally) won't do it for you, although ASAP was pretty good at reading those kinds of screens. If they're graphical screens, they're likely not to talk at all, or if they do, it won't be enough to reliably use the program. The only exception I ever found to this rule was a program used to make greeting cards, posters, and similar. I can't remember it's name, it was from Borland I think, and was called print something I think. (of course, I'd recognize if it if I see it). That program was amazing, you could choose all the items for the greeting cards, type in your text, and even design the borders and images included with the card. I've never seen anything since that's even remotely as accessible as that program was. We used to use it all the time for practically everything. But, I digress (as usual). Depending on the screen reader you're using, (and there are some free ones), you should be able to play any of the text adventure games out there, as well as games like nethack and it's clones such as rogue, angband and the like. There are also some text/graphic hybrid games that still work with screen readers under dos, because the graphics were only for displaying pictures, and not used to make the text fancy looking. In general, any program that starts in a graphics mode won't work, just about anything else will to some degree, it's just a matter of how accessible you need it to get the task done. On 9/23/2024 7:46 PM, Lawrence Perez via Freedos-user wrote: Hello everyone, I'm reaching out to seek advice regarding FreeDOS and its accessibility, particularly for blind users like myself who rely on a screen reader. I’m using the Orca screen reader on Raspberry Pi OS, and I also have access to a Mac with the VoiceOver screen reader. I’m interested in experimenting with DOS and retro technology, including playing older text-based games, but I’ve encountered many accessibility challenges. I have tried to use other emulators such as DOSBox and DOSEMU. DOSBox doesn’t support sending output to the terminal and will send all output to a GUI that my screen readers can’t interact with. I’ve heard DOSEMU has this option, but I don’t have a Linux computer that can support it. After some experimentation, I managed to get the FreeDOS installer to output to the terminal using QEMU, which is currently the only method I’ve found that works with my screen readers. With this method, I am able to type DOS commands and have their output spoken by the screen reader. I'm running QEMU in no graphics mode to avoid opening another window and to redirect all output to the terminal. However, I’m encountering an issue during the installation of FreeDOS. DOS prompts me to partition the virtual drive and requires a restart, giving me a yes or no prompt. Once I type Y and the system restarts, the terminal displays the normal boot sequence and doesn’t respond to any further commands. From my research, I believe this issue is related to the virtual serial interface that sends output to the terminal, but I’m not familiar with how DOS handles this, as I am new to DOS. Since I can get the installer to work, is it possible to copy all the installer files to a virtual QEMU disk and make it bootable, without the disadvantage that the system will be read-only? How could I do this? Alternatively, can I use DOS as is, using only the ISO image? Finally, what unique text-based DOS games / software do you recommend I try when installation succeeds? I appreciate any insights or guidance you can offer. Sincerely, Lawrence Sent from my iPhone ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] A list of programs for writing images of FreeDos to various media
You could use the open source version of caldera dos (as long as the customer is the one to install it, then you can provide them fixes if necessary). Or, if you need a commercial offering, PTS dos from paragon has source code, and it's free to use in any environment, though I can't find any sort of license file, beyond a readme file that doesn't really give any information about how to get it up and running. It does however come with source, so that's an option as well. Both are competitors for MSDOS, and tried to be as compatible as possible, so you won't have some of the necessary incompatibilities you get with freedos. On 9/24/2024 4:47 PM, G.W. Haywood via Freedos-user wrote: Hi there, On Mon, 23 Sep 2024, Orson Yancey via Freedos-user wrote: ... It would be helpful to novices, like myself, if on the Download FreeDos 1.3 page, if there was a link to some information on how to write images to various media. Maybe there could be a little bit more in the README included with the downloaded archives, but I guess this is the sort of thing which would be better on the wiki. As you've probably seen the wiki has been down for a couple of months after a spam attack. (Incidentally I'd be very happy to help if anyone wants to drop me a line about it. The message might be rejected, but don't worry - I'll still see it.) It would be helpful to have a compiled list of many programs that could be used to write images of FreeDOS to various media, i.e. to CD/DVD, flash drives (USB Sticks), and diskettes. ... I'd be surprised if there weren't already something along those lines in the wiki but my feeling is that any such list is likely to be what they call 'brittle', in that new utilities appear and old ones become outdated/forgotten/unsupported, no matter whether they're commercial or open source. Far better in my view would be something explaining what's involved in the process of writing a boot device and how to go about searching for tools which can do that. Sure, there's no reason to forbid making a list of well known tools in the wiki - for example it's hard to imagine that 'dd' will go away anytime soon - but it's much better to understand what you're doing than to point and shoot while following some recipe. If something goes wrong when you're in the middle of a complex recipe and you don't understand what's going on, then short of starting from scratch with the same recipe, which may fail again, you have little chance of recovering without help. These image programs could be listed by which operating systems the image writing programs run under, listing from Windows 2000 to the latest version Windows. And Windows 95. :) And MacOS, Linux, and FreeBSD, and ... :) I do understand that Rufus is big in the Linux community ... I've been using Linux for decades but until reading your message I'd never heard of Rufus, so I searched for it. I don't know if the Rufus that I found is the one you mean, but the one I found is Windows only: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/wiki/FAQ#user-content-Do_you_plan_to_port_Rufus_to_LinuxMac_OSSome_other_OS I'm not saying that the Rufus I found is no use, but it's no use to me because it's generally trivial to write an image to a boot device on a Linux box. While it's probably a little less trivial to produce that image in the first place, for FreeDOS images somebody did it for you. Oh - please let me take this opportunity to shout "THANKS!" for that. I have not been able to determine whether Rufus will write images to diskettes. What little I read told me it's just USB sticks. In the Linux world we're spoilt by having the raw devices exposed in the filesystem, so that a simple tool like 'dd' can just write an image to something in /dev/ whether it be a floppy, USB stick, SD card, hard disc, whatever. There are issues with some of the technologies for optical discs which mean that a simple write process isn't sufficient but that's a problem with the technology really, not with the OS and tools. Of course the tools do exist to write optical devices under Linux, but my DVD writer hasn't seen much action since we've had USB sticks of reasonable sizes. It's a lot more convenient all round to use flash memory. There are, believe it or not, still businesses which use floppies, so I do write the odd floppy now and again. Thesedays I mostly use a Greaseweazle. I wish forty years ago I'd known even a quarter of what I've learned about floppies in the past couple of years. :/ Don't laugh, but I have been running only MS-DOS machines and Windows XP machines. The last Windows version that I worked on for a client was Windows XP. The client had bought a CNC profiling machine. Think of a thing which in about fifteen minutes can cut into little pieces a sheet of steel which is ten metres long, three metres wide, and four inches thick. Well a couple of years ago they had some problems with it, and called me in. Yep, it was running Windows
Re: [Freedos-user] Wordstar 7 archive
Also, forgot to mention, pact publishing is another publisher that might be willing to publish the book, they do a lot of computer book publishing, and I'd think your book would qualify. On 8/4/2024 5:14 AM, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: Will do! I'm planning to get most of the book written then reach out to a few academic publishers (IEEE, STC, …). If no one picks it up (it's a pretty niche topic) I'll self publish as pdf and print via the Technically We Write website. You might also be interested in Technically We Write. It's an open community, article-based website about all things "tech writing." I sponsor it through my consulting company, even though it doesn't generate revenue (no ads, and we give everything away under a Creative Coming license). We have several articles there about DOS word processors, including WordStar and WordPerfect. https://technicallywewrite.com/ On Sat, Aug 3, 2024, 11:26 PM EdzUp via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Jim, Please post a link to the completed book when it's ready as I would like to buy it I am always interested about reading about the DOS days and have many fond memories of that time from DOS 2.0 onwards. -Ed EdzUp On Sat, 3 Aug 2024, 21:30 Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user, wrote: Hi Jim, Congratulations! Not a big fine of posting at the bottom. Still, I imagine you have perhaps come across the articles where George r. r. Martin shares that he writes his novels in DOS using Wordstar? would rock if you got an interview, but at the very least any Wordstar chapter should include him? Kare On Sat, 3 Aug 2024, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: > Liam Proven wrote: From Canadian SF novelist Robert J Sawyer. (I've met him and read quite a few of his books. I like them.) He writes solely in WordStar so he's put together a freebie distro of the final version. https://sfwriter.com/blog/?p=5806 > > Jim Hall wrote: >>> This is really interesting! I'd seen Sawyer's archived info about >>> WordStar, but obviously this is new. (I'm writing an academic book >>> about 'milestones in tech writing history' and I'm considering adding >>> a chapter on WordStar. Sawyer's info will be good research. I may also >>> email him for an interview about it.) > > Roger wrote: >> I think, you would be crazy not to ask for an interview from a >> programmer (or "WABits") from this era! > > > I've emailed Robert for an interview, and he's agreed! So that will be exciting. > > If you know of anyone else I might interview about WordStar, please > share an email address or other contact info with me. (And if you're > volunteering for an interview, email me off-list so I can send you a > list of interview questions.) > > > Jim > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Wordstar 7 archive
You could try No Starch Press, they might take a look at it. If you self publish, I'd suggest using the calibre program to offer formats other than pdf, many folks like epub files these days (myself included of course), and while I've been told that smashwords isn't the platform it once was, and it should be avoided for new publishing, which is a shame, because I like that platform, you can of course publish on amazon, which would get your book in front of a whole lot of readers. I both love and hate amazon as a publishing platform. I like it, because it's big enough, many folks go there first, publish their books, and then I get access to them, which is great, but I don't like them, because they lock the book to that specific reader, and they aren't always the best about making their apps completely accessible, though they generally get a *lot* of negative feedback when they break accessibility in a new version, but until they fix it, many visually impaired readers are left with no way to read their books. Whatever you do though, (even if you have to buy one yourself), please ensure you get an ISBN for your book, don't depend on amazon to generate one of their asin numbers that don't work anywhere but amazon, it makes it difficult for offline folks to locate the book, which certainly will impact sales, every little bit helps in a nich market like this one. On 8/4/2024 5:14 AM, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: Will do! I'm planning to get most of the book written then reach out to a few academic publishers (IEEE, STC, …). If no one picks it up (it's a pretty niche topic) I'll self publish as pdf and print via the Technically We Write website. You might also be interested in Technically We Write. It's an open community, article-based website about all things "tech writing." I sponsor it through my consulting company, even though it doesn't generate revenue (no ads, and we give everything away under a Creative Coming license). We have several articles there about DOS word processors, including WordStar and WordPerfect. https://technicallywewrite.com/ On Sat, Aug 3, 2024, 11:26 PM EdzUp via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Jim, Please post a link to the completed book when it's ready as I would like to buy it I am always interested about reading about the DOS days and have many fond memories of that time from DOS 2.0 onwards. -Ed EdzUp On Sat, 3 Aug 2024, 21:30 Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user, wrote: Hi Jim, Congratulations! Not a big fine of posting at the bottom. Still, I imagine you have perhaps come across the articles where George r. r. Martin shares that he writes his novels in DOS using Wordstar? would rock if you got an interview, but at the very least any Wordstar chapter should include him? Kare On Sat, 3 Aug 2024, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote: > Liam Proven wrote: From Canadian SF novelist Robert J Sawyer. (I've met him and read quite a few of his books. I like them.) He writes solely in WordStar so he's put together a freebie distro of the final version. https://sfwriter.com/blog/?p=5806 > > Jim Hall wrote: >>> This is really interesting! I'd seen Sawyer's archived info about >>> WordStar, but obviously this is new. (I'm writing an academic book >>> about 'milestones in tech writing history' and I'm considering adding >>> a chapter on WordStar. Sawyer's info will be good research. I may also >>> email him for an interview about it.) > > Roger wrote: >> I think, you would be crazy not to ask for an interview from a >> programmer (or "WABits") from this era! > > > I've emailed Robert for an interview, and he's agreed! So that will be exciting. > > If you know of anyone else I might interview about WordStar, please > share an email address or other contact info with me. (And if you're > volunteering for an interview, email me off-list so I can send you a > list of interview questions.) > > > Jim > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourcefo
Re: [Freedos-user] "Web 1.0" style hosting and mail [WAS: freedos, or dos based mail clients?]
Not sure how they're doing 1.0 hosting, with limited ip addresses, 1.1 is needed for hosting multiple domain names on a single IP address, guess they're not sharing IP addresses, wonder how they're sourcing all the hosts, might be interesting to look into it. Always did like squirrel mail though, clean, simple interface. I'd run it now if I had a need for webmail. On 8/4/2024 2:10 AM, Mart Zirnask via Freedos-user wrote: I came across a "Web 1.0 hosting" provider who is also offering webmail (the login page looks like SquirrelMail?): https://web1.0hosting.net/ https://mail.w10.host/src/login.php Who knows for how long this provider manages to survive, but it is a great initiative. (Edit: Whoa, according to the website, this business has been running since 1992. And, it is apparently run from Finland, whose people have an extra quirk for doing "fringe stuff" with ridiculous commitment. :) (Not sure if it is considered "nice" to dig up old threads like this here, but, having found a lot of good references via mailing list archives myself, I thought I'd share this one as well.) Best, Mart On Wed, 22 Nov 2023 at 20:51, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: As I physically cannot use Linux outside of the shell services I use, that door is possible, just not from my desktop. I do have a question though. Does your configuration give you total access to email contents, folders sent mail, contact lists and the like? I may need to pay someone to do the configuring for me here at shellworld for my gmail account. On Tue, 21 Nov 2023, Nicholas Bernhard via Freedos-user wrote: I'm using Mutt right now, a command-line email client for Linux. On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 07:01:11PM -0600, Rugxulo via Freedos-user wrote: Hi, On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 4:17 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: Google intends removing all access to basic HTML, and is forcing the issue as of today. Did they state a reason? Maintenance burden? Or just better security? Because email was always plain text and pretty insecure. Realistically, I wonder if there are supported Chromebooks for sale with good accessibility options for basic tasks (emails, word processing, browsing the web). (In some ways, I feel they aren't tested well or aren't supported for long or just scattered in obscure locations with little promotion.) A second option would be a command line browser tool that substituted for the gmail interface, but that, if I could not use it directly from DOS, could be set up in the Ubuntu shell I have with shellworld. I assume Ubuntu is much, much better supported. Surely somebody on Linux (or BSD) does email via terminal / commandline. My question is this. is there a DOS only based email client, in freedos, in djppp or something that might meet this need? Text-based? Probably not. Though I always say it's not impossible ... but, in reality, there are so few DJGPP volunteers that a lot doesn't get done. Georg Potthast did a graphical (FLTK) FLmail a while back. I never tested it (and it's probably somewhat unstable), but I bet that mostly works. "FLMAIL91.zipFlMail email client version 0.91" "FLMAIL91.zip2014-11-145.2 MB" * https://sourceforge.net/projects/fltk-dos/files/Applications/Binary%20versions%20of%20FLTK%20applications/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS live stream event with VCF
On 7/1/2024 7:56 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: The WIN31SUPPORT define is still not enabled/defined by default I believe. Some discussion in [7]. At some point I manually built a kernel including it. I also contributed a workaround to allow the gcc build to succeed with WIN31SUPPORT defined on 2024-02-04 [8]. However, I did not test this nor compare it to Enhanced DR-DOS's support of the same APIs, it just builds now with gcc ia16 as opposed to failing at build time. So EDR-DOS also has improved Windows support now? How stable is the Windows support there compared to FreeDOS? Actually, DRDos has always supported windows. There was a big hoopla around that when windows came out, because microsoft claimed it would only work on MSdos, and not on other versions of dos. Windows would give an error, saying that this version of dos didn't support windows, and it would exit. Digital Research then showed DRDos running windows just fine after they loaded something like a 260-byte TSR that lied to windows about the version of dos it was running on, which kind of left Microsoft in a bit of a corner, since it proved that windows did indeed run on versions of dos that weren't Microsoft in origin. I'm sure some searching on google will bring up suitable references. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS live stream event with VCF
On 7/1/2024 7:46 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Jerome, I basically wonder about something like a third choice, next to "auto-fdisk & auto-format" and "exit to DOS", which lets the user run FDISK interactively and then returns to the installer. It could be a shell to dos instead of exit, that way you could do your formatting/partitioning, (not necessarily in that order), then just exit back to the installer, then have an option to skip the partitioning/formatting steps if the shell option was used. Keeps things (relatively) simple, and allows the out for those who forgot to setup the environment before running the install, and doesn't loose your place in line so to speak. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS live stream event with VCF
PPS: I do not suggest specific UEFI-BIOS-CSM projects. Anybody? I went searching for some recently, and the only ones I found were pcem (no longer maintained it seems, although there was an update a few months ago, just no new release), and of course, the original pcXT rom from IBM which is also linked to from the pcem project. Perhaps someone could take the xt code (that is indeed in the public domain), and update it for working with newer machines. I (unfortunately) am not very good with pc assembly, otherwise, I'd take a crack at it myself. On the other hand, there's probably someone somewhere that has done at least part of the work, though I didn't do any searches to confirm. I know there's the pocket 386 laptop, but I'd honestly love to see a dos capable SBC similar to the raspberry pie that could run dos natively. Parallax has a propeller board that does run cp/m, but it doesn't have any interrupts, so I don't know if it's even possible to port dos to run on it. The arduino boards won't have enough memory, even if they could run dos, so I guess we're stuck waiting for someone to release something a bit more compatible. I did lobby for parallax to put the rom at the top of their memory, instead of in the middle, on their propeller 2 boards, so porting dos to it might be (slightly) easier, but they went with the original design, having the rom placed somewhere after the first 64K or something like that, (can't remember the details). But, again, no interrupts, so not sure how difficult it would be to port to run dos apps. But, I guess if Microsoft can port windows to run on ARM, then there's probably a way to run dos on a propeller 2 board, I just haven't a clue how. But if anyone knows of a Raspberry pie type board that would run dos, please let me know, I could sure use one. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Actually, I'd say that's better behavior than I get from a command line in windows 10. When I create the structure you showed below, I do indeed get all the files/directories (made them all directories except the .asm files), then I get output equivalent to your first listing. When I change q4 to q, and run it again, I get the second listing (twice) with a file not found error between the two listings. (very odd). So, I think that freedos handles it better than MSDOS does, so I'd have to call this one expected behavior. Interesting enough though, if I do the DIR Q4 /S /B, after renaming Q to Q4, I do indeed get the whole structure as expected, so not sure what's going on there. Perhaps it's a problem with single letter nested directory names? On 6/3/2024 3:05 PM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: The point I am trying to make is about the unexpected behaviour of the DIR command and that is if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. In my example, if the Q directory is renamed to Q4 and the command "DIR Q /S /B " issued, all occurrences of Q file are found. Eg. f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q f:\a12\q4\Q.A f:\a12\q4\Q.ASM f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q.ASM With the Q directory in place and issuing the command "DIR Q /S /B ", only files in the Q directory are displayed. Eg. f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 I suspect that if there are deeper levels of directories and Q files are at levels prior to the Q directory, these Q files will be displayed until the Q directory is encountered and the then listing will stop. Further Q files will not be found/ displayed. I have not verified this. Is this expected behaviour, an anomaly or a bug? On 2024/06/03 15:10, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Regardless of whether they're files or directories, if there is no file extension, then don't put on the second star, just a *. will do the search for you. By placing the second star, you're making the os search for extensions by default. Leave it out, and it will search for just files w/o them. I only said before that typically directories don't have extensions, so that's an easy way to find them. but in your case, The same thing applies for files without extensions. On 6/3/2024 6:19 AM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Regardless of whether they're files or directories, if there is no file extension, then don't put on the second star, just a *. will do the search for you. By placing the second star, you're making the os search for extensions by default. Leave it out, and it will search for just files w/o them. I only said before that typically directories don't have extensions, so that's an easy way to find them. but in your case, The same thing applies for files without extensions. On 6/3/2024 6:19 AM, h...@iafrica.com wrote: Hi I am looking for files named Q and not directories named Q. In my case I have thousands of assembler text files without filename extensions. It comes from early days starting out with TSC Flex and Uniflex followed by the Mark Williams Coherent operating systems. John On 2024/06/02 22:29, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Unexpected results from DIR command
Don't know if it helps, but I've found that if you want *just* directory names, and you don't have a directory program that allows you to set flags, so it only shows directories, then the best way to get them is to do something like: dir *. Since most directory names don't have extensions, this only picks out the directory names (and of course, any files without extensions, but those are rare), so that should find the q directory for you with little to no trouble. On 6/2/2024 5:34 PM, hms--- via Freedos-user wrote: Hi All It appears that if a directory exists with the same name as the file one is searching for, the directory listing is terminated early without error. I was searching for a files named "Q" with no extension. I used the commands "DIR Q /S /B" and "DIR Q. /S /B", but it only revealed files in a directory named "Q". An example directory structure is shown below. Note that most of the file names below do not have extensions. The file named "Q" appears in all the subdirectories. I was puzzled and decided to dig a little further. Is this correct behaviour for the DIR command or a misunderstanding on my part about file name matching? Perhaps an anomaly or a bug? I have tried various DOS's with the same result, the DIR command being an internal one. I have also tried XCOPY and XXCOPY with the "/L" option and it also only finds the files in the "Q" directory. Any thoughts as to what's going on? John Directory of f:\a12\*.* [.] [..] [J] [Q] [Q.A] [Q1] [TS] Directory of f:\a12\j\*.* [.] [..] Q Directory of f:\a12\q\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Q1 Q12 Directory of f:\a12\q.a\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Directory of f:\a12\q1\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q99 Directory of f:\a12\ts\*.* [.] [..] Q Q.A Q.ASM Entering the command below gives the following result. F:\>DIR Q /S /B f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q\Q.ASM f:\a12\q\Q1 f:\a12\q\Q12 The Q file is only found in the Q directory. Same result as above with:- F:\>DIR Q. /S /B Typing command: F:\>DIR Q.? /S /B Gives this result. f:\a12\Q f:\a12\Q.A f:\a12\j\Q f:\a12\q\Q f:\a12\q\Q.A f:\a12\q.a\Q f:\a12\q.a\Q.A f:\a12\q1\Q f:\a12\q1\Q.A f:\a12\ts\Q f:\a12\ts\Q.A The Q file is now found in all the subdirectories. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Yep, that's the one. On 5/19/2024 2:54 AM, Omar Yabar via Freedos-user wrote: Do you mean Spinrite? in this link there are 5 versions https://winworldpc.com/product/spinrite/1x Yahoo Mail: busca, organiza, toma el control de tu buzón <https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=NativePlacement&c=Global_Acquisition_YMktg_315_EmailSignatureGrowth_YahooMail:Search,Organize,Conquer&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=Global_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=10945&af_sub5=OrganizeConquer__Static_> El sáb., 18 de may. de 2024 a la(s) 9:15 p. m., tsiegel--- via Freedos-user escribió: ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS diagnostic tools?
Does spinright still have a dos version of their software posted anywhere? I seem to recall, that was a really good utility. I unfortunately never had the money to purchase it, and I gave up on Norton Utilities after paying 50 bucks more for the advanced version of 4.5, then got the same upgrade price as those who didn't, so I considered that bad marketing, poor customer retention, and just bailed on the whole Norton brand, and never dropped another dollar on anything Norton related, and that continues to this day. I know spinright had some upgrades from their dos package into the early windows era, but I lost track after that, so no clue where it is now, or even if it's still around. Nonetheless, it was a good utility for hard disk maintenance when it was out. On 5/15/2024 8:45 PM, Rober To via Freedos-user wrote: Hi everybody: Other suggestions: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.partition-saving.com/ En miércoles, 15 de mayo de 2024, 03:46:41 CEST, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user escribió: Eric, While I will work through this list of course, you would need to reach the part of that Wikipedia article that talks of Norton 8, I honestly did not even start using a computer until 1989, and did not own a copy of Norton Utilities until after 200 at the earliest. I used it as an example, because the tools were grouped under the same organizational umbrella, designed to support it each other in solid diagnostic support if that makes sense. Kind of like spinwrite tools, instead of separate programs that may or may not play well together. will see how well these suggestions work with speech though. Thanks, Karen On Wed, 15 May 2024, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote: > > Hi Karen, > > the utilities recommended by Rober To sound useful: > > HDAT2 harddisk repair and diagnostics ATA, ATAPI, SATA, USB, SCSI > > ASTRA Advanced Sysinfo Tool and Reporting Assistant > > HWiNFO system information, monitoring and diagnostics > >> Do you recall the items in norton utilities? > > There is a wikipedia article about them: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities > > The first version in 1982 included: > > unerase - Freedos comes with a simple undelete tool > filefix - "repairs damaged files" (?) > disklook - apparently a floppy disk cluster map display? > > secmod - floppy disk sector changer (disk editor, I guess?) > filehide - Freedos attrib should be sufficient for that > bathide - related to filehide > > timemark - "displays date, time, elapsed time" > scratr - sets colors, you can use ANSI and PROMPT for that > reverse - sets colors to black on white > > clear - you can use cls for that > filesort - sorts directories on disk > diskopt - tunes floppy access speed > > beep - just beeps the speaker > print - prints files > > Which free and open tools for directory sorting and > disk editors do we have in the distro at this time? > > I guess diskopt works by creating an interlaced floppy > sector format, which tools do we have for this style? > > According to wikipedia, Norton Utilities 2.0 added filefind > and renames print to lprint because MS DOS 2.0 already came > with a tool called print itself. > > In version 3.0, you get additional tools for file size and > directory listings, system information, text search, wiping > of disks and files etc. > > Which tools do we recommend for directory listings, file size > info and wiping? For size info, I would use the GNU "du" tool, > which is available as DJGPP compiled DOS binary. > > What could we recommend for finding files and text? I guess > the GNU tools "find" and "grep" would be useful choices here? > Similar for "wipe". > > Version 3.1 adds unerase and unremove directory tools. > > New in version 4: Defrag tool (speed disk) and format recover. > The defrag tool is the same which MS DOS 6 bundled later on. > > New in version 4.5: "batch enhander" and a disk editor, the > ncache disk cache (faster than smartdrive / smartdrv) and diag. > > Version 5 improves the disk editor further and bundles 4DOS > in a variant called NDOS. By now, 4DOS is sort of free/open. > > Version 6 adds Win3.1 icons and "diskreet" and improves the > system info. The unerase tool now supports the same optional > delete tracking driver as MS / central point undelete does. > > Version 7 adds support for compressed disks (doublespace, > stacker and superstor formats) and norton disk doctor. Would > be good to know which features the disk doctor had exactly. > > The final DOS version 8 just adds some Win3.1 related tools. > Later versions gradually add Win9x, FAT32, WinNT etc. support > and features specific to Windows, like a registry editor. Even > a line of products for Apple Macintosh existed. Competitors to > Norton Utilities: Central Point PC Tools, various smaller ones. > > The author of spinrite claims norton disk doctor is a rip of it: > https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-666.htm > Spinrite scans disks for recoverable files and even tries s
Re: [Freedos-user] Dial-up emulation?
On 4/24/2024 11:33 PM, Brandon Taylor via Freedos-user wrote: I'm not looking for anything out of Qmodem specifically. I'm searching for a TSR that handles dial-up networking in the background while I use TCP/IP utilities like PING, TRACERT and FTP; and/or a web browser like Arachne. In that case, what you need is one of two things. either the crin packet drivers (already mentioned by Frank), which is probably the most useful option here, or something like rlfossil which pretends to be a fossil driver, that allows your programs to pretend to dial out to the internet even though none of that is necessary. Both have their advantages, depending on what you're doing, but it sounds like for you, the packet drivers are what you want/need. With those loaded, and configured properly, you should be able to run your other software as desired without worrying about the connection at all. The key words here are configured properly, because there are separate configuration items for software that uses a config file to read it's options (like some dos software does), and those that expect the connection to already be live when you open them. For what it's worth, there is actually a third option, you can run a program that contains multiple protocols built in already. there are programs that do this, but they were pretty nitch programs. There's also something like KA9Q which was a piece of software that could turn your dos box into an internet server, providing things like email, ftp, early web access (I believe they only support version 1.0 of the http protocol). but it doesn't sound like a server is what you're after. For your case, (as mentioned above), you'll most likely want to load the packet driver associated with your network card (most can pretend to be a ne2000 card, so just try that driver first, if it works, then you won't need to play around with anything else. Many 3com cards are also emulated these days, so if the ne2000 driver doesn't work, try the various 3com ones, one of those may do the trick for you. I can't recall the name of it now, but there was a package someone put together to allow you to use your packet driver to make the connection, then drop back to dos, with batch files to run the various programs, including ftp, email, and web browsing (using archne browser (apologies if I get any of the names wrong, it's been a while). If you want to go the fossil driver route, then you can use qmodem, but unless you're connecting to another machine (such as a shell account), this will be of extreme limited use/capabily. To use the rlfossil driver, you just type atdt and it will make a telnet connection to the hostname of choice (you can provide a port number as well). This was handy for playing muds back then, or for logging into a unix shell, but beyond that, it's use was pretty much useless, but it's there if you want to mess around with it. This is likely more information than you needed, but maybe something in here will trigger some wish to experiment or something. Basically, the packet drivers are what you want unless you want to do something specific that isn't covered by their use. I.E. running nettamer for irc chatting. Hope this helps, and good luck making it all work. I wish I still had a real dos machine operational, but I lost my last one in a forced move a bit over 2 years ago, so I can't actually try any of this stuff anymore sadly. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running
The original version of open dos (when it was still caldera dos version 7.01), had a multitasking program you could load on top of the base dos system that allowed multitasking. I don't recall the name of the program, and I have no idea if it could be made to run on freedos or not, but my guess is probably not, since it depended on the caldera version of some utilities to do it's job. On the other hand, It's possible those utilities were included when opendos was released, so it might be possible to obtain said programs and give them a try. I think it was a shell program that loaded when the pc booted that allowed the multitasking. I never it got working myself, but I also didn't try very hard, I do know others made it work just fine though. There's also a program/version called doubledos, which did this as well, though I don't know the status of that program at all, so some research is in order if you want to use that. PTS dos may have a multitasking stack as well, it's been many many years since I messed with PTS dos, so I could be mistaken on that, and probably am, but I do seem to recall it did have that capability if it was configured properly. There's also a product called concurrent dos, though I never saw that version myself, so have no idea how well it worked. Thenk, there's the most popular method of multitasking dos, which was the program desqview 386 which was used heavily by many bbs operators, so they could have multi line bbs systems. (I just used multiple computers, and ran wildcat), There was also a shareware program called vm386 that handled multitasking on dos quite well, that one I did use, and in fact, it worked too well for me, because when I ran multiple programs, I'd get speech feedback from both programs, which as you can imagine, didn't work very well for me, so unfortunately, I had to stop using that program, since a screen reader was necessary for me to use the computer due to being blind. I'm sure there are other programs not listed here that did the trick, but I have no experience with them, so can't point them out, but perhaps some judicial googling will turn up others, though upon first glance at search results myself, I'm not really seeing any, just most pages saying it wasn't possible, which is obviously not true. On 4/10/2024 10:33 AM, Ramon Riera Marès via Freedos-user wrote: First of all, thanks to all the Freedos developers and collaborators. I want to know if there is any way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running, for example an outliner and a text editor, and be able to switch from one to the other without having to exit the current application. Thanks and regards. Ramon Riera. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running
Actually, I did find one article that explains the multitasking versions of dos quite clearly. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4363978/myth-dos-does-not-multitask it doesn't cover all the versions of dos, but it does a good job of hitting most of the major ones that did multitask dos programs. On 4/10/2024 10:33 AM, Ramon Riera Marès via Freedos-user wrote: First of all, thanks to all the Freedos developers and collaborators. I want to know if there is any way or utility in Freedos to have two applications running, for example an outliner and a text editor, and be able to switch from one to the other without having to exit the current application. Thanks and regards. Ramon Riera. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] COM Port in AMBIOS - specifications for TouchScreen?
Typically, that is the correct address for com1. Com 2 is IRQ 3, and 2F8. Com 3 and 4 if they are supported by the bios are 3E8, and 2E8 generally. I've unfortunately never had a dos machine with all 4 com ports active. I've used com 3 or 4 periodically with an additional com card, but it didn't have both com ports on it, and I never had a motherboard that supported all 4 com ports, but the address 2E0 is not typically associated with a com port, neither are the various IRQs listed in the snippet below. Normally the com ports are on com 3 and 4, though I think it was possible to switch irqs for com3 and com4 to be on different irqs, in case you wanted to use multiple com ports at the same time. (multiple being more than 2 at a time in this case). Part of it may depend on the software you're using to access the com port as well. The driver should handle the translation to/from irqs and port addresses, so you may not need to worry about that, but you do need to know what to talk to on your end of the connection to make it all work. I've only used screens like you're describing on SBC (single board computers) like the propeller board from parallax, so I can't offer anything else to point you in a direction for troubleshooting other than what I've offered above. Perhaps something here will make a connection and you'll be able to solve it. On 3/17/2024 5:10 PM, Thomas Cornelius Desi via Freedos-user wrote: For some experimental reasons I got a 19« 3M Touchscreen for the RS-232 Port. (I attached the VGA cable and the RS-232 cable on both sides) (The monitor is functional as a monitor-only. Seller tells me touch function is working…) My question is about the RS-232 COM1 port. The AMBIOS (my BIOS on the machine) says that the COM1 port address is 3F8h/COM1 Enable onBoard Serial port 1 and address is 3F8h. - I am installing from a USB Stick (= c:\) (=source drive?) - port address I wrote: 3F8 - interrupt Number: 4 (??? no clue) The DOS driver directory the seller sent me contains some installation info, the examples given differ much from what I set and - of course it does NOT work. Any ideas someone around? Much appreciated, regards, Thomas driver info=== DOS Only Installation: From the installation drive type: INSTALL k: /Axxx /Inn k source drive xxx port address: 2E0, 320 or 330 nninterrupt number: 9, 10, 11, 12 or 15 The software is copied to c:\mts\touch You will see that the installation program tries to connect to the touch controller by varying COM port speed and parity and, if found, sets the line parameters to 2400baud 8 data bits 1 stop bit no parity = ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Coding in BASIC for Freedos?
Others will give you different advice, but if you're already familiar with basic, then by all means, use basic. There's a couple options. Firstbasic (the precursor to powerbasic) is a shareware package, though I have no idea where to download it, or what it's limitations might be, (I did have it back in the early 90s, but never used it). Another option is asic (it's almost basic) which produces extremely small executables, but only produces .com files, so larger programs aren't really possible. I think the last version of it was 2.0, so you'd want to search for asic20.zip if I remember correctly. Then, there's always gwbasic, which doesn't compile, but does exist for dos in several places, so finding one shouldn't be difficult, and it is a sanctioned download from whoever it was that made it, though I don't know if you can find the original download site or not, but I do seem to recall it's part of a utility package that contains other utilities as well, so it shouldn't be difficult to find. If you want something a bit more powerful, but not as complex as C, you can always use turbo pascal, there are multiple versions of turbo pascal in the museum site Borland setup before being sold to who know who, and last time I checked, (about a year and a half ago), that site was still active. That site also has versions of turbo c, though I'm pretty sure it's not the latest version of turbo c for dos, but that's not really a problem, because there are other C compiles for dos that are free if the turbo c doesn't meet your needs. I used to run a bbs, and I had a programming section on there, and there were plenty of other languages as well, such as icon, prolog, lisp, forth, and others (probably not anything you want), so if none of these options suit you, feel free to look around until you find something that does, there's certainly plenty of options, despite the age of the os. On 3/15/2024 4:44 PM, Thomas Cornelius Desi via Freedos-user wrote: Hello, could someone from the list give me an advice, what programming language to learn, if I would want to do some programming in FREEDOS? I am an absolute »Noobie« with programming, but stumbling about some source files, especially BASIC, which I would work with. My aim is to do some alterations to existing source (sort-of-text editor). What would your advice be? Many thanks, best regards, Thomas ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Post-install problem with GRUB2 bootloader
There should be only one active primary partition at any given time. That's what the boot menus handle for you. They set the active flag, then allow that partition to boot. I don't know what kind of chaos will ensue if you have multiple active partitions, but it probably won't be very helpful, and actually, shouldn't be allowed to happen, as most software that sets active partitions unset all the others when setting one of them active. Only the active partition can actually boot, so if you look in a partition manager like fdisk or something similar, there should be only a single active partition, and the tool should not allow you to set a second one active without automatically unsetting the others. On 3/1/2024 5:19 PM, Felix Miata via Freedos-user wrote: Liam Proven composed on 2024-03-01 17:10 (UTC): DOS generally likes to be the 1st active primary partition on an MBR-formatted drive. Which DOS version(s) is/are bootable when more than one active primary is present on a drive? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Post-install problem with GRUB2 bootloader
Yes, you should be able to rerun grub, and have it fix the boot
problem. Another option is to just make the linux partition the active
partition using fdisk. It's likely the dos boot somehow made the dos
partition the active partition. I know grub is supposed to handle this,
but if grub got removed somehow, that would be the behavior I'd expect.
No need to reinstall linux, all your stuff is still there, just a matter
of making the boot process work properly.
I would use fdisk to make the linux partition active, boot into linux,
then modify the grub boot menu to include the dos partition, that
*should* be all you need to do. Of course, if something got changed,
then it might be more work than that, but of course, you won't know
until you take a look.
On 2/29/2024 7:29 PM, Jay F. Shachter via Freedos-user wrote:
Centuries ago, Nostradamus predicted that Charles Hudson via Freedos-user would
write on Thu Feb 29 10:44:56 2024:
On a Lenovo R400 laptop with an existing Fedora 39 KDE system, booted by
GRUB2, I decided to add a new partition and install FreeDOS 1.3.
The Intel Core2 DUO processor lacks VM extensions so I decided to install
on the SSD. I resized the BRTFS partition to create a new 3 GiB FAT32
partition, labeled "DOS", on which to install.
Using the FD 1.3 Live CD I proceeded with installation: If there was a
choice offered of where to install I missed it, but I was relieved to see
installation picked the DOS partition. Using fdisk I verified the
existence of two Linux partitions and one FAT32 partition, which I made
active. Installation failed, however, as I found I needed to format the
partition first. I issued the command "format /s". After doing so
installation carried to completion.
After reboot the machine booted into a menu of FreeDOS options and after
selecting one processed the initialization files and left me at a C:\
prompt. However, I seem to have blitzed my Linux installation as the GRUB2
bootloader no longer appears nor loads Fedora 39.
My investigations into the repair of the MBR and attempts at restoration of
GRUB2 have been unsuccessful: At this point neither Linux nor FD boot and
the machine BIOS complains about the parameters. I am able to verify that
the Linux file system is intact by means of a Fedora 39 KDE Live .iso image
loaded onto a USB disk, and I have offloaded the contents of my Home
directory.
I could in other words reinstall the Linux system but as a learning
exercise I though I would see if GRUB could be rebuilt. Supposing that
this may have happened to some other user, I am posting a question here,
asking for advice on how to handle this situation.
Thank you for your suggestions.
This is, I think, the simplest way to do it (or, in your case, the
simplest way to have done it):
Assume without loss of generality that your disk is named /dev/sda.
Save the first megabyte of /dev/sda somewhere. For example,
dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1 of=/1stMegOfSda
Install FreeDOS into the slice of disk that you have prepared for it.
Assume without loss of generality that in Fedora, this slice is named
/dev/sda3.
Boot your computer from rescue media, mount your Fedora system onto
some suitable directory (e.g., /mnt/Fedora), and restore the saved
first megabyte of disk, totally blowing away whatever FreeDos put
there, thus:
dd of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1 if=/mnt/Fedora/1stMegOfSda
Reboot your system from disk. The old Grub2 menu should appear, as
before; select the system in which grub.cfg resides (presumably your
Fedora system). Edit /boot/grub2/grub.cfg -- yes, this is the file
that says, in prominent capital letters, DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE -- and
add a menu entry that boots FreeDOS:
menuentry 'FREEDOS 1.3' {
set root=(hd0,3)
chainloader /BOOTSECT.DOS
}
although in my case I made a backup of BOOTSECT.DOS and I boot
BOOTSECT.BKP.
Copy /boot/grub2/grub.cfg to /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.backup in case some
idiot runs grub2-mkconfig explicitly or implicitly.
If you insist on relying on grub2-mkconfig, then put the FreeDOS
menuentry into the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file.
There are other ways to accomplish what you want to accomplish, but I
think this is the technique that involves the least time and effort.
Jay F. Shachter
6424 North Whipple Street
Chicago IL 60645-4111
(1-773)7613784 landline
(1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice
j...@m5.chicago.il.us
http://m5.chicago.il.us
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"
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Re: [Freedos-user] GNU Cobol on the FreeDOS ....
It would help if you could point to the compiler in question, and give some background on what has been done, and what doesn't work. Don't know if you'll get any help even then, but the chance is much better. On 2/24/2024 3:03 AM, Everaldo Bernardo Cunha via Freedos-user wrote: Hello! I've been trying to create a GNU Cobol compiler for FreeDOS for two years. So far, I have not been successful, Now, I'm trying directly from FreeDOS in a virtual machine, DOSBOX Staging... I need help from more people to be able to test what I'm doing... can you help me? I'll await contact from you ,,, Everaldo ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] AUTO SHIFT keyboard on DOS??
On 2/8/2024 3:34 PM, tom ehlert via Freedos-user wrote: Hallo Herr Thomas Cornelius Desi via Freedos-user, am Donnerstag, 8. Februar 2024 um 13:18 schrieben Sie: Hi, is it possible in DOS (using BIOS?) to implement a tsr or so which allows the following: holding a key longer to return a SHIFT-key on screen? Example: press key »a« and HOLD the key for e.g. 500 milliseconds, =>> print shift-a = »A« on screen. Anyone around who has an idea or knowledge if this is possible or has been done or any hints where to look? this would go to the keyboard driver as only it knows to differentiate between A-pressed A-pressed --> A A-pressed A-released A-pressed --> a only problem would be that your typin speed is now limited to 1 haracter per e.g. 500 milliseconds. not very practical. Not at all. A keyboard driver is going to know when a key is released, as well as when it's pressed. Nothing preventing it from operating normally when it's released fast enough, and only shifting the character if it isn't released in the alotted time. It doesn't restrict typing speed in the least (with the exception of course of making the capital letters.). I've never tested it, but if you have key repeat turned off, then it's likely the character doesn't appear until you release the key anyhow, so ... ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Booting Windows 98 from FreeDOS
It's possible windows 95/98 won't run on freedos due to some undocumented dos call. I recall there was some problems with both amd processors, and with another dos, although I don't recall if it was drdos or the opendos equivalent, where windows wouldn't run, but you would get a message saying that the processor wasn't supported. AMD had to take microsoft to court over that one, but the drdos problem was easily solved with a rather small TSR that gave windows the information it wanted, and then it ran just fine. I cannot recall the specifics on that particular issue, though I'd wager some judicial googling of the internet archive may turn up the information on that particular problem. I've never tried running windows from opendos, drdos, novell dos (all essentially the same thing), PTS dos, or freedos before, but it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't some sort of a hidden gotcha buried in there to prevent exactly that kind of thing from working. For what it's worth, I don't think you need to mess around with the command.com and the environment variables, simply place the shell= line in the config.sys, and that should solve the problem for you. Other than that, if windows doesn't run, perhaps you'll need to find someone who knows enough to run a debugger on it, and see hwo it acts on a msdos vs a freedos installation to track down the specific problem. I no longer have a setup I can use for this kind of thing, and I was never all that great with assembly language debugging anyway. Perhaps others on the list will have more suggestions. On 9/25/2023 10:42 PM, Michał Dec via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Jürgen, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying is correct. >You start with a Freedos command.com That's not true. FreeDOS started without SHELL or SHELLHIGH will demand you enter a path to the shell program. Both FreeDOS and Windows versions seem to work, although the Windows shell appears to have a limited mileage. >Therefor first you should change those DOS file locations to the correct Freedos ones. (that's that Display, country, *.cpi and keyboard lines). Also that c:\windows\command path should probably point to the Freedos directory. How will that get me any closer to running Windows 98 out of FreeDOS? Your instructions make sense if I would like to run FreeDOS with FreeDOS. I've sat down at the computer again, and I've noticed that at least in the help messages for both command.com files, /P does not specify which autoexec.bat file will be used. Could it be some undocumented FreeDOS quirk? On my way up to this point, Microsoft parts started complaining that HIMEM.SYS isn't loaded, so I added it to the DEVICE lines. Knowing that my only real hope is to force COMMAND.COM to execute the autoexec.bat somehow, I made this: 8?SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS /E:1024 /P /K C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT and then I've added WIN.COM at the end of autoexec.bat. This keeps getting me a substantial attempt reliably: 1. First, I get "unsupported dos call INT2F/1231". This gets called 3 times. 2. Next, I get this mouthful...: Registry File was not found. Registry services may be inoperative for this reason. XMS cache problem. Registry services may be inoperative this session. Invalid Opcode at 02AC 2116 0206 2116 000A 190D 00C4 3A65 2A38 00 05 Press any key to continue... And after that, either I press, or wait 15 seconds, and it shuts down the computer. Did I forget to load something? I've also found this post, which describes basically the same issue: https://freedos-devel.narkive.com/pF6dlqXN/loading-other-o-ses-from-freedos Best regards, Michał Dec W dniu 25.09.2023 o 11:27, Jürgen Wondzinski via Freedos-user pisze: Hi Michał, Maybe it get's confused from different DOS versions, like that Command.com files. You start with a Freedos command.com, but then load a Microsoft command.com subsequently. Therefor first you should change those DOS file locations to the correct Freedos ones. (that's that Display, country, *.cpi and keyboard lines). Also that c:\windows\command path should probably point to the Freedos directory. Greetings from Bavaria, Germany Jürgen Wondzinski -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Michał Dec via Freedos-user Gesendet: Sonntag, 24. September 2023 22:50 An: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Cc: Michał Dec Betreff: [Freedos-user] Booting Windows 98 from FreeDOS Hello everyone, I wanted to boot Windows 98 from FreeDOS 1.3, because I would like to keep all things together without worrying about partitioning. So I actually have a block device backup of when Windows 98 was working on this computer. I've extracted the contents and focused on what does Windows 98 have in its autoexec.bat and config.sys files. So let's see autoexec.bat from Windows 98: SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0 SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H7 P
Re: [Freedos-user] DOS Mode - My Two Cente
Only one correction. Windows and MacOSX are certainly graphical by default, though both have text terminals very similar to the dos prompt. On the other hand, Linux, bsd, and other unix versions are also text interfaces by default. If you don't install a windows manager (such as gnome), then there is no graphical interface on linux. In that regard, it's very similar to dos. Text by default, but graphical by choice (just like running windows) Mac OSX is different, because it's configured by default to run a GUI, which a basic linux system out of the box doesn't do unless it's configured differently by it's distributor (ubuntu, debian, and so on.) On 8/18/2023 1:51 AM, Norby Droid via Freedos-user wrote: I think there may be a bit of confusion we need to let new DOS users aware of, and that is DOS is a "Text-Mode" system and not graphical like Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc. DOS by nature is only text (although graphics is possible) Maybe make a distinction between "Text Resolution" and "Graphic/Screen Resolution" DOS when booted is 80 characters with 25 lines using an 8x16 pixel font. This could be called a text resolution of 640x400 (not 640x480 which is actually 30 lines of 80 characters). You can change the number of lines and the number of characters per line as well as the width and height of the font (like 8x32 or 9x16) which will give ya more room or less depending on your choices as well as change the look of the text, but this is still ALL text not graphics. Also of note is that although ya can be making changes, DOS has the tendency to revert back to its default state of 25x80 8x16 native font when he screen gets cleared or when exiting different software. This is my two cents about DOS Mode. Just remember DOS is Text (by default) not Graphics. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dosemu on its own - does it exist?
I'm almost positive I saw the folks that made vmix producing an open source version of vmix, though I don't remember if it was called vmix or not. This was several years ago, (probably around the 2010 time frame). I don't know if I ever bookmarked it, but if I did, it's gone now, I checked my bookmarks, and couldnd't find it anywhere. Also, as mentioned before, vmix is now a video software, so that adds to the complication of hunting for the source urls. I didn't pay much attention at the time other than to go take a look, but when I looked, it wasn't ready for stand-alone use yet, so I forgot about it until this topic came up again. I'm wondering if vmm386 is the project this became, and that's why that name stuck in my head. I've not checked the vmm386 documentation to see if that's the case though. Sorry I don't have more information about it. On 3/31/2023 6:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 at 15:33, wrote: Yep, sorry, misremembered the name. It's vmix, and as far as I know, the last version was 2.67, and you can grab it here: This is very interesting. Just about lost to history and there are almost no mentions of it anywhere now. So if I read your multiple emails correctly, you are saying that it got made open source in the end? Is that right? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dosemu on its own - does it exist?
One more, (unless I can find the opensource links, not having much luck there, since a video software took the name vmix some years ago, and all links I've found point to that, not to the dos software, though it's possible I was mixed up, because vmm386 was based on vmix, though I've not looked at the docs to see if that's the case or not. Anyway, version 2.90 of vmix is here: http://cd.textfiles.com/goldmedal/volume3/UTILS2/VMIX290.ARJ On 3/29/2023 10:47 AM, tsie...@softcon.com wrote: Found a later version. I'd forgotten what the latest version was. Here's a link to version 2.85. http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/sysutil/vmix285.zip Hope that helps. On 3/29/2023 6:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 at 00:53, wrote: The original version of vmm386 was a fantastic dos multitasker, I never heard of that one before! Do you have any more info or links? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dosemu on its own - does it exist?
Found a later version. I'd forgotten what the latest version was. Here's a link to version 2.85. http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/sysutil/vmix285.zip Hope that helps. On 3/29/2023 6:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 at 00:53, wrote: The original version of vmm386 was a fantastic dos multitasker, I never heard of that one before! Do you have any more info or links? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dosemu on its own - does it exist?
Yep, sorry, misremembered the name. It's vmix, and as far as I know, the last version was 2.67, and you can grab it here: http://cd.textfiles.com/toomuch/PASCAL/VMIX267.ZIP Sorry for the mixup there, hope it's useful though. On 3/29/2023 6:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 at 00:53, wrote: The original version of vmm386 was a fantastic dos multitasker, I never heard of that one before! Do you have any more info or links? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dosemu on its own - does it exist?
The original version of vmm386 was a fantastic dos multitasker, even to the point of allowing multiple dos programs write to the screen via bios calls. I wanted to use it for some things back when it was new shareware, and I even called and got to talk to the developer. The problem for me was that my screen reader intercepted the dos interrupts for writing to the screen, so when I was using vm386, the screen reader would talk both programs simultaneously. Needless to say, that made for rather confusing operations. It worked just fine though with programs that bypassed the bios calls, and just wrote to video memory, since those my screen reader didn't intercept. On the other hand, it made the programs harder to use, so I didn't spend a lot of time using vm386 myself, but I did hear of others using it for all kinds of things, including running bbs software to handle multiple lines. I know they've tried to make an openssource version of it not so long ago, but that's not from the original sources so far as I could tell, so I don't believe it will/does work quite as well as the original program does. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping someone from grabbing a copy and installing it and running it on a machine nowadays, since the folks that made it started the opensourcing process, I doubt anyone would complain if someone used it these days. On 3/28/2023 7:17 PM, Rugxulo wrote: Hi, On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 8:47 AM Liam Proven wrote: DR DOS does have some source code available, and includes TaskMaster, which can do full-screen multitasking of DOS sessions. This *does* work on bare modern hardware in my testing. IIRC, DR-DOS 7.03 (circa 1999) had task swapping for 286s and preemptive multitasking for 386s (TASKMGR.EXE). But you had to use their DR EMM386.EXE (no HIMEM.SYS needed) with their built-in DPMI enabled. (It had a lot of bundled / hidden .VXDs or whatever.) It was limited to 64 MB per task (despite the false claim of XMS v3 support). And no FAT32 support. Lineo/DeviceLogics president and CEO Bryan Sparks said all CP/M derivatives are free to use, modify and distribute last year. DR DOS is a derivative of CP/M-86 which is a derivative of CP/M. I think it could be used. They stopped selling DR-DOS online back in 2018, right? But I'd be surprised if DR-DOS was still considered a true derivative of CP/M-86. Almost all of the CP/M support was probably stripped out. I'm overly skeptical about that. (The so-called "OpenDOS" was only kernel and shell for "non-commercial use", AFAIK, and wasn't even patched with the latest Novell fixes.) It seems to me that if the sources of Multiuser DOS could be obtained, and if it's covered by Mr Sparks' edict, then it would give a lot of what people want from a DOS nowadays. Minix 2.0.4 (circa 2003) could run atop FAT16 (e.g. DOS). It wasn't perfect but still quite good. It could multitask its own binaries (a.out variant). I've been wanting to try to build 8086tiny (ecm's fork) under it. But even Minix choked on machines with lots of RAM. I don't think it booted atop FAT32 either. I personally wanted to try again under VirtualBox one of these days. Or just develop in standard C (or Modula-2) atop Minix [DOSMinix, booting atop FAT], with its multitasking for faster development, and later transfer your sources to DOS to compile natively. You could also run old Slackware 11 (ZipSlack) atop FAT (Linux 2.4 kernel, UMSDOS). IIRC, it had GCC 3.4.6. Maybe even an old DOSEMU would run there. Multiuser DOS was the last and final descendant of CP/M. It's a native 32-bit OS, multitasking but DOS compatible, with FAT32 support. It supports up to 4GB of RAM and apps can get both EMS and XMS services. Memory is such a mess (and I don't mean 16-bit). So many things have corner cases or bugs. In case it wasn't obvious, I did buy DR-DOS (online in 2004), but I rarely used their multitasking. The main potential uses (to me) would be 1). finding files in the background (or grepping), 2). compiling some sources, or 3). file compression. But I rarely needed to care. (Most people would also prefer listening to music or downloading files.) As a workaround, locally in FreeDOS, I always (weakly) tried to simplify things (build processes), use speedy tools, better algorithms, etc. Running atop RAM disk and/or cache also helps a ton. DJGPP can be quite slow (and worse with LFNs enabled). You know, if everything is quick and efficient (and accurate), you don't need to multitask as much. (But I hate brittle makefiles that are easy to break. I'd rather just rebuild slowly from scratch via shell script.) It has modest hardware support: CD, DVD, sound, mouse, a few other things. It supports a few network cards, and can talk TCP/IP and SMB. There are some brilliant apps that use the mouse (e.g. JED), but I rarely relied on it. Sound is the weakest link in DOS (and probably not crucial to "real work" for most people). Network can be very useful but isn'
