DOS ain't dead

There is a completely new DOS GUI project called Ikon GUI.
http://ikongui.freehostia.com/

Although it is in early alpha stage, it is very promising. Most of all I like that it is focused into internet. There are simple HTML browser and mail program included.

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DOS-u-akbar!

BTW: Do you know this GUI? http://bespin.org/~polit/about.htm
It is not inder development more but it is very impressive. And it is written...
...in good old Turbo pascal, wow!

Before you click the link I must warn you that site is in ukrainan language only. For russian speaking DOSers it shouldn't be problem for others I dunno...

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DOS-u-akbar!

> BTW: Do you know this GUI? http://bespin.org/~polit/about.htm
> It is not inder development more but it is very impressive. And it is
> written...
> ...in good old Turbo pascal, wow!
>
> Before you click the link I must warn you that site is in ukrainan
> language only. For russian speaking DOSers it shouldn't be problem for
> others I dunno...

I haven't known it. There are some GUIs which looks good but nobody who develope them...

> There is a completely new DOS GUI project called Ikon GUI.

DOS GUI is good ... but this one is very buggy also. What about DUGL instead of Allebugro ?

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This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > There is a completely new DOS GUI project called Ikon GUI.
>
> DOS GUI is good ... but this one is very buggy also. What about DUGL
> instead of Allebugro ?

Why not fix Allegro instead? How many DUGL users are there? 2-3?

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Forum admin

> Why not fix Allegro instead?

Possible in theory ... I'm still waiting to see at least one stable Allegro-based app.

What are the benefits of Allegro over DUGL ?

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > Why not fix Allegro instead?
>
> Possible in theory ... I'm still waiting to see at least one stable
> Allegro-based app.

Is Allegro Sprite Editor unstable?

> What are the benefits of Allegro over DUGL ?

- wider use
- better documentation
- more developers (but needs DOS maintainer(s))

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Forum admin

> > Why not fix Allegro instead?
>
> Possible in theory ... I'm still waiting to see at least one stable
> Allegro-based app.

mono.c May 14, 2004

"My own ScreenHack 2004 entry, which won the contest. The whole source code sits in an 80x25 screen (2000 bytes). It's a shoot 'em up, featuring 5 monocolor sprites, scrolling starfield, one repeating level, chasing mines, unlimited number of player bullets, and more... Keep playing to improve the high score! Requires Allegro to compile." -- Angelo Mottola

http://www.ecplusplus.com/index.php?page=downloads

EDIT: Okay, I thought it looked cool even though I never played it (well, I couldn't figure out how to shoot, heh). But don't ask me why, it seems that %DJDIR%/include/allegro/keyboard.h says "__allegro_KEY_UNKNOWN3 = 109", which makes no sense. So, in MONO.C, just change "109" to "75" (spacebar), and it should work okay (tested successfully in DOSBox). Oh, and use GNU indent if you want clearer code.

http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/mono.zip (orig. + tweaked src + DOS .EXE, 234k)

> > > Why not fix Allegro instead?
> >
> > Possible in theory ... I'm still waiting to see at least one stable
> > Allegro-based app.
>
> mono.c May 14, 2004

Also, some (most?) of the DOS re-ports of Doom (Eternity, Boom) used Allegro. It's a quite nice library.

> Allegro. It's a quite nice library.

#include <allegro.h>//Monospace 80x25, in memory of Milo Sedlacek, by EC++ 2004
volatile int t,E,i=0,j=6,x,y,L,p,f,S,h,W=320,H=200,A=96,c=11;char*d,*g,*D="l``"
"yÜ`Ñ¡aa`£a`zÀßb`bÞß``?``xd`jcØÆ s?|?¨aÛ??lhpÒohkhº?ØpÁiv`Ïl`?l`xd`h```l``vÀ"
"sÔp°?p¸ÂÐmmqÅ׳??kØ?ihh|`nÀßc´Î×ÊÈs}",*I="thtqvmeejb";BITMAP*b[5],*r;void T
(){t++;}int main(){struct{int t;float x,y,v,h;}e[W],*m=e+A,*o=e+H,*C,*M,*X,N={0
,};g=D;allegro_init();install_keyboard();install_int(T,15);set_gfx_mode(0,W,H,0
,0);for(;i<5;i++){x=*I++-A;f=*I++-A;r=b[i]=create_bitmap(x,f);d=r->dat;for(x*=f
;x;x--){++j>6?y=*g++-A,j=h=0:0;*d++=y&(1<<j)?c:0;}}r=create_bitmap(W,H);for(;!E
;){text_mode(-1);g=D;t=x=f=p=S=0;y=L=A;E=H;memset(e,0,sizeof(e));while(E&&!key[
59]){clear(r);for(i=A,C=o,M=m;i;i--,C++,M++){j=rand();if(!C->t&&j&1)C->t=1,C->x
=W,C->y=j%H,C->v=-j%9/6.-1;if((C->x+=C->v)<0)*C=N;if(C->t&2){circlefill(r,C->x+
5,C->y+5,MIN(C->h,15),c);C->h>15?circlefill(r,C->x+5,C->y+5,C->h-15,0):0;if(C->
h++>30)*C=N;}C->t&1?putpixel(r,C->x,C->y,c):0;if(!M->t&&key[109]&&!f)f=9,*M=N,M
->t=1,M->x=x+16,M->y=y+3,M->v=4;if(M->t){M->t*=(M->x+=M->v)<W;draw_sprite(r,b[4
],M->x,M->y);for(j=A,X=e;j;j--,X++)if(X->t&&M->x+9>X->x&&M->x<X->x+c&&M->y>X->y
&&M->y<X->y+15)S+=X->t,X->t=X->h=2,*(X+H)=*X,*M=*X=N;h=S>h?S:h;}}draw_sprite(r,
*b,x,y);for(i=A,C=e;i;i--,C++){C->t?draw_sprite(r,b[C->t],C->x,C->y):0;C->y+=(C
->t==2)*sin(C->h)+(C->t==3)*MIN(3/(abs(C->x-x)/8.),2)*(C->y<y?1:-1);C->h+=44;if
((C->x+=C->v)<-A)*C=N;if(E>0&&C->t&&x+c>C->x&&x-c<C->x&&y+9>C->y&&y-9<C->y)o->t
=2,o->h=o->v=0,o->x=x,o->y=y,f=E=-E*3,x=-W;}d=E<0?"Game Over":E>A?" Start!!":I;
for(;!t;);if(!--L){L=*(int*)g;C=e+p;for(i=16;i;L/=4,C++){*C=N;C->t=L&3;C->x=W+i
%4*24;C->y=(i--/2*A+C->t*25)%H;C->v=-3.5/C->t;C->h=p++;p&=63;}L=E;g=g>D+115?D:g
+4;}textout(r,font,d,124,A,c);textprintf(r,font,t=0,0,c,"SC %04d   HI %04d",S,h
);blit(r,screen,0,0,0,0,W,H);E<0?E++:E>A?E--:0;if(E>0){if(key[82]&&x)x--;if(key
[83]&&x<W)x++;if(key[84]&&y)y--;if(key[85]&&y<H-8)y++;}f?f--:0;}}}END_OF_MAIN()

Your preferred coding style ?



It's impressive ... in many aspects:

- Tiny source
- Works ... but very "cheap" example only: no VESA, no mouse, no sound, no file I/O, very little RAM, ...
- Can't play it, get assassinated within 10 seconds at most
- Extremely bloated - 540 KiB for such a simple game ... same size as DUGL PLAYER hogs, including MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codec, VESA, GUI, mouse, and, DUGL still uses D compiler ... a DUGL PLAYER in ASM could be even much smaller. Such a simple game written in ASM would fit into 2 KiB and work on 8086 with MGA card ... maybe some experts would push it even into 256 bytes ?

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> Your preferred coding style ?

Did you forget to convert EOL chars?

Edit:
Convert Unicode chars?
Old programmer's joke - it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.

> Did you forget to convert EOL chars?

NO.

> Convert Unicode chars?

NO.

> Old programmer's joke - it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.

OK.

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

Hello to all.
This is my first post here

> > What are the benefits of Allegro over DUGL ?
>
> - wider use

True but we have to remember that every thing have a beginning. And it's a wider use over windows/linux platforms, DOS is nearly abondoned.

> - better documentation

True

> - more developers (but needs DOS maintainer(s))

- Allegro DOS version seems to be DEAD.

So What are the benefits of DUGL over Allegro ?

- DOS only library.
- Really faster up to more than 100% on some cases.
- asm 32bits loadable sound driver, (we have a contributor willing to write some driver)
- Smaller
- Easier to use but this depend on the programmer
- Under development but really slow last time as I'm lacking free time
- ...