DOS ain't dead

DOSUSB is a USB driver for DOS which up to now supported USB 1.1 using UHCI and OHCI controllers. The new version now available from the website www.dosusb.net also supports USB 2.0 High-Speed using EHCI controllers up to 480 Mbit/s.

Therefore you can read and write data to flash disks or USB hard disks at much higher speeds than before. Also the data can be send much faster to USB printers, USB serial adapters and other USB devices.

DOSUSB also supports the new Intel motherboards for Intel Core i3/5/7 processors which just feature EHCI controllers with RMHs and no UHCI or OHCI controllers any more.

The DOSUSB package includes drivers for flash disks and USB hard disks, USB printers and USB serial adapters.

DOSUSB features an URB programming interface to allow programmers to write applications and drivers which communicate with any USB device. Sample code for different programming languages are included.

The driver is a real mode DOS application and will not run in a Windows DOS box.

> Therefore you can read and write data to flash disks or USB hard disks at
> much higher speeds than before. Also the data can be send much faster to
> USB printers, USB serial adapters and other USB devices.

Thanks for your efforts!

It should probably be mentioned HERE that the version of DOSUSB which can be downloaded freely is a DEMO version only - according to the docs it stops operating after 20 minutes.

The unrestricted license costs 65,- EUR.

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MS-DOS forever!

> It should probably be mentioned HERE that the version of DOSUSB which can
> be downloaded freely is a DEMO version only - according to the docs it
> stops operating after 20 minutes.
>
> The unrestricted license costs 65,- EUR.

Hm, maybe Bret Johnson will make support for EHCI some day too :)

But I have problems with all this dos drivers and my new USB reader because it is a composite device (smart card + memory card) and only my BIOS legacy support works with it.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

The BIOS I have here does only USB 1.1. So DOSUSB should be faster than the BIOS legacy support.

Bret Johnson has not yet released OHCI support.

> But I have problems with all this dos drivers and my new USB reader because
> it is a composite device (smart card + memory card) and only my BIOS legacy
> support works with it.

Unfortunatelly this new version doesn't work for me too. Driver loads OK and say that drive letter is assigned to L: (1st free). Well but when I change drive typing "L:" system crashes with PCI parity error... I think the same error I saw when triggered NMI. (I have a Gigabyte P31+ICH7)

Yes, my BIOS support is only 1.1 (slow) but works. I can also use this feature to boot from flash.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Well. Yesterday I tried this driver and yes, it works perfectly.
But the problem is the time limitation of this demoversion and HIGH PRICE of full version.

I am now deciding whether to buy or not the full version.

pro:
+ it works without problems. I can't test it right now but in the past, the
USB 1.1 version worked even with flash disks where Bret's driver didn't.
+ it is the only universal DOS driver which supports USB 2.0 protocol.
+ I think in generaly the DOS developers should be supported

con:
- 65 euro is really lot
- in the fact I don't heavily need the USB 2.0 support. Yes, the USB 1.1
speed is slow and f.e. copying film on or from flash disk takes a lot of
time but not more time than a drinking a cup of tea
- I can compare with Bret's drivers which are technialy much more advanced
support the INT 13h interface (what is quite important for me), are free
and open sourced

What about discount to 40 euro, George?

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DOS-u-akbar!

Hi Laaca,

a .sys driver is the way DOS expects new hardware to be interfaced to it. I followed Ray Duncan in his book Advanced DOS in this respect.

I do not think that Bret's drivers are more advanced than DOSUSB. DOSUSB is just more simple to use. Also the support for OHCI and EHCI would suggest that DOSUSB is more advanced.

Why is the int 13h interface important to you? If you just want to copy files to and from a flash disk you can just as well use my usbdisk.sys driver.

Georg

> Why is the int 13h interface important to you? If you just want to copy
> files to and from a flash disk you can just as well use my usbdisk.sys
> driver.
>
> Georg

Well, I used it when I was testing my pascal library for disk partition managment.

---
DOS-u-akbar!

> a .sys driver is the way DOS expects new hardware to be interfaced to it. I
> followed Ray Duncan in his book Advanced DOS in this respect.

very bad "design"

> I do not think that Bret's drivers are more advanced than DOSUSB.

About the unloadable TSR approach and INT $13 support they definitely are

see also here (not in board mode)

> DOSUSB is just more simple to use.

I don't think so

> the support for OHCI and EHCI would suggest that DOSUSB is more advanced.

In this area definitely YES.

> Why is the int 13h interface important to you?

For me too (YES we had discussed this by mail ...).

> If you just want to copy files to and from a flash disk
> you can just as well use my usbdisk.sys

YES.

Why INT $13 support is needed:

- FS brewing (FAT and also non-FAT)
- partitionning (NO I DON'T care about private problems of Bill)
- support of non-FAT FS
- wiping
- "physical disk" content inspection and editing
- use with kernels not supporting SYS
- testing DOSUSB.COM only (barring out possible bugs of USBDISK.SYS)
- proper hotplug support

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

> > the support for OHCI and EHCI would suggest that DOSUSB is more
> advanced.
>
> In this area definitely YES.

Obviously I am completely biased here, so take this with a grain of salt. DOSUSB's host drivers are certainly more _complete_ at this point in time than are mine. However, I don't think that either the host drivers or individual device drivers (the ones that exist, anyway) are more _advanced_ technically in any way whatsoever. I could list dozens of ways in which mine are technically much more advanced, as Laaca originally stated. Just a few examples are the API, hot-plugging, multi-tasking, and background transaction processing.

I guess each driver has its advantages. I do not want to discuss whether one is more advanced or more complete than the other. It is just important that the driver does what the user wants to use it for.

Georg

I also tested the new version and it works well and fast ( with my two memory sticks ).

> Why is the int 13h interface important to you? If you just want to copy
> files to and from a flash disk you can just as well use my usbdisk.sys
> driver.

The lacking Int 13h interface probably isn't "important", but it would be really nice to have. Currently, with DOSUSB, it's hard to view/edit the first "track" of the memory sticks ( which contains the MBR ). No problem in Windows. Also, access is restricted to FAT drives without Int 13h.

A minor issue is that there's a DEVLOAD.COM in the package, but no GPL license is included; also a description where the source can be downloaded is missing. This should be corrected to make the GPL fanatics happy.

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MS-DOS forever!

> The lacking Int 13h interface probably isn't "important", but it would be
> really nice to have. Currently, with DOSUSB, it's hard to view/edit the
> first "track" of the memory sticks ( which contains the MBR ). No problem
> in Windows. Also, access is restricted to FAT drives without Int 13h.
>
Hi Japheth,

after loading the usbdisk.sys driver you can use int25/int26 (absolute disk read/write) to access logical disk sectors of the USB disk. You have to define a parameter block here since the partition is >32 MB.

So if you use DOS and not a different OS you can use these interrupts instead of int13.

Georg

> after loading the usbdisk.sys driver you can use int25/int26 (absolute disk
> read/write) to access logical disk sectors of the USB disk. You have to
> define a parameter block here since the partition is >32 MB.
>
> So if you use DOS and not a different OS you can use these interrupts
> instead of int13.

In spite of the fact that DOS calls these functions "absolute disk read & write", the input sector numbers they use are not absolute -- they are relative to the VBR (Volume Boot Record) associated with a specific drive letter. The only way you could use INT 25h/26h to look at or modify the MBR (or other partition records) is if there actually is no MBR or partitions, but only a VBR (i.e., if the disk is formatted as a floppy or "super-floppy"). Some USB disks are in fact formatted as super-floppies, but many aren't.

> after loading the usbdisk.sys driver you can use int25/int26 (absolute disk
> read/write) to access logical disk sectors of the USB disk. You have to
> define a parameter block here since the partition is >32 MB.
>
> So if you use DOS and not a different OS you can use these interrupts
> instead of int13.

Thanks for your reply! As Bret already noted, you can use int 25h/26h only when the stick is formatted in a special way - mine are formatted as "hard-disks", with a MBR, so int 13h is needed for accessing the first 63 sectors.

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MS-DOS forever!

> after loading the usbdisk.sys driver you can use int25/int26 (absolute disk
> read/write) to access logical disk sectors of the USB disk. You have to
> define a parameter block here since the partition is >32 MB.

Already discussed very same stuff by mail

1. INT $21 / AX=$7305 http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-3229.htm is possibly superior to crappy INT $25 and INT $26

2. Still, both refer to sectors within a volume recognized by DOS only, not to "physical disk". They can't see the MBR area (or even find out whether such exists or not), they can't see valid "physical" sectors above the partition, and they can't access anything that DOS doesn't recognize.

3. Both need the USBDISK.SYS. You know, a piece of software can be bug-free, but the opposite is the rule ... . Also, every SYS driver loaded is a one-way ticket to the hell.

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

> > The lacking Int 13h interface probably isn't "important", but it would
> after loading the usbdisk.sys driver you can use int25/int26 (absolute disk
> read/write) to access logical disk sectors of the USB disk.


if you want NTFS support (by NTFSDOS, NTFS4DOS r similar), int13 is required.