DOS ain't dead

DOSBox-X 0.83.11 is now officially released! Designing to be a cross-platform and complete DOS emulator, DOSBox-X provides official DOS versions in addition to versions for other platforms.

You can download the latest 0.83.11 packages for all supported platforms from the DOSBox-X project homepage:

https://dosbox-x.com/

As usual there are quite a few new features and improvements in the latest version, and you can find the release notes for version 0.83.11 here:

https://dosbox-x.com/release-0.83.11.html

Direct download for the HX-DOS package:

* dosbox-x-mingw-hx-dos-20210301005917.zip

It is self-contained so that you can simply unzip the file and type DOSBOX-X to run in DOS. Read the included README.TXT file for more information.

In addition, the updated DOS LOADLIN package for DOSBox-X 0.83.11 by grapeli is also available, available from:

* dosbox-x-dos-0.83.11-loadlin.zip

For the LOADLIN package, you can even run DOSBox-X right from DOSBox-X's DOS shell. Just make sure to start the outside DOSBox-X with the setting "memsize=127" and "cputype=pentium" (perhaps also "fullscreen=true").

Seems like a lot of changes. E.g. BIOS screen. But is it necessary to introduce another config interface while many options can be set via pull down menu?

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Seems like a lot of changes. E.g. BIOS screen. But is it necessary to
> introduce another config interface while many options can be set via pull
> down menu?

You are right about this. A built-in BIOS Setup Utility is desired for DOSBox-X to emulate the boot process of an actual PC, but I did consider the same thing when I actually implemented it. This is why the current BIOS Setup Utility is primarily for providing a summary of the current system configuration instead of changing them. But it does allow you to change the date and time from the UI, which is not possible from the drop-down menu. So the BIOS screen and the drop-down menu will complement each other.

So why not to add time/date set in menu instead to be consistent?

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> So why not to add time/date set in menu instead to be consistent?

Being able to change the date and time is a must have feature for any BIOS Setup program, and the BIOS Setup Utility is a must have feature for DOSBox-X according to its goal. If we also add the ability to change the date and time from the menu then it will be a duplicate...

OK, I didn't know that "BIOS Setup Utility is a must have feature for DOSBox-X" I would prefer extending some HW emulation capabilities or speed up optimizations prior to setup...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.