DOS ain't dead

there was a tiny data loss in this board ...

here are some links which were posted lately:

HimemX v3.31: http://www.japheth.de/Download/Himem331.zip

Jemm v5.64: http://www.japheth.de/Jemm.html

HX v2.12: http://www.japheth.de/dwnload4.html

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MS-DOS forever!

> there was a tiny data loss in this board ...

What happened, hard drive failure? Anybody know?

> > there was a tiny data loss in this board ...
>
> What happened, hard drive failure? Anybody know?

Oh well, anyways ...

1). HimemX 3.31 still doesn't work for me on my old Intel 486 Sx/25 w/ 8 MB RAM. But it's a little better, I think:

= SHSURDRV works now
= DJGPP (32-bit UNZIP.EXE) and OpenWatcom programs (UHarc) do not, however (though they should); they just crash
= I also tested DOSZIP 1.28 (which doesn't use XMS) just to test the RAM drive and overall stability, so that works (thankfully)

P.S. For anyone else reading this, FreeDOS Himem 3.26 works perfect (as does MS-DOS 6.22) on this 486. However, HimemX 3.30 (or 3.31 beta) by itself doesn't, for unknown reasons (yet does work on a P166 or even on the same 486 if JEMM386 is loaded also).

P.P.S. Hey Jose, if you read this, I tested VP386 on my 486, and it works fine. So, it doesn't need an FPU, so that rules that out. I dunno what your issue is. I can only assume OS troubles (since DR-DOS 5.0 probably isn't as good as later versions). Just try FreeDOS (which I didn't test, only tried MS-DOS), but it should work. If not, tell us here! (assuming the board doesn't crash again).

> What happened, hard drive failure?

No, AFAICS it's just that our admin loves to live dangerously.

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MS-DOS forever!

> What happened, hard drive failure? Anybody know?

...mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Of course I could blame some innocent IT equipment, but it was my own fault. I didn't make a backup copy before playing around with the forum's source code. So I accidentally deleted all previous posts.

As already told to Japheth in private mail:
- I apologize for any inconvenience this data loss may cause.
- I changed my backup strategy.

I hope all regular posters will return and continue to support this forum.

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Forum admin

> 1). HimemX 3.31 still doesn't work for me on my old Intel 486 Sx/25 w/ 8
> MB RAM. But it's a little better, I think:
>
> = SHSURDRV works now
> = DJGPP (32-bit UNZIP.EXE) and OpenWatcom programs (UHarc) do not, however
> (though they should); they just crash
> = I also tested DOSZIP 1.28 (which doesn't use XMS) just to test the RAM
> drive and overall stability, so that works (thankfully)

If SHSURDRV indeed works then there most likely is no problem with the XMS move function anymore.

I found another 486 (a DX2 66 MHz with 8 MB). I successfully ran the DJGPP binary unzip32.exe (v5.52 from Info-Zip). Perhaps if you send me the binaries which do crash so I can try them on that machine...

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MS-DOS forever!

> > What happened, hard drive failure? Anybody know?
>
> ...mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

C'mon, it's a DOS forum. Like none of us have had a reboot when programming.

Anyways, the only important bits that are missing are the parts about Win32 Ghostscript + HXRT.

But feel free to post more news, download links, etc.

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Know your limits.h

> If SHSURDRV indeed works then there most likely is no problem with the XMS
> move function anymore.
>
> I found another 486 (a DX2 66 MHz with 8 MB). I successfully ran the DJGPP
> binary unzip32.exe (v5.52 from Info-Zip). Perhaps if you send me the
> binaries which do crash so I can try them on that machine...

Same exact binary, but I did recompress with "upx --ultra-brute" (UPX 3.00). However, I don't see how that would affect it. Maybe my 486 is bugged? (Hey, it's possible, I guess.)

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Know your limits.h

> Same exact binary, but I did recompress with "upx --ultra-brute" (UPX
> 3.00). However, I don't see how that would affect it. Maybe my 486 is

Maybe UPX has a bug?

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Forum admin

> Anyways, the only important bits that are missing are the parts about
> Win32 Ghostscript + HXRT.

I don't promise anything, but maybe I'll find something in my browser's cache...

> But feel free to post more news, download links, etc.

Sure.

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Forum admin

> If SHSURDRV indeed works then there most likely is no problem with the XMS
> move function anymore.
>
> I found another 486 (a DX2 66 MHz with 8 MB). I successfully ran the DJGPP
> binary unzip32.exe (v5.52 from Info-Zip). Perhaps if you send me the
> binaries which do crash so I can try them on that machine...

And here's the worst part: It works, but only on FreeDOS.

Eric had messaged me about my floppy distro, saying something like BOCHS messes up with HimemX by itself re: A20 always on but Japheth says this always works correctly in MS-DOS. So, hence, I only tested MS-DOS, thinking that FreeDOS was (technically) less reliable in some very minor way.

I tested HimemX 3.31 (with no JEMM386) for over an hour after booting my FreeDOS disk #1 (barely modified from what is on my homepage). RAM drive, TDEP, UNZIP32, UHarc, DOSZIP, everything worked. No problems whatsoever.

But poor old MS-DOS 6.22 didn't work so well when I tried it yesterday. Not sure why either. Any tips? I'll try 'em. Just tell me (here or e-mail).

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Know your limits.h

> But poor old MS-DOS 6.22 didn't work so well when I tried it yesterday.
> Not sure why either. Any tips?

Perhaps you should test the MS-DOS things once more.

*I* need a test case (program) which reliably fails on any system with HimemX v3.31 (without EMM) and which also reliably works with - say - FD Himem v2.26.

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MS-DOS forever!

> Perhaps you should test the MS-DOS things once more.
>
> *I* need a test case (program) which reliably fails on any system with
> HimemX v3.31 (without EMM) and which also reliably works with - say - FD
> Himem v2.26.

Okay, I will test it some more, but like I said, it doesn't work for me on real MS-DOS 6.22 (the "standard" DOS) w/ my Intel 486 Sx/25 8 MB RAM. I assume you are using some later version of MS-DOS, 7.10 perhaps, on your AMD 486?? How much RAM does it have? FPU? What programs do you run successfully with only HimemX loaded? What programs do you think I should test / try to run?

(I can only guess you also want more specific info from me: AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, MS-DOS timestamps and version, programs timestamps and versions, 486 stats, etc.) In testing I used no AUTOEXEC.BAT and the CONFIG.SYS only had "DEVICE=C:\TEMP\HIMEMX.EXE" in it. No mouse driver loaded, no TSRs, no nothing. And either DJGPP programs (e.g. UNZIP 32-bit 5.52, not modified) or OpenWatcom stuff (e.g. UHarc 0.6b, also not modified) crashed the machine. However, in FreeDOS it all works (after an hour of use ... no crashes! go figure).

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Know your limits.h

> Okay, I will test it some more, but like I said, it doesn't work for me on
> real MS-DOS 6.22 (the "standard" DOS) w/ my Intel 486 Sx/25 8 MB RAM. I
> assume you are using some later version of MS-DOS, 7.10 perhaps, on your
> AMD 486?? How much RAM does it have? FPU? What programs do you run
> successfully with only HimemX loaded? What programs do you think I
> should test / try to run?

It's a 80486 DX2 66 Mhz (with 8 MB RAM + FPU)

> (I can only guess you also want more specific info from me: AUTOEXEC.BAT,
> CONFIG.SYS, MS-DOS timestamps and version, programs timestamps and
> versions, 486 stats, etc.) In testing I used no AUTOEXEC.BAT and the
> CONFIG.SYS only had "DEVICE=C:\TEMP\HIMEMX.EXE" in it.

I don't think this is important. Since you already told us that there are no problems with HimemX + Jemm386, there are only 2 things which might fail: the XMS block move function and the A20 functions (both are handled by Jemm386 once it is loaded).

Since everything apparently works in FreeDOS (and in MS-DOS 7.1, which I used for testing), I'm assuming that the XMS block move works now for 80486 ... and the A20 thing is the one which might cause the troubles on your machine.

What does HimemX tell about the A20 method it uses?

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MS-DOS forever!

> there was a tiny data loss in this board ...

Including a kick-out of all existing posts

This is sad ... there were 500 useful DOS related posts providing good evidence that DOS is NOT dead and DOS Extenders are not "obsolete" ...

OTOH they are available in Gooooogle's cache ... so if someone wants to recover some posts ... but hurry up ...

At this sad occasion I'll start to post as "DOS386" instead of "NTOSKRNL_VXE"

> Okay, I will test it some more, but like I said, it doesn't work for me on
> real MS-DOS 6.22

I can confirm this bug now.

A final HimemX v3.31 has been uploaded where it's fixed.

http://www.japheth.de/Download/Himem331.zip

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MS-DOS forever!

> Including a kick-out of all existing posts

Yes. I already explained.

> This is sad ... there were 500 useful DOS related posts providing
> good evidence that DOS is NOT dead and DOS Extenders are not
> "obsolete" ...

True, but whining doesn't bring them back.

> OTOH they are available in Gooooogle's cache ... so if someone wants to
> recover some posts ... but hurry up ...

I see, you already did. Thanks!

> At this sad occasion I'll start to post as "DOS386" instead of
> "NTOSKRNL_VXE"

Maybe you want to become a registered user now? Just drop me a message with a valid email address.

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Forum admin

> > there was a tiny data loss in this board ...
>
> Including a kick-out of all existing posts

That's fundamentally wrong. 2 posts survived the slaughter.

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MS-DOS forever!

> > Including a kick-out of all existing posts
>
> That's fundamentally wrong. 2 posts survived the slaughter.

That's wrong. I rewrote posting #1 from scratch.

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Forum admin