DOS ain't dead - New DOS USB Drivers (beta)

Berlin, Germany,
01.07.2009, 22:36

New DOS USB Drivers (beta) (Announce)

Today I've received this message from Bret Johnson:

Good day to you.

My name is Bret Johnson, and I write DOS TSR programs. I am sending this e-mail to you because you have contacted me in the past regarding at least one of my DOS programs, and I thought you might be interested in knowing that I have just released some DOS USB drivers for testing. These drivers are completely different (and hopefully better) than any other DOS USB drivers that are currently available. There are drivers for USB keyboards, mice, joysticks, printers, and disk drives.

Unfortunately, the the drivers have some limitations, and may not work with your current hardware. They host drivers will currently only work with USB host controllers that use the UHCI protocol, which are made by Intel and Via Technologies. Support for other host controller manufacturers will be added in the future.

If you're interested, please go to my web site (http://bretjohnson.us), download the files, and let me know what you think. If you're not interested, I apologize for the inconvenience. Please let me know if you want me to remove you from my contact list regarding DOS programs.

Thank you very much,

Bret Johnson
http://bretjohnson.us

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Forum admin

RayeR

CZ,
02.07.2009, 10:13

@ rr

New DOS USB Drivers (beta)

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Wow, I'm interesting about USB KB driver. Maybe he will be able to add support for AMD geode chipset OHCI (datasheet available) in evo T20. And seems he don't ask for bloody 1000$ per source license ;)

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

RayeR

CZ,
02.07.2009, 10:47

@ RayeR

New DOS USB Drivers (beta)

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I just tried on my PC (ICH7) and it seems to work. I used Dell USB keyboard for test. USB UHCI driver was loaded successfully. Fisrt time the kbd was dead beacuse I plugged it to wrong port - you need to plug it in UHCI not EHCI port. When I reconnect it nulmock lighted up and I could type on both (standard PS/2 and USB) keyboards simultaneously :)

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Rugxulo

Usono,
08.07.2009, 07:12

@ RayeR

New DOS USB Drivers (beta)

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> I just tried on my PC (ICH7) and it seems to work. I used Dell USB keyboard
> for test. USB UHCI driver was loaded successfully. Fisrt time the kbd was
> dead beacuse I plugged it to wrong port - you need to plug it in UHCI not
> EHCI port. When I reconnect it nulmock lighted up and I could type on both
> (standard PS/2 and USB) keyboards simultaneously :)

Is this the same cpu as your Compaq EVO?

RayeR

CZ,
08.07.2009, 14:57

@ Rugxulo

New DOS USB Drivers (beta)

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> Is this the same cpu as your Compaq EVO?

No my desktop PC has intel core 2 duo E8400. But it's not about CPU but type of controller. Only UHCI is currently supported (intel/via). I mailed with author and he is working on OHCI support...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Wengier

11.07.2009, 20:52

@ rr

DOS USB Drivers and JEMM386

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I'm interested about the USB Gamepad/Joystick driver. The most recent update of the driver (dated July 10, 2009) has successfully made my Logitech DualAction Gamepad work under pure DOS (quite impressive). The USB Gamepad driver (USBJSTIK) can also emulate joysticks at the hardware level in addition to the BIOS level (called I/O Virtualization in its documentation) in order to work with almost any DOS program interacting with joysticks. Its documentation also notes that in order to perform I/O Virtualization, a memory manager supporting I/O Virtualization must be installed, such as the MS-DOS EMM386 and 386MAX. Below is the quote from its documentation (USBINTRO.DOC):

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USBJSTIK is a Device/Interface Driver program for up to eight USB joysticks or gamepads. USBJSTIK emulates a "regular" joystick (attached to a game port) at the BIOS (software) level. Unfortunately, most DOS programs that use a joystick do not interact with the joysticks at the BIOS level (even though they should at least have that as an option). Rather, most DOS programs interact with the joysticks directly at the hardware level.

USBJSTIK can also emulate joysticks at the hardware level, rather than the BIOS (software) level, using a process called I/O Virtualization. Emulating a joystick at the hardware level allows you to use a USB joystick with almost any DOS program you can imagine. However, USBJSTIK cannot perform I/O Virtualization on its own. In order Virtualize I/O, you must have an appropriate memory manager installed via your CONFIG.SYS file. Appropriate memory managers include Microsoft's EMM386 version 4.46 or later, and 386MAX. As far as I know, other memory managers (such as QEMM or the EMM386 program that comes with FreeDOS) do not support I/O Virtualization, and cannot be used with USBJSTIK if you want to emulate joysticks at the hardware level.
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Regrettably, JEMM386 (both stable and current RC versions) does not seem to support I/O Virtualization, as can be easily tested with the THRUST program (using direct I/O port method) from the USB driver package. This forces me to switch back from JEMM386 to MS-DOS EMM386 for now. Hope JEMM386 will support I/O Virtualization too so that it will work with the USB driver.