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RayeR

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CZ,
21.11.2007, 18:02
 

DR-DOS 8.1 (Announce)

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Hi,
I found yesterday a site with new device logics dr-dos 8.1 for download
I did only a quick test boot from a floppy but didn't very pleased:
-drods's himem.sys claims to have UMB management included but with very few drivers I got too low memory (~560kB).
-I tried to run taskmgr.exe but it doesn't run because "incorrect dos version"
BTW does anybody hacked taskmgr to run on other DOSes?
-I cannot run Dos navigator (6.4.0), it hangs.
-I don't like the order how FAT32 partitions are assigned to drive letters (C: was hd0 1st partition, follewed by D: E: F: FAT32 parttitions and then other FAT16 partitions. Normally I had FAT32 partitions at end), I use MSDOS/FreeDOS order. But I don't know if it's configurable somewhere...

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Laaca

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Czech republic,
21.11.2007, 18:55

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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DR-DOS 8.1 is in the fact old 7.03 with some patches from Enhanced DR-DOS by Udo Kunt - without his permission (in principle they stole it). Due it they later had to remove it from DRDOS.COM site.
Anyway - I have similar problems with EDR-DOS too. It even doesn't work on my machine (most probably it isn't compatible with my boot manager). On my second computer it runs but has various bugs and I don't like it.

---
DOS-u-akbar!
RayeR

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CZ,
21.11.2007, 19:13

@ Laaca
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> my machine (most probably it isn't compatible with my boot manager). On my
> second computer it runs but has various bugs and I don't like it.
Yes, I found drdos (various prev. versions i tried) quite buggy so I don't use it, just have ready one DRDOS 7.03 boot floppy with taskmgr handy. But I like tro try varoius (D)OSes :)

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 12:50

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Yes, I found drdos (various prev. versions i tried) quite buggy so I don't
> use it, just have ready one DRDOS 7.03 boot floppy with taskmgr handy. But
> I like tro try varoius (D)OSes :)
FreeDOS is buggy too, but at least you can patch/fix/recompile it if needed! That's the big advantage of FOSS stuff, you don't have to wait/pay anybody to do it if you are willing and able to do it yourself.

1). Identify the bug.
2). Get a compiler + source and start hacking!
3). Post fix online for everyone to enjoy. :-)

DR-DOS has a few minor bugs, but it's pretty good overall. I made a small list of such bugs, but I dunno if they were just setup issues (e.g. DR-EMM386 loaded, "dpmi on", RAM drive, other settings). Still, if you or anybody wants to see it, I'll upload it. But like I said, I may have misdiagnosed some bugs (e.g. SORT.EXE crashes with input of exactly two duplicate lines, IIRC).
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 00:50

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> -drods's himem.sys claims to have UMB management included but with very
> few drivers I got too low memory (~560kB).
This issue was solved, I didn't have enabled UMB by himem.sys parameter. But I get only 64MB of XMS.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
david

22.11.2007, 08:33

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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DR-DOS 8.1 kernel is patched Udo`s EDR-DOS 7.1.0.6 with collect of old
utilities from others authors? The DR-DOS breaks GPL-d licence.
David
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 10:14

@ david
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> DR-DOS 8.1 kernel is patched Udo`s EDR-DOS 7.1.0.6 with collect of old
> utilities from others authors? The DR-DOS breaks GPL-d licence.
> David
Hm. I expected more. Then hail to http://www.vetusware.com pirates to make it free againg, hehe :-D

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 10:41

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Hm. I expected more. Then hail to
> http://www.vetusware.com pirates to
> make it free againg, hehe :-D
Not recommended, even if DR-DOS is basically stagnant. Granted, the OpenDOS fiasco (as I call it) didn't help anybody anywhere (still not sure why they bothered or even why they closed src up again). Anyways, despite its limitations, $35 ain't bad for a multitasking DOS (FAT16 only). They should hire Udo and contribute their own expertise to FreeDOS, ROM DOS, RxDOS, etc. (but that's just my lowly opinion). BTW, what ever happened to Matthias Paul?? Oh well, whatever.

Too bad people/developers lose interest in things so quickly (FreeDOS-32, ELKS, DR-DOS). This is why we all need to do our best to make free software better and available to everyone. I mean, computers are cool and fun (if they work), and nobody should have a working computer collecting dust due to no decent OS. And I'm a big fan of backwards compatibility (who isn't?). I don't think we need to let old software die if it works perfectly well. Everything new always seems to be bigger, more bloated, slower, etc. without any reason. Oh well, guess I'm just a silly idealist! :-P
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 11:17

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> And I'm a big fan of backwards compatibility
> (who isn't?).
Sadly I have a lot of friends who don't care about compatability. They Installed Vista and just say don't use obsolete SW, get new version. Or trash a few years old HW if it haven't Vista drivers, it's crap. Or say I don't want x86 instructions just need Linux. They looked at me and wonder how it is possible that someone can still use near 10-years old Win98SE and even such archeologic artifact called DOS!? OMFG! :-D But I'm not afraid of.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 11:23

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Sadly I have a lot of friends who don't care about compatability. They
> Installed Vista and just say don't use obsolete SW, get new version. Or
> trash a few years old HW if it haven't Vista drivers, it's crap. Or say I
> don't want x86 instructions just need Linux. They looked at me and wonder
> how it is possible that someone can still use near 10-years old Win98SE
> and even such archeologic artifact called DOS!? OMFG! :-D But I'm not
> afraid of.
Not to say Vista sucks, but ...

1). No full-screen CMD prompt at all!
2). 32 MB DPMI limit
3). Weird bugs (no symlink support for DOS apps, duped entries in root dir via DOS findfirst function).

Vista does some things well (eh, ACPI? Multitasking? GUI?), but DOS compatibility ain't one of 'em. And it surely can't be that hard to implement (for MS, for freak's sake, since they invented DOS!). And yet, DOS is hated badly, maybe even by them (why??). Granted, it got out of hand "back in the day" with shareware, expensive commercial software, etc. Sure, a programmer may decide to make his living off software, but that's not DOS's fault. Money isn't evil, but requiring too much can be a hindrance to getting things done (well, for us commoners, anyways).

Oh well, whatever, people still like DJGPP, old DOS games, MPXPLAY, so they still download FreeDOS. As long as I'm still alive, I've got plenty of things/projects/ideas for free DOS stuff to work on (as well as bug reports, heh, since I'm not that great a coder).
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 11:44

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Not to say Vista sucks, but ...
I say it sucks. But I don't force it to vista users it doesn't have any effect.

> 1). No full-screen CMD prompt at all!
> 2). 32 MB DPMI limit
> 3). Weird bugs (no symlink support for DOS apps, duped entries in root dir
> via DOS findfirst function).
And I read about limitation of running VESA graphics because some crippled WDDM display drivers. But be kind to this poor NTVDM because Vista 64 doesn't have any (or have?)

> Vista does some things well (eh, ACPI? Multitasking? GUI?), but DOS
> compatibility ain't one of 'em. And it surely can't be that hard to
XP also does it well. Fot me there's no advantage on vista I can't get in XP. I'm not HC gamer of latest games so I don't need DX10. Vista eats more RAM, CPU and lot of HDD space with some garbage I would never use and immediatelly replace it by 3rd party's SW. The problem will rise when a lot of new apps (which I'll need for work such as OrCAD) will run Vista only, then I'll be forced to upgrade but no earlier. Keeping resist :)

> Oh well, whatever, people still like DJGPP, old DOS games, MPXPLAY, so
> they still download FreeDOS. As long as I'm still alive, I've got plenty
> of things/projects/ideas for free DOS stuff to work on (as well as bug
> reports, heh, since I'm not that great a coder).
Fully agree. I'll too will keep to write my DOS SW (with advantage of DJGPP triyng make it source-portable for compiling also under MinGW and Linux version if possible).

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 12:28
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 12:41)

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> And I read about limitation of running VESA graphics because some crippled
> WDDM display drivers. But be kind to this poor NTVDM because Vista 64
> doesn't have any (or have?)
There's no V86 mode in 64-bit, so you have to emulate the cpu (DOSEMU, DOSBox) or do without (Win64).

EDIT: I've heard that 64-bit is like 10% faster, though. So at least there's some advantage besides market hype (or whatever).

> XP also does it well. Fot me there's no advantage on vista I can't get in
> XP.
I have been using XP on my P4 for about five years, and Vista does indeed have issues that XP doesn't. I don't hate Vista (preloaded on laptop), and I can run QEMU or use other cpus for DOS stuff, but still ... kinda annoying since you'd think they'd get it working. Maybe that's what SP1 is for (or maybe not, ugh). There are things Vista is better at, but I'm too dumb/inexperienced to really say for sure (maybe Wikipedia knows?).
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 12:54

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> There are things Vista is better at, but I'm too
> dumb/inexperienced to really say for sure (maybe Wikipedia knows?).
Mean Aero, larger icons, DRM, UAC, etc. useless things? :) Well I can't say. I have Vista only in VMWare and didn't play with it much yet.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 13:05

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Mean Aero, larger icons, DRM, UAC, etc. useless things? :) Well I can't
> say. I have Vista only in VMWare and didn't play with it much yet.
Aero (prettier than XP??) can be disabled (as will be if you replace the video driver with one from XP, which breaks some apps like [supposedly] Chess Titans). Larger icons due to using .PNG now (??). DRM isn't an issue unless your cpu plays HD content (some laptops, e.g. Sony Vaio??, play HD DVD). UAC is just so you don't accidentally run everything as Admin.

There's also a new search menu feature that's much faster. ReadyBoost, SpeedStore, hybrid sleep ... I dunno how much of that is new or just improved, but that (plus DX10 ... soon 10.1 w/ SP1) plus more kernel hooks for antivirus progs, etc. Oh yeah, and some new default games (at least with my Home Premium: Mahjongg Titans, Chess Titans, Purble Place, Inkball ... but they removed 3D Space Cadet Pinball). IE7 and WMP11 are available for XP too, but I think they were planned more for Vista. I dunno, SP1 beta is supposedly being tested now, but I dunno how much it will improve (beyond what daily updates already "fixed", I mean).

And, just to be fair, Vista may not be that cheap, but eComStation is even worse. I dunno, some here may frown on capitalism (I don't but only because I'm too young/dumb to really have such an opinion), but my only gripe is that it seems almost a "free for all", no holds barred, do whatever you want especially with arbitrary laws that have no grounding in common sense. But at least competition exists (even if sometimes it seems like only because of money, ugh).
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 16:39

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> Aero (prettier than XP??) can be disabled (as will be if you replace the
The first thing I do when XP has installed is to switch desktop to old 95 style, no activeX, set normal start menu... Vista look much better but there's also Vista theme for XP.

> Chess Titans). Larger icons due to using .PNG now (??). DRM isn't an issue
> unless your cpu plays HD content (some laptops, e.g. Sony Vaio??, play HD
But it takes hdd space, memory, etc...

> There's also a new search menu feature that's much faster.

I search files through favorite filemanager (for windows i like Servant Salamander). I use explorer and windows search very rare (on other computers without another sw).

> for antivirus progs, etc. Oh yeah, and some new default games (at least
> with my Home Premium: Mahjongg Titans, Chess Titans, Purble Place, Inkball
I saw mines, prety cool :) but btw how great is the exe now? 2x 10x?

> IE7 and WMP11 are available
I use Mozilla and media player classic or mplayer so no profit for me. If possible I would complettly ripp off the IE but some apps don't install without it.

> beta is supposedly being tested now, but I dunno how much it will
> improve (beyond what daily updates already "fixed", I mean).
I think there's nothing such exciting which I can live without it on Vista and which don't work in XP. Now. But future apps versions may change it.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 17:32

@ RayeR
 

Vista

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> But it takes hdd space, memory, etc...
One of the advantages of Aero is being able to see a mini snapshot of a running app by hovering the mouse over the task in the taskbar or flipping b/w apps. This, of course, requires the entire screen to be saved to RAM. That indeed does take more space, obviously.

> I saw mines, prety cool :) but btw how great is the exe now? 2x 10x?
How big is WinMine? (Not sure if that's what program you're talking about.) Actually, they call it "MineSweeper.exe" (847k) now, and it comes with a .DLL (4,205k), both in its own dir under "\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Minesweeper". If that tells you anything (and NET 3.5 was just released, I think, too). Besides, as any good PR person would tell you, "Hard drives are cheap these days!" :lookaround:

> I think there's nothing such exciting which I can live without it on Vista
> and which don't work in XP. Now. But future apps versions may change it.
True. Then again, I personally can't see any reason to program for Vista only. And yet, even FireFox 3.0 beta 1 needs at least Win2000 (for some odd reason, better Unicode support?). Kinda annoying but what can you do? And if I were really cynical, I'd maybe suspect that MS broke DOS compatibility just to make us use the Win API. But I'm not falling for that! ;-)
Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 17:59

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista

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> I personally can't see any reason to program for Vista
> only. And yet, even FireFox 3.0 beta 1 needs at least Win2000 (for some
> odd reason, better Unicode support?). Kinda annoying but what can you do?
The user base for Vista is not large enough to make programming exclusively for it a good financial move - but Win2K is getting to be a minimum for many apps these days. Building apps with backward support for 9x is a lot of work and not cost effective with its user base shrinking away.

> And if I were really cynical, I'd maybe suspect that MS broke DOS
> compatibility just to make us use the Win API. But I'm not falling for
> that! ;-)
Of course they did. There's no natural or purely technical reason a text-based, command line interface could not have been retained. Somebody was looking at cash flow.
sol

22.11.2007, 18:11

@ Steve
 

Vista

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> Of course they did. There's no natural or purely technical reason a
> text-based, command line interface could not have been retained. Somebody
> was looking at cash flow.
While it's true there's no natural or purely technical reason a text-based/command-line interface couldn't be retained --- there certainly were plenty of solid technical reasons DOS shouldn't have been.

If it were possible to release a new version of windows that was very stable, more secure and harder to crash with DOS still under it, I'm sure they would've done it.
Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 19:06

@ sol
 

Vista

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> While it's true there's no natural or purely technical reason a
> text-based/command-line interface couldn't be retained --- there certainly
> were plenty of solid technical reasons DOS shouldn't have been.
Not the same old DOS, but a functional equivalent with the same advantages, and enhancemets like full 32-bits (64-bits?). Maybe with choice between new and old command processors.

> If it were possible to release a new version of windows that was very
> stable, more secure and harder to crash with DOS still under it, I'm sure
> they would've done it.
If MS would have done it if they could, then they didn't because they couldn't. So the question would be, why couldn't they? Other OSes have multiple access layers that some programmers, somewhere, knew how to write. If MS isn't hiring them and selling their products, there's a reason: Backward compatibility is not profitable.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 18:12

@ Steve
 

Vista

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> Of course they did. There's no natural or purely technical reason a
> text-based, command line interface could not have been retained. Somebody
> was looking at cash flow.
Was it Win2000 or some other that dropped support for OS/2 1.x text apps? I mean, I never needed to run an OS/2 1.x app, but surely who would complain if Windows supported it? Seriously, why is backwards compatibility considered so evil?!
sol

22.11.2007, 19:43

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista

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> Was it Win2000 or some other that dropped support for OS/2 1.x text apps?
> I mean, I never needed to run an OS/2 1.x app, but surely who would
> complain if Windows supported it? Seriously, why is backwards
> compatibility considered so evil?!
 ------------------------------------
> If MS would have done it if they could, then they didn't because they
> couldn't. So the question would be, why couldn't they? Other OSes have
> multiple access layers that some programmers, somewhere, knew how to write.
I really don't understand why everyone has so much trouble with understanding the problem of backwards compatibility. Poor planning is a big part of this, but sometimes things simply need to be deprecated.

DOS is an especially nasty specimen because "backwards compatibility" meant having lots of applications that assume that we're dealing with a single tasking OS with no security. What's this mean?

1) Direct attempts to read/write to the hard disk whether by interrupt or direct access (as in anti-virus, disk scanning, caching, etc)

2) More broadly; attempts at direct hardware access (video, drivers, serial/parallel ports, network devices, etc)

3) Simultaneous file read/writes by multiple applications

Answer to 1:
------------
(A) You could allow direct read/write to hard disk...but if you changed the FAT while the OS has its own cached copy...what happens? Which copy is correct? This would cause corruption/crashing. (B) You could disable direct hardware access and hook all interrupt calls and disallow them from writing to very sensitive areas. This would slow hard disk access quite a bit. This would also break compatibility with applications trying to write to those areas...they could cause worse problems since they might not handle the unexpected errors. (C) Disallow all calls - 100% breaking compatibility. Win9x did this.

Answer to 2:
------------
Direct attempts at hardware will change the state of the hardware if it's allowed. (A) You could constantly set it to a known state before working with it, but this wouldn't help if there's simultaneous access to prevent the system from crashing. It would also slow all operations involving the hardware. (B) You could stop the applications from direct access...this is what Win9x did. This breaks backwards compatibility.

Answer to 3:
------------
Multiple applications writing to one file is obviously never going to work, but why can't we have one application read and another write? Several reading? (A) You could use 'file locking', and have calls to open files request what they want to do (read/write/etc)...but the API doesn't support this. Breaks compatibility. (B) Add file locking APIs, but still support the old ones...except error out (Sharing Violation) when an app tries to write to a file currently being written. Will cause the app to crash, not too big of a deal (Win9x does this).

So basically, we're already breaking compatibility. Most apps were just updated after windows was released. Except, now we've got some issues:
- A pile of APIs that don't make any %*$#ing sense in a multitasking OS to add to the pile of APIs that do, and also perform the same tasks.
- Hooks of all kinds of interrupts that need to interact with the OS that should've been disabled
- Allowing of old interrupts/calls that can cause crashing
- Lots of extra code executing doing checks it shouldn't have to do
sol

22.11.2007, 20:01
(edited by sol, 22.11.2007, 20:11)

@ sol
 

Vista

Post reply

I'll illustrate this a little better, too, with regards to API calls.

What happens if I write my own API call in the late 80s:

dword size_in_bytes = getHDSize(byte drive_letter)

Nothing wrong with that at the time; hard disk drives weren't going to reach into the gigabytes! And 640k RAM is enough for everyone! :)

Okay, now it's the 90s. What do I do? Well, I definitely need a new call:

qword size_in_bytes = getBigHDSize(byte drive_letter)

What do I do with the old one?

Return an error? Wrap it around the new one and truncate the answer? Return 0xFFFFFFFF? How will applications behave since they're getting the wrong answer?

There's no simple answer.

My code would probably look like this in the case of backwards compatibility in some simple pseudo code:

dword getHDSize(letter) {
  freespace = getBigHDSize(letter)
  if(freespace < 0xFFFFFFFF) {
    return truncateToDword(freespace);
  } else {
    return 0xFFFFFFFF;
  }
}

qword getBigHDSize(letter) {
  device = getDriveDevice(letter);
  return callDevice(device, GET_FREE_SPACE);
}

Now I've got extra code. All I used to need was the code 'getBigHDSize' now has.

Multiply this problem out for pretty much every API sooner or later. My OS is now way bigger, taking more disk space and requiring more RAM - also meaning it takes longer to load. The backwards compatible call takes much longer than it used to.

Now consider the nightmare debugging, when I don't know what's causing a bug when someone is trying to get hard disk size amount:

A) Was it a problem with the hardware, or a problem with my code?

B) Was it a call to my old code, or a call to my new code?

C) Was it a call to the old function on a big hard disk and the application not knowing how to deal with the wrong answer, or a problem with my function?

D) If it's a call to the old code, was it the extra logic in the old code that's new and not as well tested? Was it one of the other functions I had to add into my old code to make it work?

[edit to add code to illustrate better]
sol

22.11.2007, 20:37

@ sol
 

Vista

Post reply

If you think my post above about duplicating APIs & creating bugs & bloat is silly, then check this out :-D

DOS 1+, Open file using FCB
Int 21h, AH=0Fh
Backwards compatibility with APPEND in DOS 3.3 has a bug corrupting DX.

DOS 1+, Create or truncate file using FCB
Int 21h, AH=16h

DOS 2+, Open existing file
Int 21h, AH=3Dh

DOS 2+, Create or truncate file
Int 21h, AH=3Ch

DOS 3.0+, Create new file
Int 21, AH=5Bh

DOS 7.0+, Create or open file
Int 21/AX=716Ch

--------------------
Windows API Calls
--------------------
CreateFile
CreateFileTransacted
LZOpenFile
OpenEncryptedFileRaw
OpenFile
OpenFileById
ReOpenFile


These are all functions to do pretty much the same thing. The situation changes, or something new is thought of, so a new call is added. The line has to be drawn sooner or later.
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 21:31

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista

Post reply

> How big is WinMine? (Not sure if that's what program you're talking
> about.) Actually, they call it "MineSweeper.exe" (847k) now, and it comes
> with a .DLL (4,205k), both in its own dir under "\Program Files\Microsoft
Yes I menat his. Seems my 10x estimation was still low... Then I'd rather play doom shareware episode taking similar HD space...

> Games\Minesweeper". If that tells you anything (and NET 3.5 was just
> released, I think, too).

.NET, another EVIL X(

> Besides, as any good PR person would tell you,
> "Hard drives are cheap these days!" :lookaround:
Yes I hear it many times. HDDs are 100x greater but not 100x faster. But who cares, we can buy enough gigs of ram to cache whole system :-D

> True. Then again, I personally can't see any reason to program for Vista
> only. And yet, even FireFox 3.0 beta 1 needs at least Win2000 (for some
> odd reason, better Unicode support?). Kinda annoying but what can you do?
Yes, sometimes its only a few calls which can be replaced sometimes not. But in future it will be worse. BTW I also readed some opinions that Vista will go similar to Me, abandoned in few years because will be replaced by new Windows Vienna in 2 years and forgotten.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Steve

Homepage E-mail

US,
22.11.2007, 13:23

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Vista does some things well (eh, ACPI? Multitasking? GUI?), but DOS
> compatibility ain't one of 'em. And it surely can't be that hard to
> implement
Does Vista still have a COMMAND.COM, like XP? If so, have you tried using
a replacement? If you try it and it works, I might get a Vista machine.:clap:

> (for MS, for freak's sake, since they invented DOS!).
IBM invented DOS.
rr

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Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 13:26

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> > (for MS, for freak's sake, since they invented DOS!).
>
> IBM invented DOS.
Tim Paterson invented DOS.

---
Forum admin
Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 13:31

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> > IBM invented DOS.
>
> Tim Paterson invented DOS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Operating_System
rr

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Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 14:02

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> > > IBM invented DOS.
> >
> > Tim Paterson invented DOS.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Operating_System
What's the point?

---
Forum admin
Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 14:49

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> > > > IBM invented DOS.
> > >
> > > Tim Paterson invented DOS.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Operating_System
>
> What's the point?
IBM's 360 DOS was the first DOS. Logically enough - IBM invented the mag disk.
The rest is only scaling down to toy microcomputers.
rr

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Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 14:59

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

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> IBM's 360 DOS was the first DOS. Logically enough - IBM invented the mag
> disk.
But this forum is about DOS on x86 machines, so we (Rugxulo and me) were talking about MS-DOS clones. Or do you want to talk about Dissolved Organic Sulfur? :-D

> The rest is only scaling down to toy microcomputers.
That's why we are here!

---
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Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 15:12

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > IBM's 360 DOS was the first DOS. Logically enough - IBM invented the mag
> > disk.
>
> But this forum is about DOS on x86 machines, so we (Rugxulo and me) were
> talking about MS-DOS clones. Or do you want to talk about Dissolved
> Organic Sulfur? :-D
Dissolved Organic Sulfur might be too far OT. Though it could be interesting.

> > The rest is only scaling down to toy microcomputers.
>
> That's why we are here!
Um, I noticed. :waving:
Laaca

Homepage

Czech republic,
22.11.2007, 15:24

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > > (for MS, for freak's sake, since they invented DOS!).
> >
> > IBM invented DOS.
>
> Tim Paterson invented DOS.
Look at header of any EXE file and you find that first two chars are "MZ" - it means Mark Zbirowski - one of key authors of DOS.

---
DOS-u-akbar!
rr

Homepage E-mail

Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 15:55

@ Laaca
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > Tim Paterson invented DOS.
>
> Look at header of any EXE file and you find that first two chars are "MZ"
> - it means Mark Zbirowski - one of key authors of DOS.
His name is Mark Zbikowski and EXE files were introduced in MS-DOS version 1.1 IIRC. ;-)

There's a nice interview with him: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=193997

---
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Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 13:37

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Does Vista still have a COMMAND.COM, like XP? If so, have you tried using
> a replacement? If you try it and it works, I might get a Vista
> machine.:clap:
N.B. where and clip are new commands to Vista (as well as mklink, setx, tasklist, taskkill, schtasks, waitfor, etc.).

[ Vista ] - Thu 11/22/2007 >where /t command | clip

     50648   11/2/2006    1:09:49 AM  C:\Windows\System32\COMMAND.COM

I think that's probably the same one from WinME and also included with Win XP. But I don't think that is responsible for the 32 MB DPMI memory limit or weird console bugs or other issues.

> > (for MS, for freak's sake, since they invented DOS!).
>
> IBM invented DOS.
Actually, I should've said MS mostly developed DOS. DR-DOS was independent and brought unique stuff (LOADHIGH). PC DOS was eventually completely separate from MS-DOS (after 5.x?). And you know the rest probably much better than me! ;-)

P.S. Tim Paterson indeed wrote QDOS, which was basically a CP/M clone for the 8086 that MS bought and adapted for their own use (sublicensed to IBM).
Steve

Homepage E-mail

US,
22.11.2007, 15:07

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> I think that's probably the same one from WinME and also included with Win
> XP. But I don't think that is responsible for the 32 MB DPMI memory limit
> or weird console bugs or other issues.
Maybe not directly, but if another command.com can be run, then it can in turn run other needed utils, and experiments can be conducted. I'm depending on you - else I'd have to spend some actual money to get Vista (with or without a whole machine). :-P

> Actually, I should've said MS mostly developed DOS. DR-DOS was independent
> and brought unique stuff (LOADHIGH). PC DOS was eventually completely
> separate from MS-DOS (after 5.x?). And you know the rest probably much
> better than me! ;-)
PC DOS was the original name of the DOS for the IBM PC, sold with the machines. MS-DOS later became the name of the variant that MS began to sell separately from machines.

DR-DOS was originally CP/M, enhanced for compatibility with DOS, and renamed to give customers a clue.

> P.S. Tim Paterson indeed wrote
> QDOS, which was basically a CP/M clone for the 8086 that MS bought and
> adapted for their own use (sublicensed to IBM).
That's one chapter of the story, yes.
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 15:43
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 17:07)

@ Steve
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> Maybe not directly, but if another command.com can be run, then it can in
> turn run other needed utils, and experiments can be conducted. I'm
> depending on you - else I'd have to spend some actual money to get Vista
> (with or without a whole machine). :-P

As mentioned, you can run DOS programs in Vista 32-bit (e.g. Home Premium), but you cannot use more than 32 MB of total DPMI memory at any one time. The CMD prompt does not go full-screen, so some apps refuse to run (e.g. even UNZIP/DOS compiled by OpenWatcom/32-bit, strangely). There are indeed other minor anomalies re: cursor positioning, DOS API bugs, etc. And even MS's own Virtual PC 2007 won't install on Vista Home (Basic or Premium), but that AFAICT is "just business." SP1 is supposed to fix the 32 MB issue, but you'd think that'd be easy to fix and already put out via Windows Update (yet nope, nothing). Sad but true. Put simply, it's not a DOS-lover's favorite Windows (what is, Win98SE?). Even XP runs DOS stuff a lot better. So yeah, not sure if you're really wanting to upgrade, but unless you're willing to use a hypervisor/VM for DOS stuff, I'd advise against it. (Although Vista will probably eventually be ubiquitous like XP now is.)
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 16:26

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> (what is, Win98SE?).
Windows 98 second edition - 98 including SP and hotfixes. Much stable and better than original 98. Currently I can run most modern features like USB 2.0, nvidia 7600GS PCIE drivers. There are continuing development of unofficial servicepack and unofficial USB driver by win98 community. It's not dead OS.

---
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Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 17:13

@ RayeR
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> Windows 98 second edition - 98 including SP and hotfixes. Much stable and
> better than original 98. Currently I can run most modern features like USB
> 2.0, nvidia 7600GS PCIE drivers. There are continuing development of
> unofficial servicepack and unofficial USB driver by win98 community. It's
> not dead OS.
Yes, that's what I meant (although I never used Win98, only Win95 a long time ago, before 2000). Win ME messed up (real mode?) compatibility a little bit, and even that was considered the last DOS-based Windows. And yeah, Win95 didn't support USB. And Win98SE ("second edition") came out in 1999, so that's not very old in my eyes (newer than DR-DOS, at least!).
Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 17:18

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> Win95 didn't support USB.
95A didn't, but 95B & C had some USB support.
RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
22.11.2007, 17:18

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> time ago, before 2000). Win ME messed up (real mode?) compatibility a
I call WinMe "win fuckme" :)

> little bit, and even that was considered the last DOS-based Windows. And
> yeah, Win95 didn't support USB.
Win95 OSR2 bring support of USB and FAT32. U

> And Win98SE ("second edition") came out in
> 1999, so that's not very old in my eyes (newer than DR-DOS, at least!).
So 98SE is the best choice of win9x which are still supported by community :)

Also some 2k/xp apps was hacked to be run on 98se
(doom 3, google earth, divx 6, more...)

---
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Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 16:28

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

> Put simply, it's not a DOS-lover's favorite Windows
That's how it looks.

> (what is, Win98SE?)
The last real DOS-based Windows, bootable to plain DOS, so, yes.

> Even XP runs DOS stuff a lot better. So yeah, not sure if you're really
> wanting to upgrade, but unless you're willing to use a hypervisor/VM for DOS
> stuff, I'd advise against it. (Although Vista will probably eventually be
> ubiquitous like XP now is.)
Actually, I have never wanted to upgrade an OS. Vista looks to me like a worst case - nothing I really need, and everything I don't (bad DOS support, breaks even some good Win apps, hardware pig...). Unless and until there are attractive apps that run on Vista only, I'm standing still at XP (as I did for a real long time with Win95 and Win3 earlier).
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 17:19

@ Steve
 

Vista's pre-SP1 (in)compatibility

Post reply

> Actually, I have never wanted to upgrade an OS. Vista looks to me
> like a worst case - nothing I really need, and everything I don't (bad DOS
> support, breaks even some good Win apps, hardware pig...). Unless and until
> there are attractive apps that run on Vista only, I'm standing still at XP
> (as I did for a real long time with Win95 and Win3 earlier).
There's a Jigsaw puzzle written in FreeBASIC that won't save/load games in Vista without enabling "XP w/ SP2" compatibility (strangely).
flox

Homepage

22.11.2007, 17:00

@ Rugxulo
 

Vista's pre-SP1 DOS (in)compatibility

Post reply

I know these problems...

I changed from WinVista to Ubuntu+DOSEMU and am happy now. DOSEMU is as good or even better than the DOSbox of Win98... but real FreeDOS/Dr-DOS is much better ;-)

Hasta luego!
Flo
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 12:39

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> They looked at me and wonder
> how it is possible that someone can still use near 10-years old Win98SE
> and even such archeologic artifact called DOS!? OMFG! :-D But I'm not
> afraid of.
My old 486 Sx/25 is perfect for games like King's Quest 5 or 6 and Tie Fighter (as well as others in that vein). I mean, I'm not old, but heck, I remember the old green/gray GameBoy as being decent (as well as the competitors of the time: GameGear and Lynx). Some people forget (or never knew) that you can indeed have fun or get work done on such "old, useless" machines. Granted, you won't be compiling/running Firefox easily, but they weren't THAT bad!
RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
22.11.2007, 13:06

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> My old 486 Sx/25 is perfect for games like King's Quest 5 or 6 and
> Tie Fighter (as well as others in that vein). I mean, I'm not old, but
> heck, I remember the old green/gray GameBoy as being decent (as well as
> the competitors of the time: GameGear and Lynx). Some people forget (or
> never knew) that you can indeed have fun or get work done on such "old,
> useless" machines. Granted, you won't be compiling/running Firefox easily,
> but they weren't THAT bad!
Agree. And also demoscene, that ages when coding was art...
I don't have much room to have 2 PC on the table so I'm trying to make most of old progs running on current HW. There are many issues but it's challenge.

---
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Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 13:18

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Agree. And also demoscene, that ages when coding was art...
> I don't have much room to have 2 PC on the table so I'm trying to make
> most of old progs running on current HW. There are many issues but it's
> challenge.
I find QEMU a good program (although imperfect) to consolidate PCs/OSes, but I haven't tested the alternatives (e.g. rr likes BOCHS, but I hear it's too slow). Japheth mentioned VirtualBox, but without knowing if it's better than QEMU, I haven't bothered. Some people like VMware, too (you + Vista?). And VirtualPC won't install on Vista Home. Oh well. :-)

P.S. The main reason I got a laptop instead of a desktop was to save space. I don't travel that much, just didn't want to have yet more clutter. (But there are mini towers which look nice as far as size goes. Too bad the ultra-big monitors these days negate any space savings!) :-P
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 12:23
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 13:07)

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > DR-DOS 8.1 kernel is patched Udo`s EDR-DOS 7.1.0.6 with collect of old
> > utilities from others authors? The DR-DOS breaks GPL-d licence.
> > David
>
> Hm. I expected more. Then hail to
> http://www.vetusware.com pirates to
> make it free againg, hehe :-D
Just a quick look at the Vetusware site shows a lot of old (!) commercial apps as well as some (mostly outdated) freeware. In particular, though, I wonder why anybody would want the following instead of better alternatives:

TASM            (LZASM, FASM, NASM, OCTASM)
SMARTDRV        (UIDE, LBACACHE)
A86             (WASM, ArrowASM, OpenWatcom's WASM)
ACROREAD        (XPDF, DOSPDF)
NEOPAINT        (VGAPaint/386)
ASIC            (FreeBASIC, Moonrock, BASM286)
AUTOCAD         (DESICAD?)
AZTEC C         (OpenWatcom, Dev86DOS, Turbo C, DJGPP, CC386)
BATTLECHESS     (Rose's Chess, Ken's Chess, Chenard, Minimax)
BLOOD           (Ken's Labyrinth)
BC++            (see "Aztec C" above)
BRIEF           (VIM, VILE, JASSPA, TDE, FED, FTE)
COMMANDER KEEN  (Jetpack, Alien Carnage)
DR. SOLOMON     (F-PROT, RHBVS, older compile of CLAMSCAN)
DR WEB SPYDER   (latest Arachne or DOS-Lynx)
MS F77          (GNU/DJGPP G77)
FreeDOS B9RC3   (uh ... my updated mini distro? anyone??)
GW-BASIC        (BWBASIC, SmallBASIC, UBASIC)
IBM DOS 1.1     (anything from /dev/random, actually, heh)
IDA Pro 4.5     (freeware version??, BIEW)
King's Quest    (Lure of the Temptress)
LSICQ           (again, anything from /dev/random since this no longer works)
Linux 0.99      (also DOS-MINIX? ELKS boot image? NetBSD? OctaOS?)
MASM            (OpenWatcom's WASM)
NORTON CMNDR    (DOSZip, DC-SK)
Personal C      (Desmet C)
PKUNZIP         (Info-Zip, p7zip)
QEMM            (JEMM386)
Raptor          (Major Stryker)
Spear of Dest.  (dunno, NetHack:SMASH 'EM ???)
SYMDEB          (GRDB, OpenWatcom's WD, 386SWAT)
TopSpeed M2     (FST 4.0 Modula 2)
Zortech C       (Digital Mars w/ HXRT or stubbed by WDOSX?)

Granted, if any original copyright holders want to make this stuff free, be my guest! Otherwise, I'm sticking to freeware. (I'm sure Steve knows of a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting, too.)
rr

Homepage E-mail

Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 12:29

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> LSICQ           (again, anything from /dev/random since this no longer works)
BSFlite works with ICQ. :-)

---
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Steve

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US,
22.11.2007, 14:42

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Just a quick look at the Vetusware site shows a lot of old (!) commercial
> apps as well as some (mostly outdated) freeware. In particular, though, I
> wonder why anybody would want the following instead of better
> alternatives:
Random notes:

> TASM (LZASM, FASM, NASM, OCTASM)
 Agreed. Good TASM-compatible assemblers are available.

> ACROREAD (XPDF, DOSPDF)
 Old Acrobat Reader defintitely useless. Installation crashes WinXP, doesn't reliably read PDFs less than 10+ years old... I would only add Ghostscript as another modern alternative - very nice program, once you get used to it.

> AUTOCAD (DESICAD?)
 DESI not nearly as powerful as AutoCAD, which was a great prog under DOS - and ridiculously expensive. But nobody needs DOS AutoCAD anyway. Professionals (architects mostly) will need more modern graphical CAD programs, non-professionals will find it too much and too hard to learn.

> AZTEC C (OpenWatcom, Dev86DOS, Turbo C, DJGPP, CC386)
 Was written for very weak machines, a waste of hardware now.

> BC++ (see "Aztec C" above)
 Yes.

> BRIEF (VIM, VILE, JASSPA, TDE, FED, FTE)
 Editors are an esthetic thing - old programmers hate to learn new ones. But since the old guys already have BRIEF, and newer editors are more powerful and more flexible, old BRIEF for free means nothing.

> MS F77 (GNU/DJGPP G77)
 As to MS specifically - not one of the best Fortrans. GNU and OpenWatcom are better. There is a body of old Fortran code that will still compile under F77, but for new work go with gfortran

> FreeDOS B9RC3 (uh ... my updated mini distro? anyone??)
 Sorry, no thanks.

> NORTON CMNDR (DOSZip, DC-SK)
 Yes. Enhanced derivatives are free and available everywhere.

> Personal C (Desmet C)
 Both, as per Aztec C, above.

> PKUNZIP (Info-Zip, p7zip)
 Right - nobody needs PKZIP anymore.

> Zortech C (Digital Mars w/ HXRT or stubbed by WDOSX?)
 Special case. DM is essentially Walter Bright's upgrade to his own Zortech product, and free besides. Easy decision.

> Granted, if any original copyright holders want to make this stuff free,
> be my guest! Otherwise, I'm sticking to freeware. (I'm sure Steve
> knows of a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting, too.)
What I really think, is that people who don't already have the old software would mostly be wasting their time in getting it and trying to use it. Most software from the 1980s, even a lot from the 1990s, is crap now. The truth is, people use old software out of habit, not because it's better than what is available now. Not because of money either - free software is at a high level now, higher than most shareware and a lot of commercial software from 5-10 years ago.
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
26.11.2007, 20:20

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > FreeDOS B9RC3 (uh ... my updated mini distro? anyone??)
> Sorry, no thanks.
What in particular isn't any good about it? Granted, I kinda threw everything around, and it's a bit weird/non-standard, but it works! Plus, it's newer than any other FreeDOS distro (at least until FreeDOS 1.1).

Feedback welcome! :-)

---
Know your limits.h
DOS386

12.12.2007, 02:09

@ Steve
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Just a quick look at the Vetusware site shows a lot of old

... yeah ...

> Old Acrobat Reader defintitely useless.

Very true. But shows what was possible in DOS before WinCrap ...

> Installation crashes WinXP
XP is crap, why the **** don't you download Acrobat 8 and are quiet and happy if you have XP anyway :-P

> doesn't reliably read PDFs less than 10+ years old...

Very true ...

> AUTOCAD (DESICAD?)
> DESI not nearly as powerful as AutoCAD, which was a great prog under DOS

Very true :-(

> and ridiculously expensive. But nobody needs DOS AutoCAD anyway.
Sad that it isn't legally available anymore :-(

---
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the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***
RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
22.11.2007, 16:58

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> alternatives:
also some random quotes

> SMARTDRV (UIDE, LBACACHE)
UIDE cache is joined with udma and once it doesn't work on my controler I cannot utilize even the cache. LBACACHE I use now but it's slower than Norton Speedrive (which cause me some problems on current HW so I switch to LBA cache)

> AUTOCAD (DESICAD?)
I thing nothing free dos sw can compare to good Autcad, Microstation, 3DStudio...

> BLOOD (Ken's Labyrinth)
Are you joking? My loved blood, oh no. :)

> QEMM (JEMM386)
QEMM with it's optimalization techniques can do the best free memory and as a bonus it has very usefull quickboot feature. Only disadvantage is limit to 256MB for v9.0 :(

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
rr

Homepage E-mail

Berlin, Germany,
22.11.2007, 20:51

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> > QEMM (JEMM386)
>
> QEMM with it's optimalization techniques can do the best free memory and
> as a bonus it has very usefull quickboot feature. Only disadvantage is
> limit to 256MB for v9.0 :(
Later JEMM386 versions have a FASTBOOT option.

---
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RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 21:16

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Later JEMM386 versions have a FASTBOOT option.
Good, nice to know it. I'll check it.

---
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RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
23.11.2007, 02:06

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Later JEMM386 versions have a FASTBOOT option.
I just tried it in JEMMEX 5.67 and works well. Good, but I don't have as much free low RAM (583kB) as with QEMM 9.0 (599kB) but more than with UMBPCI + HIMEM.SYS.

---
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rr

Homepage E-mail

Berlin, Germany,
23.11.2007, 09:27

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> I just tried it in JEMMEX 5.67 and works well. Good, but I don't have as
> much free low RAM (583kB) as with QEMM 9.0 (599kB) but more than with
> UMBPCI + HIMEM.SYS.
You might want to post your CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT + detailed MEM report.

---
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RayeR

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CZ,
24.11.2007, 14:33

@ rr
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> You might want to post your CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT + detailed MEM report.
I got some suggestions from Japheth, my final config jemmex line is:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\JEMMEX.EXE A20METHOD:FAST XMSHANDLES=64 FRAME=NONE I=B000-B7FF I=D400-E3FF SPLIT SB FASTBOOT VERBOSE

and now I got 609kB free, and I'm fully satisfied with it.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
lucho

24.11.2007, 09:09

@ RayeR
 

UIDE caches even disks for which it doesn't do UDMA

Post reply

> UIDE cache is joined with udma and once it doesn't work on my controler I
> cannot utilize even the cache.
Wrong.

UIDE caches access even to disks for which is doesn't do UltraDMA. The only requirement is that they're accessed via Int 13h.
RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
24.11.2007, 17:39

@ lucho
 

UIDE caches even disks for which it doesn't do UDMA

Post reply

> UIDE caches access even to disks for which is doesn't do UltraDMA. The
> only requirement is that they're accessed via Int 13h.
Aha, taking on my mind.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 10:13
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 11:30)

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Hi,
> I found yesterday a site with new device logics dr-dos 8.1 for download
> I did only a quick test boot from a floppy but didn't very pleased:
> -drods's himem.sys claims to have UMB management included but with very
> few drivers I got too low memory (~560kB).
You eventually say you got it working (but limited to 64 MB). That's probably due to using XMSv2 only. And actually, 560k is quite good for conventional memory. (What apps refuse to run with so "little" memory? Most everything I use accepts < 600k.)

> -I tried to run taskmgr.exe but it doesn't run because "incorrect dos
> version"
> BTW does anybody hacked taskmgr to run on other DOSes?
No SETVER included? Oh well. Anyways, TASKMGR relies heavily on DRDOS' EMM386 (according to Udo), so you kinda can't use it (easily?) on other DOSes, AFAIK.

> -I cannot run Dos navigator (6.4.0), it hangs.
DNOSP has issues (e.g. RAM drives) unlike the original or NDN. Also, it's now discontinued, so good luck getting those bugs fixed (although I guess you or somebody could patch it although that sounds unlikely). I prefer NDN actually but haven't tried DNOSP much since (didn't need it). Plus, I think you need Borland Pascal to recompile it (unlike closed src NDN which ironically uses free Virtual Pascal + DOS patches).

> -I don't like the order how FAT32 partitions are assigned to drive letters
> (C: was hd0 1st partition, follewed by D: E: F: FAT32 parttitions and then
> other FAT16 partitions. Normally I had FAT32 partitions at end), I use
> MSDOS/FreeDOS order. But I don't know if it's configurable somewhere...
AFAIK, (and rr will probably back me up on this re: his DRVEXCH), DR-DOS has a completely different way of assigning drive letters to partitions. So, despite the whole "100% compatible" spiel, you have to accept some incompatibilities/quirks.

P.S. I use DR-DOS a lot on my old P166, but honestly, as good as it is, even with multitasking, I don't see it as a "killer app" (vs. FreeDOS, for example). And anyways, it has bugs (like anything) but apparently isn't actively updated. Still, it's cool (even if almost no apps support it's multitasking API, it's not very popular, etc.) even if I don't really use the multitasking at all (Can anybody describe a decent scenario that would heavily benefit from it? Searching for files? Compiling big projects? Copying or archiving lots of files? Man, we could definitely use some DOS tools that did those things, at least. Sorry, but NDN's background copy doesn't seem to work at all yet.).

BTW, is it just me or does someone really really really need to make a DOS-oriented distro (DOSBox, DOSEMU, QEMU) of GNU/Linux or FreeBSD or whatever? I'm surprised no one's done it yet (and Slax "Kill Bill" doesn't count although it's better / more compatible than most, has WINE too). That would pretty much cover the whole "gotta have USB and multitasking" as well as "gotta run my favorite DOS apps". :-)

EDIT: If you visit the SLAX! site, beware the screenshots page (for those easily offended, esp. anybody with kids or wives or conscience or whatever, blargh!).
RayeR

Homepage

CZ,
22.11.2007, 10:27

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> probably due to using XMSv2 only. And actually, 560k is quite good for
OK, changing memory manager wouldn't be problem. Just wonder how new DOS version had too old XMS support.

> conventional memory. (What apps refuse to run with so "little" memory?
> Most everything I use accepts < 600k.)
solved by /chipset=ram switch

> No SETVER included? Oh well. Anyways, TASKMGR relies heavily on EMM386
> (according to Udo), so you kinda can't use it (easily?) on other DOSes,
> AFAIK.
I often readen that taskmgr is fully dependent to novell/drdos emm386 but in my case I CAN run taskgr WITHOUT emm386 under DRDOS. I think the oly problem is some OS version check which needs to be removed.
And taskmgr is for me the most valuable thing on DRDOS than other DOSes doesn't have. Without it it's uninteresting for me and rather use FreeDOS or MSDOS...

> DNOSP has issues (e.g. RAM drives) unlike the original or NDN. Also, it's
> now discontinued, so good luck getting them fixed (although I guess you or
> somebody could patch it although unlikely). I prefer NDN actually
> but haven't tried DSOSP much (didn't need it).
I currently like rather DNOSP because it runs good in all DOS/Win9x/NT so I can have only one version to use it everywhere. NDN dos version have still some problems running under NT. I reported it to NDN forum and hope will be fixed.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 10:53
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 11:07)

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> OK, changing memory manager wouldn't be problem. Just wonder how new DOS
> version had too old XMS support.
Well, it's not a "new" DOS, it's barely updated since Novell owned it. Besides, most DOS software doesn't need > 64 MB XMS anyways.

> solved by /chipset=ram switch
I guess you know that UMBPCI works in FreeDOS, right? It also works in MS-DOS and DR-DOS too. But just FYI, that's not a unique feature.

> And taskmgr is for me the most valuable thing on DRDOS than other DOSes
> doesn't have. Without it it's uninteresting for me and rather use FreeDOS
> or MSDOS...
Well, there are a few things like that: OpenGem/XM, SEAL (buggy), DesqView (abandoned? dead? locked up?). And MS-DOS 6.22 had DOSSHELL (task switching in conv. mem. at least ... not true multitasking but better than nothing).

There's also REAL/32, TSX-DOS, and other weird DOS-ish clones that I'm not really familiar with and have barely any perception of.

There are specific DOS programs and unofficial interfaces that support multitasking (TP unit, DJGPP's pthreads port, MT, LWP, NDN's background copying, ESP archiver's Tetris or Snake game, XS compiler, some DOS Forths) but that seems to be overlooked (unstable? unpopular? too hard to use?).

EDIT: Forgot about TriDOS (which sol has said is too unstable and could cause data corruption, doh!). Maybe somebody will fix it one of these days. (Hey, it could happen! It should, at least in my opinion. Maybe I'll do it one day, God willing!) :lookaround: *not impossible but very doubtful*

Some (lazy) people would just suggest you drop DOS (and all its apps which you use/write) in favor of: Linux, Windows, Minix, FreeBSD, OctaOS. Granted, that's not a horrible solution, but it ain't perfect. (Minix is lightweight but doesn't support SSE or even maybe? MMX or FPU, I forget. OctaOS doesn't have a full C library yet plus lacking docs so it's a bit quirky and requires at least a 586. Linux 2.6.x (e.g. latest PuppyLinux) requires 128 MB RAM, last I heard. tomsrtbt is too minimal and overformatted/potentially incompatible and yet DamnSmallLinux, which rocks, is still quite imperfect, seemingly requiring 32 MB minimum, e.g. more than Win95. Menuet32 barely works on 32 MB and is too quirky/wimpy for my tastes although it's nicely done. I dunno what FreeBSD requires, at least a 486DX last I heard.)

> I currently like rather DNOSP because it runs good in all DOS/Win9x/NT so
> I can have only one version to use it everywhere. NDN dos version have
> still some problems running under NT. I reported it to NDN forum and hope
> will be fixed.
NDN has more features but is closed src (not trying to complain because I mostly? don't care, just stating the facts). It has been updated a lot until recently (thesis and job issues of the author). I expect it will continue to get better. It does a few things that DNOSP doesn't (e.g. disasm view). But yeah, feel free to use both (emphasis on free). ;-)
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 11:31

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> I guess you know that UMBPCI works in FreeDOS, right? It also works in
> MS-DOS and DR-DOS too. But just FYI, that's not a unique feature.
Yes I'm satisfied with UMBPCI under MSDOS and FreeDOS.

> Well, there are a few things like that: OpenGem/XM, SEAL (buggy), DesqView
> (abandoned? dead? locked up?). And MS-DOS 6.22 had DOSSHELL (task switching
> in conv. mem. at least ... not true multitasking but better than nothing).
I found taskmg is the best. It's small and preemtive (backgroud is running) and don't eat much low memory as desqview. It can hadnle also PMode apps, I was able to switch 2 Quake games and DN :)

> There's also REAL/32, TSX-DOS, and other weird DOS-ish clones that I'm not
> really familiar with and have barely any perception of.
I heared of them, I have a copy of REAL/32 TSX I didn't find yet. But I expect this will be less compatible than plain dos without such advanced features. Nice on taskmgr is that can be loaded when needed.

> Some (lazy) people would just suggest you drop DOS (and all its apps which
> you use/write) in favor of: Linux, Windows, Minix, FreeBSD, OctaOS.
Yes, see above post :)

> NDN has more features but is closed src (not trying to complain because I
> mostly? don't care, just stating the facts). It has been updated a lot
> until recently (thesis and job issues of the author). I expect it will
> continue to get better. It does a few things that DNOSP doesn't (e.g.
> disasm view). But yeah, feel free to use both (emphasis on free). ;-)
I know NDN has more features. E.g. DISASM view is nice. Also it's nice to have NDN Linux version because I still see on MC as some poor Volkov clone :) DN rulez.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 12:36
(edited by Rugxulo, 22.11.2007, 13:25)

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Yes I'm satisfied with UMBPCI under MSDOS and FreeDOS.
And JEMMEX, of course. ;-)

> I found taskmgr is the best. It's small and preemtive (backgroud is
> running) and don't eat much low memory as desqview. It can hadnle also
> PMode apps, I was able to switch 2 Quake games and DN :)
Not sure why you need to run DN and Quake (x 2!) at the same time. ;-)

But yeah, maybe DRDOS, Inc. should open source TASKMGR when/if they get ??? amount of money (pay the bills, etc). Then again, I know that's impossible and laughable to some people that I even pretend that such could happen. Oh well, whatever's best for them, I guess. They probably need to hire some more programmers to get a "real" 8.x out the door.

> I heared of them, I have a copy of REAL/32 TSX I didn't find yet. But I
> expect this will be less compatible than plain dos without such advanced
> features. Nice on taskmgr is that can be loaded when needed.
I think multitasking is somewhat overrated (dare I say that? I can hear the boos already, heh!). Compiling in the background, listening to music, searching for files, copying, archiving/backing up, okay ... but otherwise, who cares? I'm sure somebody out there could (has already?) made it easy to write such apps (like aforementioned methods). Too bad I'm too lazy/busy/stupid to do it myself. I seem to only do tiny, incremental things (like my recent DISKCOPY or XCOPY 1.4 "dir attrib" patch ... better than nothing, I suppose). ;-)

> Yes, see above post :)
Maybe Minix 3.x is the future for those of us who dislike Linux's bloat. (I hear it's got virtual memory, more or less.) Or we could always just use "old" Minix-VMD or DOS-Minix. But like I said, I dunno about MMX, FPU, SSE. Then again, 99% of DOS programs don't need (or want) those either. ;-)

> I know NDN has more features. E.g. DISASM view is nice. Also it's nice to
> have NDN Linux version because I still see on MC as some poor Volkov clone
> :) DN rulez.
DOSZip is nice too. But I usually just poke around on the cmdline unless copying to/from dirs a lot.
RayeR

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CZ,
22.11.2007, 17:11

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> Not sure why you need to run DN and Quake (x 2!) at the same time. ;-)
Play with myself, haha :)

Just tried a lot mad things which it can still switch :)

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
22.11.2007, 11:19

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> I often readen that taskmgr is fully dependent to novell/drdos emm386 but
> in my case I CAN run taskgr WITHOUT emm386 under DRDOS. I think the oly
> problem is some OS version check which needs to be removed.
> And taskmgr is for me the most valuable thing on DRDOS than other DOSes
> doesn't have. Without it it's uninteresting for me and rather use FreeDOS
> or MSDOS...
AFAIK, the Task Manager can support task switching (on a 286 ... pause a program, run another, then come back to #1), but for real multitasking you need 386+ (V86 mode) as well as EMM386 (which includes multitasking guts, according to Udo, if I understood him correctly). Trying to use TASKMGR outside of DR-DOS is moot, especially since it's non-free (in any sense of the word). Of course, the free alternative (TriDOS) doesn't work with Pmode programs (ugh), which kinda is a big flaw since DJGPP and OpenWatcom/DOS4GW are so popular.

Hmmm, TriDOS: MASM src + multitasking + DPMI server, if only there was one or two people around here willing to set differences aside and take a look. :waving:
flox

Homepage

22.11.2007, 15:37

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> need 386+ (V86 mode) as well as EMM386 (which includes multitasking guts,
> according to Udo, if I understood him correctly). Trying to use TASKMGR
This is true. All of the code of the taskmanager (No taskswitcher) is inside emm386. Taskmgr is only a user interface. Take a look at Matthias Pauls website...is quite old but very interesting.

> Hmmm, TriDOS: MASM src + multitasking + DPMI server, if only there was one
> or two people around here willing to set differences aside and take a look.
> :waving:
I have made a page at Club Dr-DOS Wiki...with source and a idea how to fix a big bug. But nobody has been interested. :-(
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 16:20

@ flox
 

TriDOS -- DPMI bug?

Post reply

> I have made a page at Club Dr-DOS Wiki...with source and a idea how to fix
> a big bug. But nobody has been interested. :-(
It would indeed be useful if a). it was stable and didn't mess up data (unconfirmed: ask sol), and b). DPMI programs were allowed to run. Otherwise, it's mostly just a toy (but still cool and better than I could do!).
flox

Homepage

22.11.2007, 17:02

@ Rugxulo
 

TriDOS -- DPMI bug?

Post reply

> It would indeed be useful if a). it was stable and didn't mess up data
> (unconfirmed: ask sol), and b). DPMI programs were allowed to run.
> Otherwise, it's mostly just a toy (but still cool and better than I could
> do!).
A DPMI-client is included but very buggy... I think it will be a good starting point if someone wants to develope a taskmanager.

Hasta luego!
Flo
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
26.11.2007, 20:24

@ flox
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> I have made a page at Club Dr-DOS Wiki...with source and a idea how to fix
> a big bug. But nobody has been interested. :-(
The person to ask would probably be Udo. Of course, if JRE or Japheth want to fix it, that's cool too. :-D
Rugxulo

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Usono,
26.11.2007, 20:23

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> OK, changing memory manager wouldn't be problem. Just wonder how new DOS
> version had too old XMS support.
DR-DOS 7.03's HIMEM.SYS reports XMS 3.0, but from what I've read, that's just bogus since it doesn't support anything (!) beyond XMSv2 (which inherently maxes out at 64 MB, IIRC).
jaybur

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UK,
27.11.2007, 02:12

@ Rugxulo
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> DR-DOS 7.03's HIMEM.SYS reports XMS 3.0, but from what I've read, that's
> just bogus since it doesn't support anything (!) beyond XMSv2 (which
> inherently maxes out at 64 MB, IIRC).
Correct on all counts.
Rugxulo

Homepage

Usono,
22.11.2007, 13:45

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1

Post reply

> -I don't like the order how FAT32 partitions are assigned to drive letters
> (C: was hd0 1st partition, follewed by D: E: F: FAT32 parttitions and then
> other FAT16 partitions. Normally I had FAT32 partitions at end), I use
> MSDOS/FreeDOS order. But I don't know if it's configurable somewhere...
I dunno if you're aware, but you can try BTTR's DRVEXCH (though I can't promise it'll help ... be sure to read the docs first).
DOS386

12.12.2007, 02:00

@ RayeR
 

DR-DOS 8.1 piracy :-(

Post reply

> found yesterday a site with new device logics dr-dos 8.1 for download
Highly illegal :-(

IIRC the last usable version of DR-DOS is 7.03 (no FAT32, no LBA).

7.04 and 7.05 is crap (but legal at least ?)

8.0 is bad, and contains code stolen from King Udo's EDR-DOS, but nobody noticed ...

8.1 is hardest-core piracy, contains Udo's code as well as various 3rd party utils, including, but not limited to, those from FreeDOS, claiming all this to be "DR-DOS INC"'s achievement ... This time all the piracy got noticed very quickly so DR-DOS 8.1 was dropped and 8.0 followed soon :lol3:

Keep away from any DR-DOS above 7.03 :hungry:

> BTW does anybody hacked taskmgr to run on other DOSes?
I consider single-tasking as a crucial feature of DOS :clap:

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

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Usono,
12.12.2007, 18:26

@ DOS386
 

DOS -- single-tasking?

Post reply

> I consider single-tasking as a crucial feature of DOS :clap:
This may be due more to DOS' history as a 16-bit OS. With the 286, task swapping was easier, but 386s introduced Virtual 8086 Mode (and the ability to switch back and forth between real and protected modes). Hence things like DesqView, Novell DOS, Windows 3.x "Enhanced Mode", OS/2, TriDOS, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80286

Too bad FreeDOS-32 never took off. But it could be revived, of course. FreeDOS still lives! :-)
Steve

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US,
14.12.2007, 06:06

@ Rugxulo
 

DOS -- single-tasking?

Post reply

> > I consider single-tasking as a crucial feature of DOS :clap:
>
> This may be due more to DOS' history as a 16-bit OS. With the 286, task
> swapping was easier, but 386s introduced Virtual 8086 Mode (and the
> ability to switch back and forth between real and protected modes). Hence
> things like DesqView, Novell DOS, Windows 3.x "Enhanced Mode", OS/2,
> TriDOS, etc.
Right -- single-tasking was never a design goal, merely a fact of life for microcomputers c.1980. If IBM had waited for the 386, the first PC DOS might have been OS/2.

> Too bad FreeDOS-32 never took off. But
> it could be revived, of course. FreeDOS still lives! :-)
The core problem is the initial concept. It should be a FreeOS/2, with a better base than a DOS-16.
Rugxulo

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Usono,
14.12.2007, 08:24

@ Steve
 

DOS -- single-tasking?

Post reply

> Right -- single-tasking was never a design goal, merely a fact of life for
> microcomputers c.1980. If IBM had waited for the 386, the first PC DOS
> might have been OS/2.
Well, things like MS's DOSSHELL can task swap conventional memory, but even that was of limited usefulness (but better than nothing). The real problem was lack of memory: both my old 486 Sx's only had 4 MB / 8 MB, respectively. That's just not enough to multitask very much (especially with the extra requirements of the Win 3.1 environment). Multitasking never really took off until computers started coming with decent amounts of RAM. And apps started using too much, so they had to keep increasing.

> The core problem is the initial concept. It should be a FreeOS/2, with a
> better base than a DOS-16.
Well, OS/2 is complex: DOS + Win 3.1 + OS/2 w/ installable file systems, GUI, HPFS (?), Presentation Manager, etc. Even Win 3.1 isn't easily duplicated (apparently). We're actually lucky that (Free)DOS is able to be reproduced. That is goal #1. Next is trying to get anything added on top. Sure, you can rewrite the whole thing, but compatibility is good for a reason. Anyways, the point is moot, developers are free to do what they want (and most seem too busy at this point). The best "free" method of multitasking DOS is probably Linux (DeLi?) + DOSEMU.

---
Know your limits.h
DOS386

15.12.2007, 18:59

@ Steve
 

DOS -- single-tasking?

Post reply

> single-tasking was never a design goal, merely a fact of life for
> microcomputers c.1980
Maybe true .. but I still consider it as a feature of DOS :clap:

> If IBM had waited for the 386, the first PC DOS might have been OS/2.
If they had waited 20 more years longer, the first IBM PC DOS would have been a 20 GiB Vista XX-64 clone :lol3:

> The core problem is the initial concept. It should be a FreeOS/2
Feel free to fix the "problem" and start a cloning project and persuade someone to join .. I personally probably won't :crying:

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

Homepage

Usono,
16.12.2007, 00:44

@ DOS386
 

DOS -- single-tasking?

Post reply

> Feel free to fix the "problem" and start a cloning project and persuade
> someone to join .. I personally probably won't :crying:
There already are at least two OS/2 clones that were planned, but I think only one even had (barely) any code written. So, so far, that isn't viable. Maybe somebody will finish such eventually (like FreeDOS and ReactOS), but (as most of us) I'm highly skeptical.

---
Know your limits.h
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