RE: [ros-general] dos support in reactos

[theUser BL]

> Why waste your time with DOS? There is already FreeDOS freely available.

Short answer: Because WinNT, Win2k and WinXP support DOS, two.

Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created for 
DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older programs 
run.

Greatings
theuserbl

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[Casper Hornstrup]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:ros-general-
> [e-mail]] On Behalf Of theUser BL
> Sent: 26. februar 2004 12:05
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: RE: [ros-general] dos support in reactos
> > Why waste your time with DOS? There is already FreeDOS freely available.
>
> Short answer: Because WinNT, Win2k and WinXP support DOS, two.

Microsoft Windows support a lot of things that ReactOS will never support.
> Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created for
> DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older programs
> run.

Is it really worth the thousands of hours of work and added complexity of
ReactOS?

[Jan Tisje]

Hi,

again, i cannot hold back my opinion
> > Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created for
> > DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older programs
> > run.
>
> Is it really worth the thousands of hours of work and added complexity of
> ReactOS?

No. it is not.

List the programs you are using.
any DOS program on this list? 
mh.probably old Norton Commander. But there are many clones supporting
32 bit, even none of them reaching the original.
And so will be with most of the other programs.

Games? 
In my experience DOS games never worked acceptable on Win95. 
Just use a VM in this case.

special software?
I believe ReactOS may risk to force those users towards using MS Windows.

most current users will not be able to interact with any DOS program.

btw, please keep in mind that a console program is not required to be a DOS
program.

please leave all this old stuff behind, for better stability. 
Dont you know the stabillity issues in the win16 system?

Jan

[Mark IJbema]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 12:50:04PM +0100, Jan Tisje wrote:
> Hi,
>
> again, i cannot hold back my opinion
> > > Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created for
> > > DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older programs
> > > run.
> >
> > Is it really worth the thousands of hours of work and added complexity of
> > ReactOS?
>
> No. it is not.
>
> List the programs you are using.
> any DOS program on this list?

Farmers use mostly DOS programs for the milking schemes and stuff, lots
of small businesses use DOS programs for accounting. Those two alone are
enough to support it. BTW, if you'd known WinNT internals you'd know
this _is_ actually done using a VM.

Mark

[Jan Tisje]

Mark IJbema [e-mail] schrieb am Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:03:41 +0100
> Farmers use mostly DOS programs for the milking schemes and stuff,

really? Ooops. 8-)

Why do you think they use DOS programs? 
a)  no newer available
b)  to expensive to buy new software
c)  why buy new, if the old one does its job
> lots
> of small businesses use DOS programs for accounting.

ok, thats right. 
but same question for this one.

If a) or b) is the answer, then ok. Then they probably will use ReactOS.
in the c) case they will not change operation system, either.
> Those two alone are enough to support it.

mh. i am not convinced.  ;-)
> BTW, if you'd known WinNT internals you'd know
> this _is_ actually done using a VM.

mh. 
you are right...
I remember something... 
all DOS/w16 apps lay in one huge memory area without any protection
but on the other hand, DOS programms cannot. 
they REQUIRE their own 1 MB (and virtual CPU = VM) 
fuck it. I don't know. 
ok, on winnt MS got this stable. No DOS/win16 App may influence System
stability. But on win95 it did....

Jan

[Mark IJbema]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 04:19:21PM +0100, Jan Tisje wrote:
> Mark IJbema [e-mail] schrieb am Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:03:41 +0100
> > Farmers use mostly DOS programs for the milking schemes and stuff,
>
> really? Ooops. 8-)
>
> Why do you think they use DOS programs? 
> a)  no newer available
> b)  to expensive to buy new software
> c)  why buy new, if the old one does its job

They mostly come with the milking machines afaik, so new software would
require new hardware as well (if not the whole machine at least some
interface part).
> > lots
> > of small businesses use DOS programs for accounting.
>
> ok, thats right. 
> but same question for this one.
>
> If a) or b) is the answer, then ok. Then they probably will use ReactOS.
> in the c) case they will not change operation system, either.

it's mostly the last, which is a good enough reason imho. Also, don't
forget it will cost a lot of effort to convert all old data.
> > Those two alone are enough to support it.
>
> mh. i am not convinced.  ;-)

Well, i want to play Duke Nukem again >:)
> > BTW, if you'd known WinNT internals you'd know
> > this _is_ actually done using a VM.
>
> mh. 
> you are right...
> I remember something... 
> all DOS/w16 apps lay in one huge memory area without any protection
> but on the other hand, DOS programms cannot.

Nopes, each dos program lives in it's own virtual machine
> they REQUIRE their own 1 MB (and virtual CPU = VM)

and has it's own 1 MB
> fuck it. I don't know. 
> ok, on winnt MS got this stable. No DOS/win16 App may influence System
> stability. But on win95 it did....

Win 95 == dos + a GUI

Mark

[robert K.]

> Well, i want to play Duke Nukem again >:)

Just that? U R glad, since Dukes sources became free there exist linux 
and win32 ports. I play it again. This time on XP.

[Power User]

Casper Hornstrup -> [my e-mail] for [e-mail]: "RE:
[ros-general] dos support in reactos" @ 26-Feb-2004, 15:18:28

[...]
> > > Why waste your time with DOS? There is already FreeDOS freely
> > > available.
> > Short answer: Because WinNT, Win2k and WinXP support DOS, two.

CH> Microsoft Windows support a lot of things that ReactOS will never
CH> support.
It is not very good IMHO.At least this is not a reason to be proud with
this fact.Since this sounds like "Windows always will be better than ROS"
and "ROS will never get really compatible with WinNT & 2k" :\
> > Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created
> > for DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older
> > programs run.

CH> Is it really worth the thousands of hours of work and added complexity
CH> of ReactOS?
Without VDM and WOW it is only half of WinNT\Win2k and it is strange to
declare compatibility with those M$ OS'es then.Microsoft has success
with Windows also because they keeping reasonable compatibility with
"old apps" so users don't need to discard all sw they had before and
hence migration to their new OS not very painful thing.
Can you say, what a hell all these subsystems and other NT stuff
needed then?Just to launch one "Win32 subsystem" over all this stuff?:))
And btw, there is also DOS support for Linux exists.Hey, what do you
expect users to do to launch "old apps" with ROS?Reboot into FreeDOS?:\
What a f.....g way to reboot each time you need to run "old app" :((

Another question is that it is not a highest priority task yet :-)
For example I'm having problems to boot ROS on real hw (some kernel
mode driver deadlock happens) that means there is still some prob's
in kernel or drivers.But anyway ROS getting better each day and I'm
dreaming about time when it will be possible to use ROS as my usual
desktop OS.Unfortunately without DOS\Win16 support it losts too much
in comfortability of use compared to M$ Windows.

Good Bye, Casper.See you later.
... Automatically generated by Fidolook SL&My macro ... :P

[Gunnar André Dalsnes]

> And btw, there is also DOS support for Linux exists.Hey, what do you
> expect users to do to launch "old apps" with ROS?Reboot into 
> FreeDOS?:\
> What a f.....g way to reboot each time you need to run "old app" :((

No need to reboot. Just run freedos in an emulator like bochs. Both are
free/open source. This solution will be fast enought for most dos apps.

[robert K.]

Gunnar André Dalsnes wrote:
> > And btw, there is also DOS support for Linux exists.Hey, what do you
> > expect users to do to launch "old apps" with ROS?Reboot into 
> > FreeDOS?:\
> > What a f.....g way to reboot each time you need to run "old app" :((
>
> No need to reboot. Just run freedos in an emulator like bochs. Both are
> free/open source. This solution will be fast enought for most dos apps.
>
> ros-general mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general

And disk access ??

But therefore exists DosBox.sf.net

[Power User]

Gunnar Andre Dalsnes -> [my e-mail] for 'Power User': "RE: [ros-general] dos
support in reactos" @ 28-Feb-2004, 02:26:03
> > And btw, there is also DOS support for Linux exists.Hey, what do you
> > expect users to do to launch "old apps" with ROS?Reboot into
> > FreeDOS?:\
> > What a f.....g way to reboot each time you need to run "old app" :((

GAD> No need to reboot. Just run freedos in an emulator like bochs. Both
GAD> are free/open source. This solution will be fast enought for most dos
GAD> apps.
JFYI I already have bochs for quite long time and unfortunately I have to
mention the following things:

- x86 CPU\periferial emulated in software and this is SLOW AS JERK
compared to NT's VDM for example (I'm silent about Win'9x\ME :-P).
Yeah, SOME programs can work acceptable in this way but really this
is quite f....g way too and let's say I doubt any normal user will use
this solution.For me I'm only using bochs when testing some potentially
harmful stuff (so it can crush only his sandbox) or when it is hard
to avoid using it (for example to boot ROS kernel and to see\store
debug msgs since on real HW this generally requires 2nd PC and serial
cable - bochs is good thing here).For anything else like normal use
as dos VM, bochs is unfair choice IMHO.

- Bochs not emulates _all_ HW features or not exactly,etc.I'm understanding
that NT's VDM not perfect here too but I'm still rather preferring NT's
VDM - at least it is fast enough.

- Does BOCHS capable to switch into fullscreen?I'm unhappy with its window
in GUI environment while using for text mode apps.There is rather small
font, etc.I'm like to see text mode in FULL screen.And NT's VDM allows it.

Let's say that when NT4 arrived it counted as OS which is not very easy
to use and rather poorly compatible since VDM still not a DOS and not
Win'9x dos box.But it is still better than noting and rather many DOS
apps can run in NT.In '2k\XP DOS support was improved a bit, i.e. even
sound via soundcard works in games, etc.Still not perfect but slightly
more usable than bochs in this role.

P.S.This is repost.To Gunnar Andre Dalsnes:pls sorry for posting
this into your private mailbox instead of ROS list,there was smth
wrong\strange im mail headers %-\

Good Bye, Gunnar.See you later.
... Automatically generated by Fidolook SL&My macro ... :P

[Guido]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:05:07 +0000
"theUser BL" [e-mail] wrote:
> > Why waste your time with DOS? There is already FreeDOS freely available.
>
> Short answer: Because WinNT, Win2k and WinXP support DOS, two.
>
> Longer answer: Because there existing still a lot of programs created for 
> DOS, Win16 and so on. And it would be nice, to can all this older programs 
> run.

Funny, you initially linked to DOSbox. The main reason for creating DOSbox in the first place was the fact that WinNT, Win2k and WinXP have poor DOS support, meaning that older programs (mainly DOS games) would not run properly. It was written portably by using SDL, so that it now runs perfectly fine on MacOS, Linux, BeOS, etc. Of course DOS support for Linux has existed for ages by using DOSemu, which uses the FreeDOS kernel.

One last note on FreeDOS32: don't bother with that. As the name suggest it is based on FreeDOS too, but AFAIK it has been going virtually nowhere from the beginning.

Besides, ReactOS already has its own cmd.exe, supporting many/most basic DOS commands.

- Guido

[KJK::Hyperion]

At 21.10 26/02/2004, you wrote:
> Funny, you initially linked to DOSbox. The main reason for creating DOSbox 
> in the first place was the fact that WinNT, Win2k and WinXP have poor DOS 
> support,

DOSbox is *slow*. If it's an answer to poor DOS support, it's the wrong answer

[James Tabor]

KJK::Hyperion wrote:
> At 21.10 26/02/2004, you wrote:
> > Funny, you initially linked to DOSbox. The main reason for creating 
> > DOSbox in the first place was the fact that WinNT, Win2k and WinXP 
> > have poor DOS support,
>
> DOSbox is *slow*. If it's an answer to poor DOS support, it's the wrong 
> answer

Hi!
How about reworking dosemu and DOSBox? Something other than WOW implementation.
James

[Robert Köpferl]

You're welcome to do so.

But if it is just dos on an x86 machine. You perhaps should have a look 
at dosemu. The v86-mode can AFAIK be easily used from protected mode 
ring3. So go on and give us an NTVDM.EXE. It's just a win32 executable.

FreeDOS or the special version for Dosbox /dosemu can help you build a 
bridge to wine32-api

James Tabor schrieb:
> KJK::Hyperion wrote:
> > At 21.10 26/02/2004, you wrote:
> > > Funny, you initially linked to DOSbox. The main reason for creating 
> > > DOSbox in the first place was the fact that WinNT, Win2k and WinXP 
> > > have poor DOS support,
> >
> > DOSbox is *slow*. If it's an answer to poor DOS support, it's the 
> > wrong answer
>
> Hi!
> How about reworking dosemu and DOSBox? Something other than WOW 
> implementation.
> James
>
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