Stand-alone DOS for modern computers?
Terence
around them.
What advice does the Forum have for someone who desires an MSDOS look-
alike, booting, O/S that with run on modern Intel/AMD/etc computers?
I want to be able to boot a relatively AT-compatable DOS environment
to run useful business software and control RS232C ports directly. All
this would call the "DOS" services in the usual way; no direct attemps
to control anything.
I would also welcome the addition of the control of other ports (eg
USB) and plug and play matching of devices to drivers, but this is not
essential, just convenient. And of course, larger hard discs in the
160 Gig area must be manageable; so that means a shift in disc
directory layout and addressing sizes.
I want to get away form what Windows has become. W 98 was quite fine
with me but it doesn't run on modern computers as far as I know
Computers have changed and the internal chips with them. I also need
to be able to have people be able to buy a new computer and be able to
run their legacy software.
Right now we are getting away with DOS emulations in Windows, but
minor important things have changed, and there is no desire to have to
be on the Internet.
Terence
Dell even sells computres with a version of Freedos installed (which
works only on Dell (?)).
.
But I'd like to hear opinions.
Rod Pemberton
news:d4619d49-67dc-4ede...@y1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
> Yes, I know Freedos exists and is still worked on; and DRDOS, too.
> Dell even sells computres with a version of Freedos installed (which
> works only on Dell (?)).
> .
Not sure where the regulars are... I typically like to wait a couple of
days if I don't have a good response. I'd mention Freedos or DRDOS/OpenDOS.
There are also experimental projects like the stalled FreeDOS-32 project,
Paul Edwards PDOS which has both 16-bit and 32-bit DOS-like OSes (now on
Sourceforge), DOSBox for Windows/Linux (although it's designed for
games...), DOSEMU w/FreeDOS or DRDOS for Linux, or BOCHS. And, then, there
are other DOSes you "hear" of every now and then, such as RDOS, ZDOS,
NX-DOS, RxDOS.
> But I'd like to hear opinions.
Sorry, I don't really have any. I've never run DOS on a PC that didn't also
have Windows installed, well, except on an terminal years ago. Prior to
Win95, I really didn't use PC's much if at all, but mostly other platforms.
I do use DOS alot today. I do most of my personal programming using DJGPP
(GCC w/custom DOS library) or OpenWatcom. Currently, I'm still using MS-DOS
w/Win98 SE. I'm using KernelEx (WinXP/NT app's on Win98) and Axcel216's
archive of Win98/SE/ME patches, both MS and "unofficial", to help extend the
life of Win98SE. But, last weekend, I got so aggravated with SE that I
almost converted to Linux. I was thinking about ArchLinux, maybe
VectorLinux - although I forgot to check to see if they supported the newer
versions of DOOM and Quake or 64-bit cpu's. Anyway, I've tried Linux a few
times, mostly mid to late '90's and had way too many problems for my liking.
I suspect that even though 98SE doesn't support all the hardware on this
relatively new machine (no SATA, no RAID, no MB sound or ethernet support,
no 64-bit, no dual core), that Linux, like the past versions, won't support
everything either...
http://x86.neostrada.pl/KernelEx/
http://www.mdgx.com/
In the earlier post:
> I would also welcome the addition of the control of other ports (eg
> USB)
I've not used USB much with DOS. I had a few problems finding a combination
drivers that would work, but that was with my old machine. This machine
doesn't seem to need drivers for USB in DOS.
> and plug and play matching of devices to drivers, but this is not
> essential, just convenient.
I've not seen anything remotely close, but I haven't run much other than an
MS-DOS.
> And of course, larger hard discs in the
> 160 Gig area must be manageable; so that means a shift in disc
> directory layout and addressing sizes
The BIOS on new computers may help here. This computer recognizes SATA HD's
as IDE, USB flash drives, USB disk drives, etc. all as devices in DOS. No
drivers required. It'll even boot from them. I think there was a BIOS
setting for some of it. It'll also boot if the media is formatted as a
floppy disk image or a hard drive image. I wrote a 64Mb USB flash drive
with a bootable 1.44 floppy image and a HD image that had partitions. They
both booted. It'll also boot media formatted as hard drives *without* the
partition being marked active - which can be difficult/impossible to do with
FDISK from another machine.
[snip]
>
> Right now we are getting away with DOS emulations in Windows, but
> minor important things have changed, and there is no desire to have to
> be on the Internet.
Maybe if you stated what the major problems are, someone might know of a
solution.
Rod Pemberton
Richard Bonner
> Computer CPU chips have changed, and so have the computers built
> around them.
> What advice does the Forum have for someone who desires an MSDOS look-
> alike, booting, O/S that with run on modern Intel/AMD/etc computers?
> I want to be able to boot a relatively AT-compatable DOS environment
> to run useful business software and control RS232C ports directly. All
> this would call the "DOS" services in the usual way; no direct attemps
> to control anything.
> I would also welcome the addition of the control of other ports (eg
> USB) and plug and play matching of devices to drivers, but this is not
> essential, just convenient. And of course, larger hard discs in the
> 160 Gig area must be manageable; so that means a shift in disc
> directory layout and addressing sizes.
(Snip)
*** On three systems, I run DR-DOS 7.03 and as a secondary shell, 4DOS
7.86. The fastest machine I have is a Pentium III at 650 Mhz. I don't need
large hard drives, but DR-DOS can format a FAT 32 partition if you need
that much space. I run software from the mid 1980s up to 2008 with no
problems. I do use a lot of third-party and updated software, but mainly
it's DR-DOS. Here is some of the software I use and/or recommend:
AccPac Plus
ANSIPLUS
Arachne
Boxer
Color Directory
Directory Maven
EDIT!
FDISK (Reifsnyder)
Graphic Vision
Impulse Tracker
MiniTrue
New Deal Office
NeoPaint
Norton Utilities
1-2-3
PC Tools
PKZIP
QEMM
ProComm Plus
QuickView Pro
SEA Viewer
SHSU
SWORD
Toddy
WordPerfect
XMSDSK
XSET
XXCOPY
Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/
Richard Bonner
> "Terence" <tbwr...@cantv.net> wrote:
> > Yes, I know Freedos exists and is still worked on; and DRDOS, too.
> > Dell even sells computres with a version of Freedos installed (which
> > works only on Dell (?)).
> Not sure where the regulars are...
*** It's my busy season. (-:
> I typically like to wait a couple of
> days if I don't have a good response. I'd mention Freedos or DRDOS/OpenDOS.
> There are also experimental projects like the stalled FreeDOS-32 project,
> Paul Edwards PDOS which has both 16-bit and 32-bit DOS-like OSes (now on
> Sourceforge), DOSBox for Windows/Linux (although it's designed for
> games...), DOSEMU w/FreeDOS or DRDOS for Linux, or BOCHS. And, then, there
> are other DOSes you "hear" of every now and then, such as RDOS, ZDOS,
> NX-DOS, RxDOS.
*** For links to alternate DOSes:
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/Websites.html
> In the earlier post:
> > I would also welcome the addition of the control of other ports (eg
> > USB)
> I've not used USB much with DOS. I had a few problems finding a combination
> drivers that would work, but that was with my old machine. This machine
> doesn't seem to need drivers for USB in DOS.
*** I currently use:
DI1000DD.SYS
USBASPI SYS
... and am actively helping Bret Johnson test his new DOS USB drivers.
They promise to be many steps up.
> > and plug and play matching of devices to drivers, but this is not
> > essential, just convenient.
> I've not seen anything remotely close, but I haven't run much other than an
> MS-DOS.
*** Plug and Play is a function of DOS program software. Most seem to
be able to find and identify the existing hardware.
> > And of course, larger hard discs in the
> > 160 Gig area must be manageable; so that means a shift in disc
> > directory layout and addressing sizes
> The BIOS on new computers may help here. This computer recognizes SATA HD's
> as IDE, USB flash drives, USB disk drives, etc. all as devices in DOS. No
> drivers required. It'll even boot from them. I think there was a BIOS
> setting for some of it. It'll also boot if the media is formatted as a
> floppy disk image or a hard drive image. I wrote a 64Mb USB flash drive
> with a bootable 1.44 floppy image and a HD image that had partitions. They
> both booted. It'll also boot media formatted as hard drives *without* the
> partition being marked active - which can be difficult/impossible to do with
> FDISK from another machine.
> Rod Pemberton
*** You may want to check out Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK. It has a wealth
of command-line switches, one of which can set the active partition. Use
that in a batch file that decides which partition to boot.
Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/
Terence
answer the questions posed.
Since 1972 I started supplying and constantly updating a very complete
market research package. now with some 66 modules, and another 60 or
so on the way, which now needs a company behind it.
These modules are wriiten in fortran but the user interface and
communications is by assembler modules which call DOS services.
The modules use any roman character language, greek and romaji, and
can switch under a second..
But one extremely trustable method of error-free data capture is
Optical Mark Reading and the best heavy-duty machines used RS232c
ports which Windows has taken away the access to in DOS, (since W98
except for some NT machines), unless you run Porttalk or Userport
software.
This is why we need an alternative source of DOS for clients.
Only one small machine is needed to control OMR readers, but needs an
operating system..
Whn OMR reader manufactures went to USB ports they had to provide some
sort of software, but only provide drivers built into their own
software (which is unfortunately extremely primitive, and geared for
ascii input, not binary, which is the natural form of a marked data
sheet).
OMR is NOT OCR. OMR is actually a very low resolution page scanner of
40 by 66+ whose pixels are not co-adjacent horizontally, but in rows
and columns of fixed horizontal spacing and totally variable vertical
spacing.
Programming Fortran on a DOS machine or Dos emulator is very fast
compared with the alternatives. Once done it is then straight-forward
to add more source code for a user interface for running in native
Windows.
I had a look at the Dell machines with Freedos, but they are still
only being sold in the USA.
> *** You may want to check out Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK. It has a wealth
> of command-line switches, one of which can set the active partition. Use
> that in a batch file that decides which partition to boot.
>
That's a good tip!
pe...@nospam.demon.co.uk
tbwr...@cantv.net "Terence" writes:
[snip]
> This is why we need an alternative source of DOS for clients.
> Only one small machine is needed to control OMR readers, but needs an
> operating system..
[..]
> Programming Fortran on a DOS machine or Dos emulator is very fast
> compared with the alternatives. Once done it is then straight-forward
> to add more source code for a user interface for running in native
> Windows.
>
> I had a look at the Dell machines with Freedos, but they are still
> only being sold in the USA.
If you're having trouble finding a DOS platform, have you
considered making your own? There are loads of single board
computers (search for SBC, PC104, etc.) that come with DOS in ROM
and usually several serial ports. Here's one such:
<http://www.arcom.com/products/icp/dev_kits/PEGASUS/Dev_Kit.htm>
though if you go browsing you'll be spoilt for choice.
Just a suggestion...
Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."
Terence
Also :-
Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK for booting choices.
Kevin G. Rhoads
I've been able to get DOS 2.0, 2.1 & later to boot reliably from several machines that
normally run XP. One is my desktop, which has a built-in floppy. The other is a laptop
using a USB floppy drive. I can also get these to boot both from either a physical floppy
or a virtual floppy (from an floppy image) in MS Virtual PC 2007.
I can also get DOS 1.0 and DOS 1.1 to boot from a 5.25" floppy on the desktop. But, so
far, I can't get a 160k or 320k disk image on a 3.5" floppy to boot, nor will Virtual PC
2007 boot it from either a physical or virtual floppy.
Now, of course, you probably can't get licenses from MS for MS DOS versions, but FreeDOS 1.0
and several flavors of DRDOS/OpenDOS/DRDOS boot just fine also. I would recommend that
you do not consider using anything earlier than PC/MS-DOS 3.3, and really 5.0 or 6.x is
even better on a modern machine.
I would probably use either of:
FreeDOS
OpenDOS (DrDOS 7.0x, x=1,2) http://www.drdos.net/download.htm ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/OpenDOS/
Source code is available as well as prebuilt binaries.
But RxDOS is also available, if you need a small footprint for an 8086/8088 class machine.
And the DOS from Win98 can be booted alone and has FAT32 support, but, again, try getting
licenses from MS.
THere are also two flavors of PTS-DOS, http://www.phystechsoft.com/ & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTS-DOS
and PC-DOS from IBM, http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/rexx/library/rexxdos.html
ROM-DOS http://www.datalight.com/products/romdos/
GS-DOS from General Software, http://www.embeddedsys.com/subpages/products/GSDOS.shtml
Lots of basic data and links:
http://short.stop.home.att.net/freesoft/os.htm
Zaphod Beeblebrox
"Kevin G. Rhoads" <kgrh...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:493FDB51...@alum.mit.edu...
> >But I'd like to hear opinions.
>
>
> Now, of course, you probably can't get licenses from MS for MS DOS
> versions, but FreeDOS 1.0
> and several flavors of DRDOS/OpenDOS/DRDOS boot just fine also. I
> would recommend that
> you do not consider using anything earlier than PC/MS-DOS 3.3, and
> really 5.0 or 6.x is
> even better on a modern machine.
>
> And the DOS from Win98 can be booted alone and has FAT32 support, but,
> again, try getting
> licenses from MS.
>
FYI, it would appear that if you own XP, you have a license to use the
version of DOS that came with Windows ME (MS DOS 7.1 I think?), at least
on the PC you have XP installed on. The reason I say this, is that if
you format a floppy in XP, you have the option to "Create an MS-DOS
startup disk", and if you boot to this disk it is a Windows ME DOS boot
disk. So, if MS provides it with XP, you must be allowed to use it...
--
Zaphod
No matter where you go, there you are!
Richard Bonner
> FYI, it would appear that if you own XP, you have a license to use the
> version of DOS that came with Windows ME (MS DOS 7.1 I think?), at least
> on the PC you have XP installed on.
> --
> Zaphod
*** I believe it was MS-DOS 8.
Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/
Zaphod Beeblebrox
"Richard Bonner" <ak...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
news:ghrm7k$6vt$1...@Kil-nws-1.UCIS.Dal.Ca...
> Zaphod Beeblebrox (Zaphod.Ariszt...@gmail.com) wrote:
>> FYI, it would appear that if you own XP, you have a license to use
>> the
>> version of DOS that came with Windows ME (MS DOS 7.1 I think?), at
>> least
>> on the PC you have XP installed on.
> (Snip)
>> --
>> Zaphod
>
> *** I believe it was MS-DOS 8.
>
That looks to be the case - although all I can get out of the boot disk
is:
A:\>VER
Windows Millennium [Version 4.90.3000]
A:\>
But since COMMAND.COM has 'MS-DOS Version 8 (C) Copyright 1981-1999
Microsoft Corp' at offsets 7B69 and 14FDC so version 8 it is.