(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

It is wonderful to hear and see win 3.11 running in Puppy. But since dos 6.22 is not free, although I do have copies of it, and not to rain on the parade, but have you tried it in drdos. I do have free copies of it I would be happy to share. It is one of the latest, I think 7.something. I used it for quite some time and was very happy with it. Really liked the Format command, it would format Linux partitions.

Hmmm.....So would it be possible to run Win98SE from this? Because then I would never have to leave Puppy! Pretty much the only thing I use Windows for anymore is Byond, and although there is a Linux version, it is text only. I rarely play my other PC games anymore (I prefer counsels/handhelds), but I kind of enjoy Byond every now and then. And I could run QB from Puppy too! I have moved to c++, but this would make translating a program I wrote in QB to c++ a lot easier. I could even run Basic4GL too! Sweet! Keep up the good work, man!

*starts singing "Don't bring me down, Bruce"*

Is this thread for real?

Are there people really using DOS in personal computers?

I know that in some companies there may be one or two legacy custom built applications running in a dusty corner. But runing DOS at home?

What applications are there for DOS that do not exist for modern Operating systems?

I am not critizicing I am just blown away by the activity of this thread.

So don't get me wrong, I programmed in DOS for a long time even at the interruption level. But it was LONG time ago...

Maybe that means that some people are still using the DOS applications I wrote...

How curious... This thread feels totally retro. As if I were traveling back in time.

(BTW, my questions are rethorical questions, they don't require an answer)

Not to attempt answering your rhetorical questions or anything, but dos is alive and well and has modern applications being written and ported - just do some googling. It's the best antidote to bloatware around, and it's nice to feel closer to the machine. FreeDOS http://www.freedos.org/ is still only in beta .9.x and gradually creeping towards stable hopefully within a year.

I'm old school, man! I randomly start whistleing the theme for Super Mario Bros. One of my favorite songs is "Old Time Rock and Roll." I believe children should be spanked till they can't feel it anymore. I miss the days when teachers could whop a student, and I didn't even exist back then. I scare my mom when she's listing to songs she grew up with and I start belting out the lyrics, and I know them better than she does! I believe most "modern" cars look like something that came out of the backide of a grizzly bear, and think they should bring back the fins. I like all things diesel. I don't trust computers any farther than they can jump. I still think of Sega when I think of Nintendo's biggest rival. And most of all, when I think of programming, I think of QBasic.

And like I said, if I can get Win98SE going, I won't need to leave Puppy for Windows.

Bruce B wrote:Also, you could make an MS-DOS setup version 5.00 thru 7.00 which should be able to run Windows 3.11

Actually, you can run Windows 3.x on top of DOS 7.1 too (the DOS that underlies all versions of Windows from 95 OSR2 through Windows 98 SE.) The trick involves googling OSR2fix, which patches your IO.SYS to allow older versions of Windows to run. They have more detailed instructions, but basically you need to make a batch file to launch Windows and may have to modify the SYSTEM.INI file if you have a lot of RAM.

The advantage of doing this is that you can take full advantage of relatively large disks by using FAT32 instead of FAT16 (which previous versions of DOS were limited to.) Sure, there are some glitches, as File Manager always thinks I only have 1.99 GB of hard drive space free, but it works. I have been using the OSR2fix patch for years without any problems.

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 flies on my Pentium 3 and sees my entire 512 MB of RAM. No emulator needed here.

rarsa wrote:Is this thread for real?

Are there people really using DOS in personal computers?

I know that in some companies there may be one or two legacy custom built applications running in a dusty corner. But runing DOS at home?

What applications are there for DOS that do not exist for modern Operating systems?

I am not critizicing I am just blown away by the activity of this thread.

So don't get me wrong, I programmed in DOS for a long time even at the interruption level. But it was LONG time ago...

Maybe that means that some people are still using the DOS applications I wrote...

How curious... This thread feels totally retro. As if I were traveling back in time.

(BTW, my questions are rethorical questions, they don't require an answer)

Hi,

I have plenty of DOS, Win 3.11, and Win 95/98 only software and CDs. As long as they run I keep them. I have my old XT 8mhz clone with a CopyIIpc Option Board, too. I still have stuff that only worked with Basica, IBM's Basic Chip.

Any chance converting an old Rummy 500 to Puppy, it used an old .dll file that I guess was either Qbasic or VB? It doesn't quite look like anything I've found recently to my memory.

Come to think of the ruckous OS/2 fans are throwing at IBM dropping it, and petitions for Open Sourcing it. We really cling to stuff we know.

Thanks for your hard work guys,
ChiJoan

DOS is actually kind of a nice operating system once you get used to it. I've got an old 486DX that I use with MS-DOS 6.22 and I can make the thing sit up and talk. Literally. I have a few neat programs for playing digital sound files over the PC speaker. My favourite is Hal saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

If I can manage to get puppy to actually work on my laptop (I hate Toshiba) a DOS emulator will be very useful. I've got several really neat programs that access memory in ways that XP doesn't like or permit, and Window$ is such a CPU hog that most of the emulators I've found for it don't run decently. Something clean and decent to use sounds like a really good idea. The people who wrote programs back when 640K of memory was a lot were geniuses. It would be a shame to waste their efforts.

Oh, just for people who are curious. You can actually run Dos 6.22 on an Intel 80/86. Humms like a top, and is perfect for all those cases where you need some cheap control circuitry. I use one for a temperature controler on my foundary.

Try this as an alternative to dosemu: dosbox
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
It runs on Linux and 64-Bit Edition of Windows XP.
Danny

Hmmm... I did try the windows version of that one. A lot of my old programs actually seemed to run worse with it. But that's probably just my crazy machine not giving the emulator enough CPU time. I'd forgotten it had a Linux version. I'll take a look.

Downloaded, installed, many times, yet no success.
Nothing happens, I don't get a Z prompt.

Any idea?

Ben

There is a Dosbox-Dotpup.
See the thread for libraries needed:

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=2941

Mark

"Can someone (or several someones) give a few examples of the DOS programs they would be able to run with an emulator? No hurry, just curious."

I still use foxpro 2.6. I suppose it would run on dosbox but it runs great on dosemu. Open Office now reads foxpro (dbase) files.

First thing in my head would be... QBASIC!!! I only messed with it for two months, but it was fun. Far superior to TI-83+ Basic, which is what I had been using off and on for several years prior to that. Then I did a little Basic4GL and C++, then moved into PHP for a bit. Now I've been doing Bash for a couple years.

freebasic is very similar (but more powerful) ... it was designed to be compatible with quickbasic syntax
http://www.freebasic.net/

As an "old schooler" I really enjoyed this discussion and thought I'd add a little. I still use DOS in my computer business for lots of jobs. For many diagnostic and low level task it is still the fastest & easiest way to get the job done. With a little imagination and some ingenuity you can get a lot out of even the most ancient hardware. I've worked for many years on a charity project that refurbrishes old computers and then donates them to non-profit organizations. Early in this project I assembled a drive image made up of freeware & shareware (now mostly abandonware) programs. It included a graphical desktop, file manager with file associations to open, view, and edit various data and graphic file formats. Word processor w/spellcheck, grahical desktop publishing, spreadsheet, database, image editing/ drawing program, image viewing/slide show program, hard drive backup, plus a text clipboard utility and screen capture program. It all ran under OpenDos and used OpenDos's task switching capability to allow you to load and run several applications at once and switch between them from a hot key menu. All of this fit into a compressed image of about 9mb. Hardware required for installation...minimum 286 w/4mb ram and 17mb free hard drive space (yeah that's 17 megabytes). I still keep it running on an old 386sx-33 machine as a demo.

"Can someone (or several someones) give a few examples of the DOS programs they would be able to run with an emulator? No hurry, just curious."

X-com, Ascendancy, Anacreon, VonBerg's List.... Almost everything else I can think of was ported forward. And X-com & Anacreon really need the "run it at only 20Mhz option".

freebasic is a disaster of a project, and becomes more like c everyday, to the point: if you are going to learn freebasic you might just as well learn c. the promises of being compatible with qbasic syntax are ancient and inaccurate. if it kept its promises, i would promote it.

instead, i promote warpbasic. there isn't much to it to promote at the moment, but i'm regularly in touch with the developer. the week it's ready, you will see demo's of it here, and if the dev doesn't make a dotpup, i will, with his help. i am capable of making a dotpup for freebasic, and mu made one, but he made one for 0.16 which is a disaster compared to 0.15, and the dotpup does not include the SMALL bits of the c compiler needed to make freebasic work. LASTLY: the freebasic for dos is the worst of them. in relative terms: no one cares about it, so no one maintains it.

for dosbox, try qbasic. it works, i've used it, i'll help you code in it. if you are not careful, qbasic can crash dosbox. lots of things can crash dosbox. i'll have to see if dosbox is more stable in puppy 1.07. but lately i'm not in it much.

i learned computers in dos. there are so many cool old programs for it, commander keen 4 (shareware, still available) is worth trying in dosbox, and numerous other things. however, MOST of the things that are useful in dos are more useful for real dos: file managers, scripts, quick utils... there are a few exceptions. if you're native to linux, you will find native linux tools. if you're native to dos, like me, you will love how dosbox tides you over and provides a "familiar face" while you get accustomed to linux. i still use qbasic, though, even in linux. sometimes it's that useful.

finally, this may change. freedos is a very cool project, and may lead to tools that are extremely useful, that linux equivilents of are not created instantly. you will want dosbox to try them. OTOH... if there is something you'd like to try in dosbox, tell me what it is. i have been using dos for more than 20 years, i love dos, and i will help point you to the right tool if i can. i think another good person to ask is bloodhound, in #puppylinux. if you see the link below, you will get some comparisons of puppylinux and dos commands, many of which work in dosbox. it is also possible to run dos 6.22 in qemu, and i think mu had a file for that somewhere, related to qemu.

I actually haven't run QB in a couple years. Basically, once I discovered Basic4GL my quest for basic ended. It's set up for using OpenGL very easily, though it also has a bunch of 2d sprite stuff built-in. I haven't used it much lately though, because I've been focusing more on helping Puppy.

Lately an effort has started to port it to linux, and it seems to be splitting off into it's own thing. The last version I tested worked in Puppy, but needed Glibc updated to 2.4.