OpenSource (MS DOS 4)

    GitHub - microsoft/MS-DOS: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25, 2.0, and 4.0 for reference purposes
    The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25, 2.0, and 4.0 for reference purposes - microsoft/MS-DOS
    github.com

    Hmm, wäre dies nicht eine erwünschte Möglichkeit, einen DOS Unterbau mit dem FreeGeos zu generieren?
    Ist zwar NUR ein DOS 4 aber das sollte doch hervorragend mit dem FreeGeos zusammen harmonieren oder irre ich da?

    Zumindest ergäbe sich daraus eine Möglichkeit, ein eigenständiges Packet für einen X86 kompiliert zu bekommen und damit auf nativer Hardware ein Komplettpaket anbieten zu können.


    Cheers

    DOSen-Freund mit NDO Futter

    Very good idea, but as I remember MS-DOS 4 was a terrible version of MS-DOS, with a decreasing amount of free base memory, I think at least MS-DOS 5 could be used, but it is still closed source. It should be possible to build an base system using FreeDOS, but FreeDOS have problems with memory management, and it feels a bit shakey. Mostly PC/Geos works okey in FreeDOS, but when the base memory is used fully and extensively, the base memory often gets full and PC/Geos crashes. It is also intended to use PC/Geos as a windowing system on top of FreeDOS, I think that it is not a good idea to use FreeDOS for this purpose.

    Some years ago, I made a FreeDOS boot disk for PC/Geos, just with the basic boot files one needed to make PC/Geos (Breadbox Ensemble) to run. One of my observations during that time was that PC/Geos was very vulnerable to how the kernel file worked together with the memory management. PC/Geos could crash instantly by changing version of the kernel file and memory management, just keeping the same settings in the config.sys and autoexec files. Something I have not experienced in MS-DOS, DR-DOS or PC-DOS. Apparently, there was changes made that was not "standard". What the changes was, I have no idea. Different DOS:es have their problems, like for example DR-DOS (official release), lacks native support of FAT32. The implemented driver sucks, as it decreases the amount of base memory. PC-DOS 7 from IBM is a very good DOS for Geos, except there is a lack of FAT32 support. MS-DOS 7.1x, is a good DOS for Geos, but not distributed distributed since many years, and hard to get unless you have a valid license of Windows 98 SE. There are also tech problems with W98SE as you need a floppy drive to be able to create a boot disk.

    Hello handles,

    Mostly I had same problems with FreeDOS specially with the memory management.

    Best expirience for me is with PC-DOS or ROM Dos or MS-DOS 6.22 combined with JEMM.

    I lost a lot of my old disks, XDos and Compaq DOS 3.3 was working well too.

    I had it in mind to be able to get a complete Image or working base for GeoWorks

    DOSen-Freund mit NDO Futter

    Please don't blame FreeDOS for beeing incompatible with GEOS in general!

    At least not from my experience. There were some versions (I think it was 1.1) that failed to run GEOS because of an issue in the FreeDOS kernel. But using kernel 2042 it run verry well on many of my Igel thin clients. Jim Hall and the other developers of FreeDOS are trying the same as we - to improv the way it runs on modern hardware. This unfortunately can breake compatibibility with existing hard or software sometimes. But this is the same with FreeGEOS where the improved VGA16 driver produces false colors on e.g. the famous Matrox Millenium graphics card. But no one complains about, because we all love how it supports modern high resolution, wide screen displays.
    Last year I spent hours to find out why GEOS crashed on FreeDOS 1.3 installed on the Asus EeePC. It was the stacs=0,0 setting they had removed from the default config.sys, but not an incompatibility in general!
    Back in the 90ties we all played a lot with different DOS configurations to find out what worked best und still benefit from that knowledge. I think that's the reason why it's sometimes easier to go with DR/NW/MS-DOS. And so do I when setting up an old Pentium I system. But then I also go with NewDeal Office because it was the probaly most stable and polished version of GEOS.
    The future is FreeDOS&GEOS because annicent 90ties hardware becomes more and more rare and expentive and some development is required to fully support more modern and still available hardware. The AC97 sound card driver developed recently is good example for great progress in this regards but it also relies on a more modern version of the JEMM386 DOS memory manager....

    Thomas

    Hi Thomas,

    Well, I mostly agree with you regarding FreeDOS, I have dealt with FreeDOS kernels, since way back. I am sure Jim Hall is doing a great job. However, I have found the memory management a bit of a concern as Geos is dependent of as much free base memory as possible. For example, internet operations are memory hungry. I guess much of it are still undocumented, ie corporate secrets, and open source developers (read Freedos) have to observe, mimic and sometimes guess how the memory management works, when developing drivers. I find it a bit odd that Microsoft still keeps the source of DOS 5 and later on, software they stopped develop twenty years ago. Especially when it is hard to find new hardware to run it on.

    Kann mich Hanslse nur anschließen, mein Hinweis war weniger dahingehend gebracht, eine FRONT gegen FreeDOS aufzubauen als mehr die eigenen Erfahrung darüber kundzutun, was stressfrei funktioniert… und da bin ich halt zu alt und handle nach dem MOTTO: Never tocu a running system.

    Leider sind mir zu viele BACKUPs abhanden gekommen, vor allem jenes, wo ich mal das NewPublisher mit der Rechtschreibkorrektur sowie Silbentrennund des GeoWorks 2 kombinierte. Das war für mich die kleinste sowie stabilste version, die ich teils aus ner RAM Disk heraus genutzt hatte. Eine solche version wieder hinzubekommen ist mir bisher nicht gelungen. Die Silbentrennung meiner NDO Version war grauenhaft aber GeoWorks 2 ist tadellos.

    Mir würde es reichen, wenn ich dem FreeGeos die Silbentrennung des Geos 2 verpassen könnte.

    DOSen-Freund mit NDO Futter