Dennis - Thank you! You've addressed all of my questions and concerns, esp. abt loading data via USB thumb drive, and the history of EP and it's relationship to the later packaged version. I'm going to try to build an 8bit machine at some point. As you can probably tell, although I grew up in the early days of the "micro computer" I'm not a techy or anything like that, my knowledge is very limited. I was more into audio electronics in the 80's/90's, my grasp of computers is still rudimentary, I still think in terms of very basic hardware functions, there was a nice overlap early on but then then the two hobbies kind of forked into different directions. I've done 3 successful Linux installs in the past 2 weeks (on 2 otherwise non-functional old laptops, I upgraded one from a light OS to the full suite - they are both functional again!), I really love it tho it's going to take a good long while to really grasp the system in any meaningful way - but so far it makes more sense to me than Windows. A few years ago I played all the old LucasArts games on DosBox but I couldn't get any "office" apps to work on it, I'm aware of VirtualBox etc. but wasn't able to run it on Windows. I'll give your advice serious consideration, thank you for taking the time to respond.
VA On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 11:28 PM Vincent Asaro <carrotfi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 9:54 PM dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 8:10 PM Vincent Asaro <carrotfi...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> > >> > Dennis - Thank you for all the info! >> >> You're welcome. >> >> > I installed Linux Mint via USB on that machine, I just want to be sure >> FD will "see" the ports, so to speak, but the FD page sez it's so, so it >> must be! >> >> Seeing USB ports and being able to use them are different things. >> Bear in mind that FreeDOS was intended to be a compatible open source >> alternative to MSDOS. USB did not *exist* when what FreeDOS was >> trying to be compatible with was still being developed and sold. An >> assortment of things folks would like in FreeDOS fall into the "It >> didn't exist in real DOS, and therefore doesn't in FreeDOS" bucket. >> USB is a FreeDOS work in progress. There is some support, but whether >> there is support for what you require is another matter. (Assuming >> you can install FreeDOS *from* USB, can you then write *to* something >> attached to USB, like a thumb drive? How will you get stuff you >> create *on* the HP off of it and to something else? And yes, >> networking will be another challenge.) >> >> > I found the code for EP on Archive.org, mimeo of typewritten doc (!) >> it's abt 4 pages long and I have every intention of punching in every >> character manually LoL It's one of my Holy Grails, just to use that program >> :) >> >> Have fun. EP was originally written for an 8 bit Atari microcomputer >> that did not use CP/M or DOS as the OS. It was ported to CP/M by >> other hands, and then to TRSDOS on the TRS-80 by yet other hands. Do >> not expect the source you found on archive.org in a scan of a >> typewritten document to be usable as is, even if you successfully >> transcribe it. >> >> Since you were able to install Linux Mint (and I assume it ran), you >> might be better served by installing DOSBox under Mint and using it to >> run old DOS apps. You would at least have USB support already extant. >> (I'd want more RAM on the HP machine, but 2GB should work. I have >> Lubuntu dual-booting on an Acer Aspire1 notebook with WinXP Home. The >> Acer has 1.5GB RAM. Lubuntu is not exactly speedy, but *does* run.) >> ______ >> Dennis >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >> >
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