I haven't resurrected my FreeDOS projects for a while, but some time ago
(years?!) I posted about my intent to work on a "FreeDOS 4 Kids" project,
recycling old, Pentium-era laptops.
I think I discussed the functionality of Ronald Blankendaal's (re DBGL) most
excellent dos GUI "Access" for providing a simple but effective menu system for
young hands and eyes to operate - far superior to OpenGEM and many other dos
GUI's (and I worked through loads that were published open-source online, back
in the day). In our Toshiba 430CDS, *16mb* RAM, it could boot into FreeDOS 1.1
in around 11 seconds (!!) and the kids could go straight into "Pepper's
Adventures in Time", "Loom" and loads of Sierra/LucasArts/etc etc titles. Mind
- I was using either a CF- or SD-card ATA adapter to get these performances,
but could fit over 100 classic dos games on a 2GB card, plus the OS. The
classic games in their native environment (practically) - what's not to love? :)
So at present the 430cds sits waiting "new" parts, along with a collection of
Rocky II 586RT and 686RT military laptops with clunky - but backlit - rubber
keys and high-quality outdoor screens. Although I have publicly ruminated about
these plans here and elsewhere (particularly the Murga Puppy Linux forums -
vale John Murga), life keeps getting in the way...
The upshot is - to use perfectly serviceable (definitions may vary) laptops for
classic gaming, original (?) SB16 support etc, I don't think anything really
compares - not for all the VM and DOSBox environment efforts. And the recent
resurgence in 16-bit -type games - in spite of all the technological advances -
points to the value placed in well-written games and importance of substance
over style. The real bonus for me is giving the global trend in wastrel,
throwaway consumerism the royally big *thumbs down*
my 2c
On Mon, Dec 7, 2020, at 5:47 AM, Joao Silva wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Well I haven't done anything with it yet, but it will be for games and some
> programs (a games is a program).
>
> Games, nice old games, cool games the bring some old memories and time well
> spent.
>
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 7:42 PM Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net> wrote:
>> Hi Jamie!
>>
>> > On Dec 6, 2020, at 2:30 PM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi and welcome Jamie!
>> >
>> >> Interestingly enough 1.3rc reports the version as 7.10
>> >
>> > That is the level of our MS DOS compatibility, in this
>> > case Windows 98 style DOS with FAT32 support and, if you
>> > load the right drivers, long file name support.
>> >
>> > If you request the OEM number with int 21 function 3000,
>> > BH will be FD like FreeDOS. You also get CX=0 and BL=the
>> > kernel revision (last two digits) from int 21 function 30,
>> > for example 39 for kernel generation 2039.
>> >
>> > As FreeDOS specific extension of the system data area
>> > list of lists (use int 21 function 52 to get a pointer)
>> > you can read internal and setver-able DOS version, the
>> > revision number and a pointer to the version string.
>> >
>> > Note that FreeDOS 1.3 is the version of the distro, not
>> > of the kernel - similar things apply for Linux distros.
>> >
>> > An easy method to get the FreeDOS release string is
>> > int 21 function 33ff, which returns a pointer in DX:AX.
>> > Function 33fc can set the setver DOS version.
>> >
>> > Cheers, Eric
>>
>>
>> Yup, what he said… :-)
>>
>> If for some reason you actually need the release version number,
>> starting with FreeDOS 1.2, under the %DOSDIR% the installer
>> creates a VERSION.FDI file that contains that information.
>>
>> This assumes the user did not delete this file. Also, the
>> boot configuration file (FDAUTO.BAT) sets an environment
>> variable %OS_VERSION%. Which also assumes the
>> user does not remove it.
>>
>> At present, there is no guaranteed method to get the
>> “distro” release version. For the most part, it doesn’t matter
>> all that much what “distro” release a user is running anyway.
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Jerome
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Freedos-user mailing list
>> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>
> _______________________________________________
> Freedos-user mailing list
> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>
_______________________________________________
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
