On 4/20/2021 7:59 AM, Thomas Desi wrote:
If using a USB keyboard (and USB mouse), there is the problem that
when starting the USB driver (USBUHCI from Bret Johnsons USButils
collection), the Keyboard stops working. So you can’t start the
keyboard driver next, which seems should done to get somewhere. Mr.
Johnson was kindly replying to my inquiry on this.
So my approach at the moment ist using a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse to
avoid this problem. („Hardware solution“)
Using a USB keyboard (and/or mouse) is likely to work in +90% of all
cases, as most computer BIOS support that at the hardware level, without
the need of any USB drivers for those devices. All the computers that I
have so far tried to install DOS on (and that have USB ports to begin
with) are doing this just fine.
As Eric ed. al. are pointing out, I have to agree that USB isn’t at
all what I thought it was: neither „Universal“ in the sense of „easy“
nor „universal including DOS".
On my ITX with a recent Bios. that Bios lets me use USB mouse and
keyboard nicely right from booting, also a trackpad with no problem.
So it also seems to be much a question what the inbuilt BIOS supports.
see above
Regarding printing I think there are two basic concepts:
Using fonts from the printer (I call this „generic“, but maybe this is
my private lingo)
or using graphics from the computer.
As I am only interested in printing out pure text (A-Z, 1-0 :) I
wonder if you attempt to print out graphics or some special fonts or so?
Might make a difference, too?
Well, when printing from DOS, there are actually two and a half hurdles.
The first one is at the software level. Without any additional software,
a printer being used from DOS needs to be able to receive plain text,
with additional capabilities either through the industry standard ESC/P
(developed by Epson, who was for a long time the leader in printers
before laser printers started to show up, then they kind of missed the
bus) or by being "LaserJet II" (PCL3) compatible. An additional hurdle
is that a lot of (El Cheapo) printers these days aren't actually
processing "text/graphics into pixel" themselves anymore, but just
expect to get all the final pixel data from the OS, which is not a
problem for GUI OS like Windows or macOS, but pretty much is a no-go
when printing from DOS. Full stop.
The second one is the physical connection between the computer and the
printer. And here's most likely where today soft brown matter hits a
fast rotating appliance. DOS as designed only supports good old parallel
(as in Centronics) or RS-232 type serial connections. Both of those are
rare as hen's teeth on both newer computers and/or printers. But this
will likely to 99.9% work right out of the box. Another possibility is
printing on a networked printer, if that printer is accessible through
an established network connection. Used to be a breeze back in the days
on a Novell network, is a bit harder these days when you require SMB
(and likely the nowadays frowned upon SMB 1.x protocol). But the whole
networking on DOS these days is lik going down a really dark rabbit hole...
That leaves us once again with the dreaded (from the viewpoint of
operability in DOS) USB connected printers. Finding USB drivers, given
that the printer is software compatible with DOS as mentioned above,
will likely be an exercise in futility. If someone has a surefire way of
doing that (where I personally would even except non-FOSS solutions),
specially one that wouldn't interfere with any other USB drivers, like
for storage media, I would be happy to hear about it. And just to cover
all bases, the "serial" in USB has absolutely nothing to with the old
and venerable RS-232 style serial connections, it is something that is
FAR more complex...
Ralf
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