Hi,
On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 8:06 PM dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:20 PM Rugxulo <rugx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:36 PM dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:19 PM Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Bocke adds this: (I think FTP is just broken in the major browsers now,
> > > > alas!)
> > >
> > > It is broken and will *not* be fixed.
> >
> > I assume this is moreso due to unneeded extra maintenance rather than
> > just dislike for it.
>
> No, it's because it is no longer *necessary*. You can do the same
> thing in other ways. If you can, why bother with FTP?
In case you haven't noticed, FTP is much simpler to implement than
Curl or Wget. Those are incredibly complex, especially for DOS.
However, it's unavoidable these days, things are too complicated
elsewhere to rely on "simple" FTP exclusively (or if at all).
> And please note, I said it was deprecated and would not be fixed *in
> the browsers*. This does not mean it won't live on in other places.
I still assume this is more of "we don't need it, we don't have time"
rather than "we don't like it" reasoning.
> FreeDOS (and any other form of DOS) is increasingly locked out of
> access to the wider world, because it does not and *cannot* support
> the methods now used.
I get it, FreeDOS will never rule the world and will never support
100% of everything. Even if it IS possible (as most things are),
there's not enough skilled workers to do it. Those with the skills
lack motivation and/or time. So it won't get done. However, it's not
true that FreeDOS can do "nothing". The fact that we don't have
Javascript in a web browser is less of an impossibility and more of a
simple lack of effort. DOS can at least crunch numbers, edit text,
compile stuff, and run some games, even multimedia (within reason).
It's just not "do everything like Linux or Windows". And that's okay.
> I suppose it's significant that you *could* get DOSBox X to run on top
> of FreeDOS using HX, but why would you *do* that? What do you get
> from doing it?.
>
> I am honestly curious about what use case you might have beyond "Let's
> see whether I *can*... '
For me, I've only tested it a few times for fun. I had no pressing need for it.
Having said that, I imagine that the adjustable speed or various cpu
configs can help identify bottlenecks, cpu incompatibilities, and
certainly being able to take screenshots is always a plus. (If, for
some bizarre reason, HX supported your sound card, you could then say
it's able to emulate other sound cards successfully, which would also
be very nice.)
But there are other ways of doing similar tasks (usually TSRs): SNARF,
SLOWDOWN, etc.
> > BIOS and CSM are basically dead, so it's probably under emulator (e.g.
> > QEMU). So what? Better than nothing (especially since most new
> > computers "supposedly" have VT-X! Great!)
>
> If you *can* run DOS under emulsion, splendid. DOSBox exists to let
> folks who want to play DOS games do so on things that *aren't* PCs.
> (I got a few DOS apps up under DOSBox on an ARM based Android tablet,
> using an ARM port of DOSBox.)
DOSBox is meant to be portable, so there's no emphasis on VT-X or any
other x86-specific cpu extensions. It's also "only for games" (at
least upstream, forks are free to expand upon that).
> Folks trying to run DOS on bare metal on old hardware that still has a
> BIOS will have challenges.
I still use my old Dell laptop (with a BIOS) for FreeDOS (and bootable
jump drives). It actually came with a Diagnostics partition and tools
that were running atop DRMK ("Dell Real Mode Kernel", aka modified
DR-DOS)!
The whole point of my minimal MetaDOS distro was to facilitate using
FreeDOS under VMs like QEMU or VirtualBox. But I half-relied on FTP
quite heavily (mTCP), only using Wget (or Curl) when forced. In part,
this was because of iBiblio.org mirroring FreeDOS files. The other
reason was because mTCP supported 8086 while Wget or Curl would need
386 DPMI. But I guess FTP is almost a lost cause. So MetaDOS was never
anything less than 386+, even if I tried to keep as many pieces as
possible to the lowest common denominator. Long story short: if I ever
make an update (unlikely), I'll probably include CURLLITE.EXE (386
DPMI) by default.
> > I wish I knew how to run FreeDOS on a generic Chromebook like this
> > one. (I've tried Linux cmdline support [beta] before, it wasn't bad,
> > but it needs 10 GB of space, yikes!)
>
> I fail to understand why it needs 10GB of space, unless you are trying
> to run Linux *instead* of ChromeOS. But 10GB is not a significant
> amount of space these days.
It's trying to run Linux (Debian? cmdline only) under KVM (QEMU via
VT-X). And 10 GB is a lot, especially when these Chromebooks don't
barely have 16 GB total! (My bad for having such a low-end device. I
tried "Linux (beta)" (under ChromeOS) before, a year ago, successfully
... but not lately. But it's truly tedious trying to pare down bloated
distros, so I don't blame them much. PuppyLinux is usually lean,
though.)
> What you *want* is a port of DOSBox that will run on ChromeOS and not
> need Linux.. Good luck.
I'm not sure, but I infer that Chromebooks are more for business /
school rather than gaming. In fact, I think the whole kernel and setup
is optimized not for games at all. The timing of a lot of things is
off. Not that I care, just saying ... I think emphasis is more on
video / video conferencing / audio rather than actual gaming. But I
could be wrong. I'm out of the loop, honestly.
> > > (Most interest I see in DOS these days is in running old DOS *games*,
> > > where communication with the outside world is not a factor. Those
> > > folks won't care about FTP, and may have never used it.).
The whole "Linux (beta)" add-on download (which, IIRC, originally was
only 300 MB) was to enable some simple cmdline tool usage, e.g. simple
things like Sed or AWK or REXX would be nice. It had VIM, which is
very nice (and syntax highlighting).
> > I hope Jim (and Eric and Tom and Jerome and Bart and Jeremy and Robert
> > and ...) all realize how much I adore FreeDOS and have appreciated it
> > over the years. My only complaint is that I couldn't contribute more.
> > FreeDOS is great! (Now if only the rest of the world knew that.)
>
> I'm sure all here understand and appreciate your efforts.
Moreso I just meant overall there were a lot of good people and good
programs that I've tried to appreciate by actually using those
programs! I just wish I could organize a little better in order to
accomplish even more (admittedly trivial stuff). So DOS isn't dead,
it's alive ... if only under QEMU (another brilliant suite of tools).
We can still use DJGPP, FPC, FBC, NASM, FASM, Sed, AWK, REXX, Lua,
etc. etc. There's plenty that can be improved, and it's always fun.
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