Yeah, all of the x86 single board computers are well over the $100 mark,
and some are as high as 400, so that's a nonstarter. I have yet to find
one that is an X86 SBC for a lower price point. If I was going to spend
400 bucks, I'd not bother with a single board computer, I'd get a real one.
That's the issue I keep finding. That one the guys on that forum made
is (currently) the only one I've found that doesn't cose more than 100
bucks for an X86 SBC capable of running dos. They're using for running
dos games, but no reason we can't use it for other things.
On 10/18/2024 11:43 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote:
Hi! Just to clarify:
I am *not* planning to transform a RPi into a standalone "DOS
computer that talks". That was Eric's idea. A perfectly valid idea
with possible practical applications, but outside of my specific
interest.
Not transform. You run DOS in an emulator. Only the emulator
runs on the RPi hardware, DOS does not. As Mateusz has shown
with EMUBNS, you can tell an emulator that the virtual serial
port has to be connected to something virtual. This can be,
for example, a simulation of a speech synthesizer connected
to that, not actually existing, serial port. The simulation
uses a Linux software speech synthesizer, but it looks like
a hardware one for the DOS inside the emulator and for DOS,
it makes no difference on which hardware the emulator is
physically is running. It may even be running on a phone.
Of course, using linux and virtual emulation to make a dos subsystem
can work, and that's how dosemu works (well, now there's dosemu2,
which I can't get to work), but again, those use emulation...
Yet that is what I actually meant. DOS in an emulator on a
machine which runs a speech synthesizer software, while DOS
thinks it is connected to a speech synthesizer hardware.
The ORIGINAL suggestion was to turn the RPi into a HARDWARE
simulation of a speech synthesizer. So you connect another
computer to the serial port of the RPi and the RPi uses a
collection of software to pretend that the RPi IS a speech
synthesizer hardware. The other computer, which can be a
computer physically capable of running DOS without needing
an emulator, will not be able to tell the difference.
As far as running dosemu2 on RPi, the maintainers of that
software think it should be easy to compile for the RPi,
but because they have no RPi, they cannot provide pre
compiled binaries for the RPi. Having to compile dosemu2
oneself is a bit tedious, so maybe somebody could help us
by compiling it and sharing the binaries with more people.
A quick search for x86 single board computers suggests:
- Normal computers in the smaller standard form factors
Mini ITX, Nano ITX and Pico ITX
- All-in-one single board computers such as the
LattePanda family, ODROID H3, UDOO Bolt and similar
http://docs.lattepanda.com/content/3rd_delta_edition/specification/
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h3/
https://www.makeuseof.com/5-best-x86-single-board-computers-in-2023/
However, I have significant doubts that such SBC with x86
processor still come with a DOS compatible BIOS. They may
be limited to running UEFI compatible operating systems.
Does anybody here have one of those? Can they run DOS?
a real shame, there's so much legacy software out there that could
benefit from such a system, I'm honestly extremely surprised...
Modern computers simply have too much power, so you can just
run DOS at full speed on emulators instead, even if those
run on hardware which has nothing to do with DOS any more.
Regards, Eric
_______________________________________________
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
