DOS ain't dead

There wasn't any new version of HX-DOS for unusually long time :-/
When can we expect some new WIP or even final version?

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DOS-u-akbar!

> There wasn't any new version of HX-DOS for unusually long time :-/

No, v2.12 was released 4 month ago, and v2.11 8 month ago.

> When can we expect some new WIP or even final version?

I don't know. Currently, since the UIDE driver is now "gone forever", I'm thinking of translating the GPL XDMA to a 32bit JLM and adding SATA support. That's fairly easy. Who knows, maybe even some simple caching will be added ...

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MS-DOS forever!

> I'm thinking of translating the GPL XDMA to a 32bit JLM ...

Weren't there other JLMs already, e.g. clock, German keyboard driver, etc.? I never did find those (though obviously don't need the latter). Any clues to where they are (or were they just unfinished demos)?

EDIT: My bad, I see JKeybGr on the "DOS Tools" page. Still, I remember DOS386 mentioning a clock. At least, I thought so.

> Weren't there other JLMs already, e.g. clock, German keyboard driver,
> etc.? I never did find those (though obviously don't need the latter). Any
> clues to where they are (or were they just unfinished demos)?

You may find some JLMs (clock, XCDROM32, etc) in JEMM SDK (package with its source code).

P.S. I'm the author of the JLM clock. This module was corrected by Japheth (added interaction with JEMMEX API).

Well, why not but isn't it useless?
I mean - UIDE is mature product which is efficient, stable and very tiny. It occupies in memory around 1KB - your XDMA would occupy 0KB but who cares? Benefit would be questionable and it is a lot of work.
There are better candidates for it - ANSI.SYS, USB support, mouse support, NTFS...

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DOS-u-akbar!

> I mean - UIDE is mature product which is efficient, stable and very tiny.
> It occupies in memory around 1KB - your XDMA would occupy 0KB but who
> cares? Benefit would be questionable and it is a lot of work.
> There are better candidates for it - ANSI.SYS, USB support, mouse support,
> NTFS...

Almost true. However, XDMA is the only free driver which to port is NOT a lot of work.

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MS-DOS forever!

> There are better candidates for it - ANSI.SYS, USB support, mouse support,
> NTFS...

I agree with you. Probably, keyboard/display localizators(aka russificators), CDROM redirector, also may gain.

> Well, why not but isn't it useless?
> I mean - UIDE is mature product which is efficient, stable and very tiny.
> It occupies in memory around 1KB - your XDMA would occupy 0KB but who
> cares? Benefit would be questionable and it is a lot of work.
> There are better candidates for it - ANSI.SYS, USB support, mouse support,
> NTFS...

I'd be rather if will exist more complex version but handling more classes of IDE/SATA controllers.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Well, why not but isn't it useless?
> I mean - UIDE is mature product which is efficient, stable and very tiny.
> It occupies in memory around 1KB - your XDMA would occupy 0KB but who
> cares? Benefit would be questionable and it is a lot of work.
> There are better candidates for it - ANSI.SYS, USB support, mouse support,
> NTFS...

I don't miss USB or NTFS much (especially since "that big, free OS which everyone loves" already supports it among others). Besides, it wouldn't be trivial, would be very very hard. Heck, even ReactOS doesn't have USB, NTFS, or SATA yet. And would porting (N)ANSI or (CT)MOUSE bring any real benefit? (Speed???)

No, I think the simplest / most useful things would be best here. (And if that means XDMA or a clock, so be it. Besides, it's Japheth's time, so he really gets to decide what to do with it, heh.)

@Japheth: I think, only some people know that there exists JLMs... Maybe it will be good if you make seperate downloads or included it into the main zip.

> @Japheth: I think, only some people know that there exists JLMs...

Is this really true? I thought there were millions of DOS users knowing about and using it.

> Maybe it will be good if you make seperate downloads or included it into
> the main zip.

XCDROM32 is already included, and a possible XDMA32 will also be included of course.

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MS-DOS forever!

> Is this really true? I thought there were millions of DOS users knowing
> about and using it.

What did you expect? It's not UIDE.

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Forum admin

> > Is this really true? I thought there were millions of DOS users knowing
> > about and using it.
>
> What did you expect? It's not UIDE.

Thanks for this hint! I will eventually name the ported XDMA UIDE32, this should help trapping more users then.

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MS-DOS forever!

> You may find some JLMs (clock, XCDROM32, etc) in JEMM SDK (package with
> its source code).
>
> P.S. I'm the author of the JLM clock. This module was corrected by Japheth
> (added interaction with JEMMEX API).

Found and tested (JCLOCK2, at least) though I'm unsure of the actual differences b/w the two clocks. Anyways, works well, but maybe could use a "show date if Alt key pressed" feature. Or show free XMS (or whatever).

P.S. The more I think about it, the more ideas I have for future JLM projects (but I dunno how easy / practical / useful these would be as I'm not a good enough programmer):

* JLM to emulate the (few) 486 instructions (e.g. for 386)
* JLM to emulate FPU (287 or 387) (currently I only find shareware utils and haven't really tested any) -- for 386s and early 486s (e.g. my 486 Sx/25)
* JLM to fix the early Pentium FPU bug (although Intel probably replaced most of these) -- at least T.R. Nicely says it could be done (so why wasn't it? much easier to use TSR than replace the chip!)
* JLM to emulate MMX and/or 3dnow!+ instructions

BTW, is it not possible to unload JLMs? (I know, maybe a silly question.)

Laaca wrote:

> There wasn't any new version of HX-DOS for unusually long time :-/
> When can we expect some new WIP or even final version?

2.12 was released 5 months ago ... last HXRTD update was 2007-08-18 and affected DKRNL32 ... HX had had very much development in the 2 years before thus I'm NOT available for any world-wide-panic because of this issue

Nevertheless, it would be cool to see some HX updates occasionally

Issues / wishes:

- OPTIPNG 0.55 exposes a bug under HX, both with FreeDOS and EDR-DOS, not under "original Windows". It fails to save the file back under same filename (see shot), thus it occurs if input file is already PNG, can be made smaller, and no alternative output filename was given. Surprisingly PNGOUT doesn't run into such a bug although it exposes a very similar behavior.

- MPLAYER is still not stable under HX, especially omitting the "-vo gl" is a heavy crime resulting in a freezer. Even worse, 1.0RC2 seems not to work at all - unlike many SVN version between RC1 and RC2. Anyone else tested ? OTOH since there is (was / will be again soon ? ) a DGJPP port available, this might have a very low priority now

- Missing imports http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS-lists#toc11

- Yeah ... and the sound deal ...

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