DOS ain't dead

Hi! I am preparing a new release of the text editor Blocek (minor release, mainly bugfixes).

Please, feel free to test it for bugs and regresions.
Rayer reported a problem with loading files under WinXP which I am not able to reproduce.

So I introduced a secret command line switch (call "BLOCEK.EXE /d3") which creates a log file BLOCEK.LOG and writes there the process during loading the new file.
(download here)

CHANGES:
1.74
- deleting a text block sometimes crashed the program
- key "delete" sometimes incorrectly changed the scope of the text block
- the non-resident part of the keyboard handler is more compatible with WinXP
- also the resident part of the keyboard handler is improved (see TECHNOTE.TXT)
- mouse wheel works again (with DOS driver CTMouse or with DOSBOX-X)
+ optimalizations in the program messages management
* the hotkey for text block delete changed from CTRL-Space to Shift-Del
(to be consistent with one line input dialogs)
- other small bugfixes

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DOS-u-akbar!

It doesn't crash anymore so nothing to debug :)
Just wheel scrolling doesn't work (tested only under WXP yet)
...and when I quit and it asks Yes/No, keyboard doesn't work for this choice, I have to use mouse and click...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

UPDATE: mouse wheel scrolling works under DOS. But Yes/No quit dialog don't via key, just mouse.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> UPDATE: mouse wheel scrolling works under DOS. But Yes/No quit dialog don't
> via key, just mouse.

Do you have english or czech keyboard setting in your DOS/WinXP?
And I suppose that in the YES/NO dialog you press NOT just "y" or "n" but
Alt-y and ALT-n, right?

And what other dialogs with highlighted char?
And what happens when you switch to old keyboard handler (via editting the BLOCEK.CFG file) ?

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DOS-u-akbar!

Aha, sorry it works with alt keys, I was used from Dos Navigator and other programs press just y/n in such dialog...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Hi! I am preparing a new release of the text editor Blocek (minor release,
> mainly bugfixes).
>
> Please, feel free to test it for bugs and regresions.
> Rayer reported a problem with loading files under WinXP which I am not able
> to reproduce.
I just tried this RC for v 1.74, and it has the same behavior for me as in all 1.7x versions. The program loads well (but I have to manually input use_sse = 0 into default.cfg file, or I get an error), however when I open any file, for example info.txt, the system freezes. The mouse still works, but I can't input any text, change text, or exit the program without a hard reset of the system.

If I do not do any activity before opening a file, I can exit the program, go to "about, go to most other options without such a freeze, but once I actually try to type in text, whether via, "New File" or opening an existing file, the freeze happens.

The program ends except for a paging failure when started with the /? parameter.

It is not possible to enter text in the QR code generation dialog.

Hi before release I test Blocek on 3-4 physical computers and in DosBox-X. I am not able to reproduce this behaviour.
I need a detailed description of your hardware and software environment.

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DOS-u-akbar!

Hi, I just tested the final version of 1.74 on an old Acer Laptop, 1,5 GHz, IDE HD with FDT2306 and german settings.
I could start QR code interpretation, the window appeared, but I was not able to enter a text into this window.
Then I closed the window, opened an Unicode text prepared by you, marked a part and put it into one of your clipboards, created a new file and moved it from clipboard to the new file and saved it. -> worked.
Then I removed the content from clipboard, tested CTRL-C and the system crashed. Even the keyboard was dead.
Blocek 1.72 on the same machine:
QR code interpretation worked and could be saved.
CTRL-C and CTRL-V showed no results (but no crash), clipboard worked.

This differs to what I have reported about virtualbox, I am still at search for the reasons why this version crashes very often, I removed the accents in Blocek, but it did not really help.
Text cannot be entered at QR code too. And freezes are still active.
I will give it a try at two other types of virtual machines asap.

Well, it is indeed regression. I implemented a hidden system for debugging and but omitted one thing so CTRL-C invokes an exception.
For now should help to call Blocek with parameter /D2 (blocek /d2).
I hope that tomorrow I'll manage to reupload fixed version.
Anyway - the CTRL-C has no function in Blocek. For copying into clipboad you have to press CTRL-1 (or CTRL-2 or CTRL-3 ... or CTRL-7). For pasting use not CTRL-V but ALT-1 (or ALT-2 ... or ALT-7)

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DOS-u-akbar!

> Well, it is indeed regression. I implemented a hidden system for debugging
> and but omitted one thing so CTRL-C invokes an exception.
> For now should help to call Blocek with parameter /D2 (blocek /d2).
> I hope that tomorrow I'll manage to reupload fixed version.
> Anyway - the CTRL-C has no function in Blocek. For copying into clipboad
> you have to press CTRL-1 (or CTRL-2 or CTRL-3 ... or CTRL-7). For pasting
> use not CTRL-V but ALT-1 (or ALT-2 ... or ALT-7)

Please also check the missing keyboard support at qr code. It worked at none of the Freedos machines that I ran today, real machine, virtualbox, vmware player and dosbox for win.

Other bugs behaved different on these systems, I will try to check two more tomorrow.

> Other bugs behaved different on these systems, I will try to check two more
> tomorrow.

OK, the two reported bugs seem to be fixed now. The special character "c" with accent in BLOCEK is not removed in english and russian language.

english text lines, cp437: 118, 141, 228, 239, 244, 247, 249

russian text lines cp866: BLOREC (R isturned around): 117, 141, 239, 244, 248, 251, 253.
BLO_EC (no c): line 228,
BLOCEK: lines 262, 337, 341, 344, 357
I think for translation it is better to use only one version of "BLOCEK".

I had no crashes on real machine till now. Bugs are fixed.

It seems that removing the c-accent may have improved running Blocek in virtualbox, but I am not yet sure. As I had assumed, the c with accent from the english unicode text is converted correct if you choose CP852 in a text, but as the machine runs with CP858, the c with accent is showed as special f (HEX 9F) in text.
But now and then there are still unreproducable crashes. In such cases virtualbox often shows the modern version of "hourglass" (a running circle) before, I have no idea, why.

At vmware player (is a little tricky to install, you have to add:
bios.bootDelay = "5555" in the vmx file to have a chance to come into BIOS with F2 within window, floppy image is a standard image with ".flp", you have to activate it via "Player - Removable devices - floppy - connect, move out via ALT-CTRL) the move of mouse is sometimes a little strange.

DOSBox: works.

> > Other bugs behaved different on these systems, I will try to check two
> more
> > tomorrow.
>
> OK, the two reported bugs seem to be fixed now. The special character "c"
> with accent in BLOCEK is not removed in english and russian language.
>
> english text lines, cp437: 118, 141, 228, 239, 244, 247, 249
>
> russian text lines cp866: BLOREC (R isturned around): 117, 141, 239, 244,
> 248, 251, 253.
> BLO_EC (no c): line 228,
> BLOCEK: lines 262, 337, 341, 344, 357
> I think for translation it is better to use only one version of "BLOCEK".
>
> I had no crashes on real machine till now. Bugs are fixed.
>
> It seems that removing the c-accent may have improved running Blocek in
> virtualbox, but I am not yet sure. As I had assumed, the c with accent from
> the english unicode text is converted correct if you choose CP852 in a
> text, but as the machine runs with CP858, the c with accent is showed as
> special f (HEX 9F) in text.
> But now and then there are still unreproducable crashes. In such cases
> virtualbox often shows the modern version of "hourglass" (a running circle)
> before, I have no idea, why.
>
> At vmware player (is a little tricky to install, you have to add:
> bios.bootDelay = "5555" in the vmx file to have a chance to come into BIOS
> with F2 within window, floppy image is a standard image with ".flp", you
> have to activate it via "Player - Removable devices - floppy - connect,
> move out via ALT-CTRL) the move of mouse is sometimes a little strange.
>
> DOSBox: works.


Have to correct myself a little:
DOXBox with Windows: works.
DOSBox with Linux: does not work
DOSEmu with Linux: does not work.

In russian texts (BLOCEK2.RU) are the lines with "BLO[R]EC" right
(it is not normal R, but looks like reversed R in cp866 - letter "ya")
Lines with BLOCEK ("C" without carron) are also right because it speaks about filenames.
But "BLO_EC (no c): line 228," is wrong and I corrected it.


In english texts (BLOCEK2.EN) is used font Latin2 (cp852) but codepage is reported to 437. It should not by a problem but... ...maybe we should not to risk it and report the codepage as 852.

So, please try the updated message files

About the behaviour under BOSbox and DOSemu.
I do not know what mean "works" and "does not work".

It does not work at all?
It works but has random crashes?
What happens if you use an another fork of DOSbox? For Windows I provide special Blocek version bundled with DosBox-X. Have you tried Blocek under Linux version of DosBox-X?

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DOS-u-akbar!

> About the behaviour under BOSbox and DOSemu.
> I do not know what mean "works" and "does not work".
>
> It does not work at all?
> It works but has random crashes?
> What happens if you use an another fork of DOSbox? For Windows I provide
> special Blocek version bundled with DosBox-X. Have you tried Blocek under
> Linux version of DosBox-X?

I ran Linux Mint 21.2 with DOSBox 0.7.4-3 and an older DOSemu2.

In DOSBox Blocek starts and shows:
START-1/3
START-2/3
then the whole DOSBox crashes (GUI disappears).

In DOSemu the window changes to black and then crashes (GUI disappears).
It did not work in all other tests, so you can forget it completely.

I added some games from the FDT2307 CD (mistral, qtetris, vitetris, they all need cwsdpmi, some had version 5, one had version 7.
The games worked fine, I upgraded the version 5 cwsdpmi to version 7, no problem. Only Blocek crashed. I tested version 5 with Blocek, it also crashed.
So cwsdpmi seems to work (at least in parts). No idea why it causes a crash at
Blocek anywhere at end of 2/3 or at 3/3.
Hope this clears your questions.

It crashes between 2/3 and 3/3?
Interresting.
In this section Blocek reads all the configuration settings. There is nothing special what could crash the virtual machine.
But it also does two other things:
1) Disables default FPC/DJGPP handling of CTRL-C and CTRL-Break (the normal behaviour is exception which kicks off the program as you saw in the 1.74 vanilla version)
2) Makes an experiment with calling the SSE instruction.
For this purpose it redirects exception handlers for signals SIG_ILL and SIG_GPF. Then calls some SSE instruction ({movaps xmm1,xmm2}) and then reverts the SIG_ILL and SIG_GPF to original state.

I don't know whether is possible to be a bug in DOSEMU in implementation of this. On real SSE hardware is no problem. On real hardware without SSE (pentium 1) also no problem.
DOSBOX-X (at least the version which use I) also OK. But maybe other emulated environments...

I am not home today and sure about tomorrow so I can't assist you right now.
But do you some possibility to change the setting of the SSE instruction support in your virtualization?

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DOS-u-akbar!

Hi,
some more test results:
a) Blocek works with QEMU for Windows,
b) At dosbox-x for Linux I get the last message:
START 2/3 than dosbox crashes,
c) At dosbox-x for Windows I get the following messages (see screenshots):

Well let's continue in this discussin in private mails..

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DOS-u-akbar!

> Well let's continue in this discussin in private mails..
...Done.

With Laacas help I found the reason: There seems to be a bug in the actual version of dosbox-x release 2023-05.
After a standard installation dosbox-x for Windows shows the bug mentioned above.
I only needed to replace the dosbox-x.exe (nothing else) by an older version and Blocek worked fine.
Sorry for this wrong report.

Yes, sometimes emulation/virtualization is buggy/inaccurate (regardless someone mumbles virtualization mantra solves everything) and we shouldn't blame original program. And sometimes is good to keep older version(s) in case a new bug is introduced (1 fixed bug may generate 1 or more other bugs :)

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

A new version of dosbox-x is out, Blocek 1.74b seems to work with this version under Windows now.