DOS ain't dead

Does anybody have or know about a driver/utility for PC speaker, that could set the volume (probably through PWM) under pure DOS? I just have 4 for W3.x and W95, they can do it.

SBPlay is a sound file player with drivers for cards and the internal speaker.
Download: ftp://ftp.externet.hu/pub/mirror/sac/sound/sbply258.zip

> Does anybody have or know about a driver/utility for PC speaker, that could
> set the volume (probably through PWM) under pure DOS? I just have 4 for
> W3.x and W95, they can do it.

Volume control depends on application itself - there's no universal speaker driver in DOS. E.g. FastTracker II, the module player, have adjustable output for PC speaker, Covox LPT DAC, SB...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Well, he could make a hardware driver
Just add some resistor into cable to the speaker.

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DOS-u-akbar!

Isn't there a TSR program that could
- make possible to set the volume of the PC speaker (I have 4 programs, they can do it, but unfortunately just for/under Win 3.x and 9x)
- redirect sound from any application to PC speaker?

> Isn't there a TSR program that could
> - make possible to set the volume of the PC speaker (I have 4 programs,
> they can do it, but unfortunately just for/under Win 3.x and 9x)
> - redirect sound from any application to PC speaker?

No. It's a complicated task with no real gain. Why don't you just buy a real sound card?

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Forum admin

> No. It's a complicated task with no real gain. Why don't you just buy a
> real sound card?

I have a 6yearold laptop(+MS-DOS 6.22) and ~unfortunately~ Realtek AC'97 sound chip is inside. I searched long time for a DOS driver on the net, but without success.

> Isn't there a TSR program that could
> - make possible to set the volume of the PC speaker
> - redirect sound from any application to PC speaker?

But why would you want any of that? The sound from PC speakers is terrible.

> I have a 6yearold laptop(+MS-DOS 6.22) and ~unfortunately~ Realtek AC'97

Please give some details (manufacturer, model) about your laptop!

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Forum admin

> But why would you want any of that? The sound from PC speakers is
> terrible.

Do you think so? Have you ever played games like Pinball Fantasies/Illusions with sound through PC speaker?

> Please give some details (manufacturer, model) about your laptop!

ACER TravelMate 661 LMi. Is it enough or should I post GC, SC as well?
I'm asking for the PC speaker driver, because besides laptop I have an old P200 PC and a 486 laptop with malfunction sound chip.

> No. It's a complicated task with no real gain. Why don't you just buy a
> real sound card?

Why "no real gain"? I disagree. The PC speaker sound is honest. It's somehow like switching from modern 'pop music' to "rock" of the 70ties.

The task could be easily done with a JLM, at least for real-mode games. Cheating protected-mode games is tricky, though.

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MS-DOS forever!

> ACER TravelMate 661 LMi.

Oh, I see. That's indeed AC'97 only. But this laptop is fast enough to run some decent Windows version. Then you could run some DOS/PC emulator. Of course, this doesn't help to evolve real DOS.

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Forum admin

> Why "no real gain"? I disagree. The PC speaker sound is honest. It's
> somehow like switching from modern 'pop music' to "rock" of the 70ties.

OK, but you can't compare an old desktop's real PC speaker with modern buzzers in laptops.

> The task could be easily done with a JLM, at least for real-mode games.

Yes, I had this in mind, but who will do it?
Maybe I would pay some bucks for an AC'97-to-SoundBlaster JLM.

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Forum admin

> Do you think so? Have you ever played games like Pinball
> Fantasies/Illusions with sound through PC speaker?

Hehe, I understand you. I didn't have soundcard in my 1st PC so I player a lot of games on squeaker. To boost the effect I mount 3.5mm jack outlet in front of my case, connected to speaker and then plugged cable to my PA to make it louder and hardcore :) Also great for listening modules. But Covox have much better sound (http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/covox.htm), unfortunately there's no much games that support it.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> they can do it, but unfortunately just for/under Win 3.x and 9x)
> - redirect sound from any application to PC speaker?

It's not so simply as you think. Windows apps use various sound API (e.g. direct sound, MCI...) and API then call driver functions. So it's possible to replace one low level layer for soundcard by another for PC speaker.

DOS programs moslty use direct acces to speaker IO ports so there's no place where to insert another layer.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> The task could be easily done with a JLM, at least for real-mode games.
> Cheating protected-mode games is tricky, though.

I don't know much details but it would be some IOPL bitmat in v86 mode so you can trap access to specific port? So then if DOS app call some outporb(spkrio,value) JEMM will catch it and grab the value and process it itself? But in case of soundcard emulation it would be more complicated when using IRQ and DMAs. Unfortunately I never programmed a soundblaster so I have no clue how it works. Just guess you put say 64kB of sample in memory buffer, setup DMA to transfer it to soundcard and DSP generate IRQ when buffer is empty (resp. better 1/2 is empty to avoid clicks) and the ISR will fill another sample blocks in buffer...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Maybe I would pay some bucks for an AC'97-to-SoundBlaster JLM.

"Sounds" good . How many bucks will you put on the table?

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MS-DOS forever!

> > Maybe I would pay some bucks for an AC'97-to-SoundBlaster JLM.
>
> "Sounds" good . How many bucks will you put on the table?

200 EUR if it really works. Not very much, but better than nothing. Maybe others would like to pay too... But you must release it under a confirmed open-source license, e.g., BSD, zlib.

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Forum admin

> 200 EUR if it really works. Not very much, but better than nothing.

Tempting. However, the condition "if it really works" seems hard IMO.

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MS-DOS forever!

> Tempting. However, the condition "if it really works" seems hard IMO.

I would also support the development by spending some bucks - from the beginn. approx. 100 EUR.

> > 200 EUR if it really works. Not very much, but better than nothing.
>
> Tempting. However, the condition "if it really works" seems hard IMO.

Sorry! Are you trapped now?

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Forum admin

> > 200 EUR if it really works. Not very much, but better than nothing.
>
> Tempting. However, the condition "if it really works" seems hard IMO.

You'd probably be better off by just putting up a PayPal (or whatever) donations button on your site like FASM (and not expecting to "win the lottery" from it, heh).

Or do something like VIM does: voting for features (with no guarantee of anything, though)

> 87 -44 (-45) 1 -27 improve the 16 bit DOS version
> (avoid out-of-memory problems)

Wow, 87th on the "todo" list, and only one person (not me!) voting for it, heh.

> You'd probably be better off by just putting up a PayPal (or whatever)
> donations button on your site like FASM (and not expecting to "win the
> lottery" from it, heh).

Thanks, rug, your valuable hints are appreciated!

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MS-DOS forever!

> Does anybody have or know about a driver/utility for PC speaker, that could
> set the volume (probably through PWM) under pure DOS? I just have 4 for
> W3.x and W95, they can do it.

here is an interesting app:

virtual sound blaster
http://zap.eltrast.ru/en/dldos.html
http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/vsb/src.zip

> here is an interesting app:
>
> virtual sound blaster
> http://zap.eltrast.ru/en/dldos.html
> http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/vsb/src.zip

Seen it before, but it only works with real mode stuff (e.g. supposedly not Doom, which uses DOS/4GW) and it requires a fairly fast 386 (or similar). Also, it only emulates digital stuff (and only partially that). Hasn't been updated since 1995. Plus, no source.

> Plus, no source.

This is incorrect. The download link to the source was already given.

> > virtual sound blaster
> > http://zap.eltrast.ru/en/dldos.html
> > http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/vsb/src.zip
>
> Seen it before, but it only works with real mode stuff

There's a QEMM version - see below.

> Plus, no source.

?? The link is right there! Package includes the binary and docs that are in the package at the author's site, plus other real mode and QEMM binaries. Also includes the binary, doc and source from the author's Tandy/PC Jr. sound emulator package, available separately at his site.

Author's site, in English and Russian:
http://zap.eltrast.ru/

> There's a QEMM version - see below.

But who has QEMM?! (Not me. Maybe it works with JEMMEX, I dunno.)

> ?? The link is right there! Package includes the binary and docs that are
> in the package at the author's site, plus other real mode and QEMM
> binaries. Also includes the binary, doc and source from the author's
> Tandy/PC Jr. sound emulator package, available separately at his site.

Sorry, I only tried the first link, and it didn't list sources anywhere. I must've overlooked the second (must've thought it was a mirror or something, bah). Anyways, it's in TASM, which kinda sucks, but doesn't matter since I have no (coding) interest in it (or skill, heh).

Has someone here contacted the author? Just curious if he'd be willing to resurrect it (or whatever).

> Anyways, it's in TASM, which kinda sucks

TASM has some known bugs, but at least it remembers the size of the symbols defined and it also accepts a "-d" cmdline parameter. Thus it sucks significantly less than NASM or FASM ... IMO

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MS-DOS forever!

Btw: Still waiting for your brand new SoundBlaster JLM and a QEMU keyboard bug test case.

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Forum admin

> Btw: Still waiting for your brand new SoundBlaster JLM and a QEMU keyboard
> bug test case.

This is "desperately" off-topic, even for a "Btw". It's on my todo list, btw.

Btw: I'm not totally happy with the "DOS ain't dead" forum name. From a "marketing" point of view, such a name is slightly unwise.

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MS-DOS forever!

> This is "desperately" off-topic, even for a "Btw". It's on my todo list,
> btw.

OK

> Btw: I'm not totally happy with the "DOS ain't dead" forum name. From a
> "marketing" point of view, such a name is slightly unwise.

Please explain!

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Forum admin

> Please explain!

It's very simple: if you want to "sell" something, avoid negations and words with possible negative impacts. That doesn't mean I'd suggest to change the name from "DOS ain't dead" to "DOS is alive" .

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MS-DOS forever!

> That doesn't mean I'd suggest to
> change the name from "DOS ain't dead" to "DOS is alive" .

> Does anybody have or know about a driver/utility for PC speaker, that could
> set the volume (probably through PWM) under pure DOS?

1. There is none.
2. A good sound player will let you set the volume, no need for a stupid "driver".
3. "PWM" is already (mostly) used to control the speaker
4. Just connect a variable resistor to your internal speaker, or connect the speaker output of your mainboard to the input of an "active" speaker box having a volume control button

> I just have 4 for W3.x and W95, they can do it.

Indeed ... this a an example about how some people prefer a horrible mess from a simple solution for a simple problem

... and how "windows" introduced the driver mess and destroyed any hardware standards ... finally damaging all other OS'es, and mostly DOS

... plus one reason why millions of lines of buggy code "must" be written to provide such "useful features" ... hack over hack over hack ... and why some "modern OS" or "modern software" bloats to many GiB of space for no reason

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This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

Vehudis wrote:

> Isn't there a TSR program that could
> - make possible to set the volume of the PC speaker (I have 4 programs,
> they can do it, but unfortunately just for/under Win 3.x and 9x)
> - redirect sound from any application to PC speaker?

NO. There is no (reasonable) way to do something like this.

About "PC" speaker volume, use a hardware "driver".

About "Redirect" - from ISA SB card ? - no easy solution, buy such a card, or BOCHS/QEMU - but then it will redirect to PCI sound card/chip, not "PC" speaker, and this might happen in future, no PCI sound support in HX now

rr wrote:

> No. It's a complicated task with no real gain.

Very true ...

> Why don't you just buy a real sound card ?

The cards are mostly crappy and undocumented ... the PC speaker still works best for me ... but hogs much CPU performance, and newer PC's have mostly poor or no such speakers anymore

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > Anyways, it's in TASM, which kinda sucks
>
> TASM has some known bugs, but at least it remembers the size of the
> symbols defined and it also accepts a "-d" cmdline parameter. Thus it
> sucks significantly less than NASM or FASM ... IMO

TASM ain't free or open source, doesn't support x86-64, is bloated, only outputs to OBJ, but at least it supports MASM compatibility (and your precious strucs, macros: irp, ifnb, and other such muck).

NASM and FASM do accept "-d" now (as does YASM or Watcom's WASM). FASM is probably the fastest assembler (even with including opcode size optimizations) and has several IDEs. Granted, this isn't as apparent on newer machines, but I was messing with my 486 the other day, and I can see where it would be significant (e.g. VIA C3 or similar). But hey, to each his own.

> > That doesn't mean I'd suggest to
> > change the name from "DOS ain't dead" to "DOS is alive" .
>
>

DOS isn't dead, it undead. You can't kill it (believe me, MS tried).

Japheth wrote:

> TASM has some known bugs, but at least it remembers the size of the
> symbols defined and it also accepts a "-d" cmdline parameter. Thus it
> sucks significantly less than NASM or FASM ... IMO

FASM and NASM are free, TASM isn't ... thus TASM sucks IMO

And, FASM reportedly supports "-D" now

Rugxulo wrote:

> TASM ain't free or open source, doesn't support x86-64

Desperately useless

> is bloated

The most unbloated is FASM

> only outputs to OBJ

No binary ?

> FASM is probably
...
> and has several IDEs

Please point me to to the other ones (besides FASMD)

> DOS isn't dead, it undead. You can't kill it (believe me, MS tried).

With help of people who refuse to format their HD if necessary

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> NASM and FASM do accept "-d" now (as does YASM or Watcom's WASM).

FASM supports -d? Wow, very good. I thought it refuses cmdline parameters "by design"? Has this changed recently?

> FASM is
> probably the fastest assembler (even with including opcode size
> optimizations) and has several IDEs. Granted, this isn't as apparent on
> newer machines, but I was messing with my 486 the other day, and I can see
> where it would be significant (e.g. VIA C3 or similar).

FASM still sucks because it doesn't support OMF output format, can't create proper listings and has no support for debug info ...

> But hey, to each his own.

Yes, but YOU started this nice little battle with your cheap shots at TASM. I will defend MASM and TASM, especially if the shots come from someone who hasn't proved yet that he is able to write non-trivial programs in assembly. Did you already?

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MS-DOS forever!

Is there anything at all that's good enough for you?

> > NASM and FASM do accept "-d" now (as does YASM or Watcom's WASM).
>
> FASM supports -d? Wow, very good. I thought it refuses cmdline parameters
> "by design"? Has this changed recently?

The goal was to not have to use too many specific cmdline options just to get correct and identical output each time. It's much easier if it always generates the same output by default.

I dunno the exact reasoning behind -m and -p (I think perhaps to speed up assembly for large projects), but Tomasz (FASM creator) was recently convinced by vid (FASMLIB author) that it was intolerable trying to assemble such a multi-OS project (Win32, Linux) easily without such an option. Both are very smart, so I imagine they had lots of esoteric cases to consider before even considering such a solution. So now, it's "up to the user" to use -d responsibly. "With power comes great responsibility." (And technically, some people on the forum had complained about the lack of such option and even one wrote their own hack to implement it. But Tomasz has a broader sense of it all than, say, me so I can't truly second guess him.)

> FASM still sucks because it doesn't support OMF output format, can't
> create proper listings and has no support for debug info ...

1). Use Agner's OBJCONV. Or write it entirely in FASM (hence not needing to link with something else). I know, not perfect solution, but OBJ is a complex beast, so it's non-trivial to implement. You may as well use NASM (or LZASM or something old like ArrowASM or the imperfect Watcom assembler) if you desire it so badly.

2). 1.67.23 had a patch to allow listing output, which is much better than nothing. However, Tomasz hasn't updated it yet (it broke when he tweaked some stuff). My FreeDOS disk #3 has the DOS FASMLIST.EXE (1.67.23).

3). He has been somewhat planning Mach-O format (but doesn't have a Mac), FASM 2 (but doesn't have time), as well as debug formats (but didn't perfectly like any pre-existing formats). Also, two of his computers fizzed out recently, so that didn't help him any. :-/

FASM isn't perfect, I never said it was. But it's very very good. However, if you have reasons to use another, feel free. However, I don't personally see any huge advantages TASM has (anymore) over most other assemblers.

> > But hey, to each his own.
>
> Yes, but YOU started this nice little battle with your cheap shots at
> TASM.

TASM is not bad, but I do kinda hate ideal mode. I never understood how it made everything "so simple". Back in the day, it was faster than MASM (and cheaper?). I mean, it supports powerful macros (which I nevertheless shun for their complexity). So, feel free to use it. I don't want to, however.

> I will defend MASM and TASM, especially if the shots come from
> someone who hasn't proved yet that he is able to write non-trivial
> programs in assembly. Did you already?

Sorry if my knocks against TASM's strucs, macros, etc. was rude to you, that was not my intention. I just don't particularly like all that cruft at all. And no, I have no Comp. Sci. degree, never wrote my own OS, compiler, compressor, or anything of that sort. All I write are dinky utils for my own use (hobbyist). So yes, I suck. It's not that MASM or TASM are bad, but I prefer something else.

As for non-trivial, do FASMW and FASMD not count? DexOS? MenuetOS? Various .DLLs and other things (FASMLIB, PROE). This proves that FASM is not a "toy". But surely I am not (nor ever will be) a good example (IDT, LGDT, etc. all confuse me beyond belief).

P.S. DOS386, the other FASM IDEs I was referring to were FASMW (Win32) and Fresh (Win32, discontinued). And there's also the external IDE plugin by shoorick for WinAsm Studio.

Japheth wrote:

> FASM supports -d?

YES.

> Wow, very good.



> I thought it refuses cmdline parameters "by design"?

YES. But here we have a reasonable exception from this rule

> Has this changed recently?

YES.

> FASM still sucks because it doesn't support OMF output format

Tomasz doesn't like OMF

> can't create proper listings

I have no idea why he doesn't include the listing code into the main versions

Rugxulo wrote:

> Use Agner's OBJCONV.

32-bit only ?

> Or write it entirely in FASM (hence not needing to link with something else)



> but OBJ is a complex beast, so it's non-trivial to implement.

As Tomasz said

> You may as well use NASM (or LZASM

OK ...

> or something old like ArrowASM

Joking ? I prefer NOT to use db for encoding every 3rd instruction

> or the imperfect Watcom assembler

or imperfect Po-ASM :

> > POASM iss not MASM. Again, RTFM.

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > Use Agner's OBJCONV.
>
> 32-bit only ?

Probably, but I dunno, haven't really needed it yet.

> Joking ? I prefer NOT to use db for encoding every 3rd instruction
>

Then write only 16-bit code with it! Seriously, people lived with less than a 386 for quite a while. It's possible!! (Actually, the only advantages ArrowASM has are supporting OBJ and old MASM 3.0 compatibility. Well, and probably itself running on an 8086.)

> or imperfect Po-ASM :
>
> > > POASM iss not MASM. Again, RTFM.

I think POASM doesn't handle 16-bit at all. But it does support 32-bit and 64-bit (last I heard). Not sure if it's meant to be for anything more than inline asm for Pelles C, though.

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Know your limits.h

> > or something old like ArrowASM
>
> Joking ? I prefer NOT to use db for encoding every 3rd instruction
>

Then you're doing something wrong. I don't need 386's instructions to code in assembly language.

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Forum admin

> > I thought it refuses cmdline parameters "by design"?
>
> YES. But here we have a reasonable exception from this rule

Good joke!

> Tomasz doesn't like OMF

Sounds "reasonable" .

> > > POASM iss not MASM. Again, RTFM.

I see, you're a frequent visitor of many boards

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MS-DOS forever!

Rugxulo wrote:

> Then write only 16-bit code with it! Seriously, people lived
> with less than a 386 for quite a while. It's possible!!

YES, but I prefer having 32-bit also supported, and one ASM for both 16-bit and 32-bit code

And, it was you who repeatedly boasted with the desperately useless xxx-64 support of whatever ("free"-PASCAL) in DOS (does it work for you in DOS ? benefits ?) forums - so what CPU's do you prefer ?

rr wrote:

> Then you're doing something wrong.

NO.

> I don't need 386's instructions to code in assembly language.

OK, caring about 8086-compatibility where appropriate is good , but still I prefer 32-bit DOS from stupid "16-bit MS-DOG subsystem" inside Loonix or Vi$ta, requiring (no problem ?) > 1 GHz CPU's to boot up in less than 1 hour and to be at least acceptably responsive

And, with 8086 assembly you can compete against some poor 80286/80386 code written is some HLL, but not against Adobe Photosh** , WMP or Firefox running on quad-core xxx-64 at 4 GHz

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> YES, but I prefer having 32-bit also supported, and one ASM for both
> 16-bit and 32-bit code

Not unreasonable.

> And, it was you who repeatedly boasted with the desperately useless
> xxx-64 support of whatever ("free"-PASCAL) in DOS (does it work for
> you in DOS ? benefits ?) forums - so what CPU's do you prefer ?

I don't know Pascal, but them adding support for Win64 was supposedly the first OSS compiler to do so. I thought that was impressive. No, I haven't tested the DOS port.

> > I don't need 386's instructions to code in assembly language.
>
> OK, caring about 8086-compatibility where appropriate is good , but
> still I prefer 32-bit DOS from stupid "16-bit MS-DOG subsystem" inside
> Loonix or Vi$ta, requiring (no problem ?) > 1 GHz CPU's to boot up in less
> than 1 hour and to be at least acceptably responsive

Vista's desktop is much more responsive quicker than XP. Granted, Aero is pretty useless and a memory hog, but hey, people are gfx whores.

BTW, if you like 32-bit DOSes, have you tried ZDOS? (Me either.)

> And, with 8086 assembly you can compete against some poor 80286/80386 code
> written is some HLL, but not against Adobe Photosh** , WMP or Firefox
> running on quad-core xxx-64 at 4 GHz

You mean Mac Pro running 2 x 3 Ghz. Intel Xeon Core 2 "Penryn" Quad (But $3600?? Uh hell no.)

> BTW, if you like 32-bit DOSes, have you tried
> ZDOS?
> (Me either.)

I tried ZDOS but it didn't make me happy. It seems to be some preprealpha. I booted successfully from a floppy on my machine. Zebor FDISK didn't run. FreeFDISK 0.98 hangs when runing twice. Framebuffer driver didn't work - it displayed thate mode was set ok but still the same. I tried to run some basic DOS programs but got many many crashes, hangs and garbage screen floodfils (eg. some basic utils like tree.com) Only some small programs can run there, like micro manager or advanced fullscreen debugger. But don't expect you can run DJGPP progs. Maybe when you made special zdos app with bundled OW it will works fine but compat. with existing progs is poor.
Also when I played with trying what programs run it somehow made a file "????????.COM" on my partition and I cannot delete it normal way (diskeditor was needed). Also it didn't saw my FAT32 partitions I though it can.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.