DOS ain't dead

I succeed to boot FreeDOS on Compaq EVO T20 thin client but facing next challenge. T20 has not PS/2 port just USB and it is "proud" to be
legacy free so lacks USB legacy support (not at all, BIOS
can handle USB keyboard to detect press of specific keys
to invoke FW downaload but later it doesn't work).
It's based on AMD Geode GX1 CPU and CS5530A chipset including USB OHCI.
Do you know about some USB HID driver? Or where to get some usable
sopurces to start?
I just tried to run DUSE 4.9 on T20 and it displays
OHCI USB Controller initialized (BASE 0xCC000, IRQ 6)
so it seem it recognize it OK but DUSE is only for
USB mass storage devices.

Or maybe it would be easier to make some HW mod adding some MCU which
will emulate 8042 connected on system bus, I don't know...
BTW CS5530A also support gameport. some of its pins are on outer BGA balls
so I can connect there. Maybe it would be enough for simle controlling.

Note: The datasheet is talking about USB legacy kbd support but not much detailed. Probably it's meant in conjunction with some bios code:

The CS5530A integrates a Universal Serial Bus (USB) controller
which supports two ports. The USB controller is
OpenHCI compliant, a standard developed by Compaq,
Microsoft, and National Semiconductor. The USB core consists
of three main interface blocks: the USB PCI interface
controller, the USB host controller, and the USB interface
controller. Legacy keyboard and mouse controllers are also
supported for DOS compatibility with those USB devices.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Try:

DOSUSB (m.b. Georg Potthast)

This could be also useful:
ohci.exe from USBlink (m.b. Softconnex Tech.)

> DOSUSB (m.b. Georg Potthast)
>
> This could be also useful:
> ohci.exe from USBlink (m.b. Softconnex Tech.)

Georg's driver hangs at startup. I contacted him. The same for Softconnex driver but it is mouse driver not keyboard. E.g. Duse 4.9 detected onboard OHCI well. But I need HID not only mass storage.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.KeyboardAndMouse

Btw, why Category Developers?

> http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.KeyboardAndMouse

Hm, I already have seen this page but what's there releated to usb keyboard problem? They rely on USB legacy emulation which is NOT AVAILABLE on T20 (or disabled some way)

> Btw, why Category Developers?

Maybe if there are some free usb driver sources for dos I would put some effort to make a kbd driver but it's hard to do entirely from a scratch (I have never played with USB on such level) :\

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.KeyboardAndMouse
>
> Hm, I already have seen this page but what's there releated to usb
> keyboard problem? They rely on USB legacy emulation which is NOT AVAILABLE
> on T20 (or disabled some way)

It also has a short paragraph about USB keyboard (however only DOSUSB) and mouse driver.

> > Btw, why Category Developers?
>
> Maybe if there are some free usb driver sources for dos I would put some
> effort to make a kbd driver but it's hard to do entirely from a scratch

Well, DOSUSB's core isn't free but they're some examples with source code and perhaps it's easier to write a driver using DOSUSB instead of a stand-alone one. And Georg is still maintaining the project; probably he could help you with it.

---
l

> Well, DOSUSB's core isn't free but they're some examples with source code
> and perhaps it's easier to write a driver using DOSUSB instead of a
> stand-alone one. And Georg is still maintaining the project; probably he
> could help you with it.

Yes but currewntly the main problem is that DOSUSB hangs during startup on this machine, it didn't even display recognized OHCI. I'm in contact with Georg so hope he can do some debug version for me and we together may patch it. Then it would be possible make kbd driver.

I also tried about 5 dos usb storage drivers but nothing worked with usb flash. Most closer was DUSE 4.9 which recognizes OHCI and display message when usb flash is inserted but it says failed to load driver or so. When usb flash removed it displays message about removed device.
Currently I working on linux kernel and small debian install on usb flash for T20 but i don't want to give up FreeDOS. I also upgraded RAM with 256MB SODIMM so now have 292MB total. With himemx.exe it's recognized properly.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.KeyboardAndMouse
>
> Hm, I already have seen this page but what's there releated to usb
> keyboard problem? They rely on USB legacy emulation which is NOT AVAILABLE
> on T20 (or disabled some way)

Sorry, no relevance at all. I messed up, thought you may test this 'USB drivers by Symantec' and tell us the results but it was for mice, not keyboard.

But interesting to know anyway, no PS/2 port AND no legacy emulation... It really exists, unbelievable.

> drivers by Symantec' and tell us the results but it was for mice, not
> keyboard.

Aleready tested. OHCI.EXE says that controller was initialized but then it hangs.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Currently I working on linux kernel and small debian install on usb flash
> for T20 but i don't want to give up FreeDOS. I also upgraded RAM with
> 256MB SODIMM so now have 292MB total. With himemx.exe it's recognized
> properly.

DOSEMU, perhaps? There is a pre-built binary on SourceForge (w/ FreeDOS part too) although you need S-Lang 2, IIRC. Or try that DRLX thingy that was open sourced recently. (Or even DOSBox although that needs a lot of libraries. But at least you have enough RAM for it, heh. antiX Mepis GNU/Linux has DOSBox 0.72, and it's targeted at 128 MB machines or 64 MB w/ swap.) Or QEMU, BOCHS, etc.

Anyways, keep us updated on your findings!

> DOSEMU, perhaps? There is a pre-built binary on SourceForge (w/ FreeDOS
> part too) although you need S-Lang 2, IIRC. Or try that DRLX thingy that
> was open sourced recently. (Or even DOSBox although that needs a lot of
> libraries. But at least you have enough RAM for it, heh. antiX Mepis
> GNU/Linux has DOSBox 0.72, and it's targeted at 128 MB machines or 64 MB
> w/ swap.) Or QEMU, BOCHS, etc.

Yes dosemu would be only way to run dos stuffs there. Dosbox is definitely too slow on such hardware (even my C2D @3,5GHz don't run some games and demos fully smooth :P). I had installed Debian Etch on USB and there's DOSEMU package so there's no problem. Currently I'm playing with kernel (little bit tricky to compile and make initrd of 2.4 kernel on 2.6 machine but I'm getting some advices from Frank Boehm - linux guru on T20 :)

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > DOSEMU, perhaps? There is a pre-built binary on SourceForge (w/ FreeDOS
> > part too) although you need S-Lang 2, IIRC. Or try that DRLX thingy
> that
> > was open sourced recently. (Or even DOSBox although that needs a lot of
> > libraries. But at least you have enough RAM for it, heh. antiX Mepis
> > GNU/Linux has DOSBox 0.72, and it's targeted at 128 MB machines or 64
> MB
> > w/ swap.) Or QEMU, BOCHS, etc.
>
> Yes dosemu would be only way to run dos stuffs there. Dosbox is definitely
> too slow on such hardware (even my C2D @3,5GHz don't run some games and
> demos fully smooth :P).

I know I'm probably telling you what you already know, but DOSBox is full cpu emulation (only up to 486DX) and written in C++ (not multi-threaded), so of course it's slower than it has to be. Probably VMware or VirtualBox are faster, but I'm not sure. But DOSBox does have better gfx and sound support than fast DOSEMU (from my limited experience), but latter is usually good enough.

> Currently I'm playing with kernel
> (little bit tricky to compile and make initrd of 2.4 kernel on 2.6 machine
> but I'm getting some advices from Frank Boehm - linux guru on T20 :)

The trickiest part is finding the right GCC to use. But of course that assumes the srcs are in order anyways (not always fun to massage).

> The trickiest part is finding the right GCC to use. But of course that
> assumes the srcs are in order anyways (not always fun to massage).

GCC is not problem, in debian I can have more gcc versions installed and I only adjust the symlink to gcc. But problem was in mkinitrd vs mkinitamfs. Finally I took old HDD where left my prevous debian and I compiled it here. But that 2.4 kernel hasn't driver for my current 1gbit ethernet so I need do some swapping to download some needed packages.

Finally I have working kernel and base installation on USB flash. It will need a lot of tunning and configuration but it will go much easier since I don't need rebuild and reflash entire firmware. Now the rest is on USB key and I can plug it to other machine when needed update something. And of course apt-get will do the most directly from network...

But it sill be nice to have freedos there. Georg told me that if I want to fix/modify dosusb sources I had to pay the license :\ I spent many hours fixing FD kernel for free but I don't want to pay to fix someone else code.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Finally I have working kernel and base installation on USB flash. It will
> need a lot of tuning and configuration but it will go much easier since I
> don't need rebuild and reflash entire firmware. Now the rest is on USB key
> and I can plug it to other machine when needed update something. And of
> course apt-get will do the most directly from network...
>
> But it sill be nice to have freedos there. Georg told me that if I want to
> fix/modify dosusb sources I had to pay the license :\ I spent many hours
> fixing FD kernel for free but I don't want to pay to fix someone else
> code.

A quick look shows that he wants 1000 EU for source code license. Now, I know some people code to earn a living, but does he really expect one person to pay that, without rights to redistribute, when they can buy any new computer they want that GNU/Linux fully supports?? (I mean, really ....)

> A quick look shows that he wants 1000 EU for source code license. Now, I
> know some people code to earn a living, but does he really expect one
> person to pay that, without rights to redistribute, when they can buy any
> new computer they want that GNU/Linux fully supports?? (I mean, really
> ....)

He probably assumes that most people who still use dos and is willing to pay anything is really stuck, and will pay close to anything.

He might be right.

> A quick look shows that he wants 1000 EU for source code license. Now, I
> know some people code to earn a living, but does he really expect one
> person to pay that, without rights to redistribute, when they can buy any
> new computer they want that GNU/Linux fully supports?? (I mean, really
> ....)

Ou, I didn't even looked. But I spent about 8e for T20 so it would be "great" idea to spend 100x times more for sources of code which needs further modification to work there :P
Currently I'm fighting with linux OSS drivers for sound and Xserver.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > A quick look shows that he wants 1000 EU for source code license. Now, I
> > know some people code to earn a living, but does he really expect one
> > person to pay that, without rights to redistribute, when they can buy
> any
> > new computer they want that GNU/Linux fully supports?? (I mean, really
> > ....)
>
> Ou, I didn't even looked. But I spent about 8e for T20 so it would be
> "great" idea to spend 100x times more for sources of code which needs
> further modification to work there :P
> Currently I'm fighting with linux OSS drivers for sound and Xserver.

Let's create an extra thread about DosUSB's licence.

> Let's create an extra thread about DosUSB's licence.

But what do you want solve there? You cannot force anybody to give up rights of his sources.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> A quick look shows that he wants 1000 EU for source code license. Now, I
> know some people code to earn a living, but does he really expect one
> person to pay that, without rights to redistribute, when they can buy any
> new computer they want that GNU/Linux fully supports?? (I mean, really
> ....)

You forget the "embedded" market, where DOS is still a valuable option.

I was asked - last year - to implement USB 1 support in HX (keyboard), and the offer was 5000 $, just for an in-house license (binary and source).

---
MS-DOS forever!

> [...] "embedded" market, where DOS is still a valuable option.
>
> I was asked - last year - to implement USB 1 support in HX (keyboard), and
> the offer was 5000 $, just for an in-house license (binary and source).

And, did you do it?

---
l

> > [...] "embedded" market, where DOS is still a valuable option.
> >
> > I was asked - last year - to implement USB 1 support in HX (keyboard),
> and
> > the offer was 5000 $, just for an in-house license (binary and source).
>
> And, did you do it?

No. I'd liked to, but I'm an absolute USB ignorant, that is, I would have needed at least 3-4 weeks for the implementation.

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > And, did you do it?
>
> No. I'd liked to, but I'm an absolute USB ignorant, that is, I would have
> needed at least 3-4 weeks for the implementation.

Do you remember the idea of an AC'97 SoundBlaster emulation for Jemm?

---
Forum admin

> > > [...] "embedded" market, where DOS is still a valuable option.
> > >
> > > I was asked - last year - to implement USB 1 support in HX
> (keyboard),
> > and
> > > the offer was 5000 $, just for an in-house license (binary and
> source).
> >
> > And, did you do it?
>
> No. I'd liked to, but I'm an absolute USB ignorant, that is, I would have
> needed at least 3-4 weeks for the implementation.

Our little Japheth, all grown up, he's becoming a big boy now. *sniff*

Anyways, USB 3.0 is on its way. According to OS News, preliminary hardware already works with Linux (but no docs yet due to NDA). Of course, I've not investigated too much, but the only apparent advantage is still even faster speeds.

> Our little Japheth, all grown up, he's becoming a big boy now. *sniff*
>

5.000 $ were 3.500 EUR at that time. Is that "big money"?

At least you should have realized by now that Georg's 1.000 EUR for a source license is a very fair price.

---
MS-DOS forever!

> Do you remember the idea of an AC'97 SoundBlaster emulation for Jemm?

YES! But apparently SB emulation is not that appreciated for embedded systems. I don't know why...

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > Our little Japheth, all grown up, he's becoming a big boy now. *sniff*
>
> >
>
> 5.000 $ were 3.500 EUR at that time. Is that "big money"?
>
> At least you should have realized by now that Georg's 1.000 EUR for a
> source license is a very fair price.

Yes for companies, not for just DOS hobbist :) As you said I'm USB ignorant too. I think I could write it but it will take me long time and since I have full-time job I cannot spent so much time with it. I gave up DOS on T20, now I have completted debian linux installation there.
And the SB live emu driver is still interesting for me... :)

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > 5.000 $ were 3.500 EUR at that time. Is that "big money"?
> >
> > At least you should have realized by now that Georg's 1.000 EUR for a
> > source license is a very fair price.
>
> Yes for companies, not for just DOS hobbyist :)

Agreed. But he should still find somebody trustworthy willing to help him with actual experience instead of just letting it rot.

> I gave up DOS on T20, now I have completted debian linux installation
> there. And the SB live emu driver is still interesting for me... :)

DOSEMU can still prove useful for you, no?

<snipped>

> controller. Legacy keyboard and mouse controllers are also
> supported for DOS compatibility with those USB devices.

virtuos from http://www.microbase.com.br/ has a USB.EXE that *might* work for some ohci/uhci devices.

> Agreed. But he should still find somebody trustworthy willing to help him
> with actual experience instead of just letting it rot.

Hm, he has no interest to make dosusb working on T20. I asked him for some debug version which would print more messages but he just told me to buy sources.

> DOSEMU can still prove useful for you, no?

slow/incompastible. but don't care I keep this machine for networking things.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> > Agreed. But he should still find somebody trustworthy willing to help
> him
> > with actual experience instead of just letting it rot.
>
> Hm, he has no interest to make dosusb working on T20. I asked him for some
> debug version which would print more messages but he just told me to buy
> sources.

Strange. Maybe he needs the money?

> > DOSEMU can still prove useful for you, no?
>
> slow/incompastible. but don't care I keep this machine for networking
> things.

DOSEMU is slow? In what way? It seemed pretty fast to me (in my limited testing).