DOS ain't dead

I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +) Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed up my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.

At first I installed DOS with two 2G FAT16 partitions (prim. + ext.) and then Ubuntu from the "alternate CD", which worked better for me than the default "desktop CD".

Graphics, sound, NIC, USB, Pentium M underclocking all worked right out of the box. Modifying GRUB to boot DOS was also very easy.

Now I just have prepare this system to develop for DOS: DOSEMU, Bochs, QEMU, DJGPP cross-compiler, ...

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Forum admin

> I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +)
> Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed up
> my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.

BTW MBR and also WinNT/2k/XP BR can be easily repaired with right tools, no need to format/reinstall.

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

> I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +)
> Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed up
> my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.

Good Luck! Please don't forget the forum backups every now and then!

---
MS-DOS forever!

> BTW MBR and also WinNT/2k/XP BR can be easily repaired with right tools,
> no need to format/reinstall.

I know TestDisk, but it gave contradictory results.

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Forum admin

> Good Luck! Please don't forget the forum backups every now and then!

Sure.

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Forum admin

> I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +)
> Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed up
> my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.

No recovery CDs (or just couldn't be bothered)?

> At first I installed DOS with two 2G FAT16 partitions (prim. + ext.) and
> then Ubuntu from the "alternate CD", which worked better for me than the
> default "desktop CD".

The alternate CD uses less RAM (128 MB, IIRC) and a simpler installer. (I've only booted the liveCD, honestly, never installed.)

> Graphics, sound, NIC, USB, Pentium M underclocking all worked right out of
> the box. Modifying GRUB to boot DOS was also very easy.

You could also try something like PC BSD. However, I'm far from experienced in *nix-land, so take all that with a bucket of salt.

BTW, does ACPI work for you? Oh, and why does your Pentium M need "underclocking"? It's just a mobile P3 with SSE2, right? (For older Pentiums, you could always try DeLi Linux.)

> Now I just have prepare this system to develop for DOS: DOSEMU, Bochs,
> QEMU, DJGPP cross-compiler, ...

And DOSBox (easy to adjust speed, take screen caps)?
WINE (for some Win2k programs unavailable on *nix)?

Hah, rr is now lost to us ;)

He won't be doing any more DOS development now that he's moving towards a unix platform...

hehe

> > I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +)
> > Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed
> up
> > my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.
>
> No recovery CDs (or just couldn't be bothered)?

What do you mean?

> The alternate CD uses less RAM (128 MB, IIRC) and a simpler installer.

I know.

> You could also try something like PC BSD.

Why? Ubuntu satisfies my needs and supports all my hardware. Still not very common with Linux. And DOSEMU is only available for Linux.
Also packages are easy to install and use.

> BTW, does ACPI work for you? Oh, and why does your Pentium M need

How could I verify that?

The Pentium M needs no underclocking, but I love quiet systems. I don't need 1.5GHz while reading forum posts.

> "underclocking"? It's just a mobile P3 with SSE2, right? (For older

Yes.

> Pentiums, you could always try DeLi
> Linux.)

Nice, but Ubuntu has a larger communiy, I think.

> And DOSBox (easy to adjust speed, take screen caps)?

Why? I don't need it (now).

> WINE (for some Win2k programs unavailable on *nix)?

Which? I don't miss any so far.

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Forum admin

> He won't be doing any more DOS development now that he's moving towards a
> unix platform...

Not a big deal. Did I make anything useful in the past?

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Forum admin

> > He won't be doing any more DOS development now that he's moving towards
> > a unix platform...
>
> Not a big deal. Did I make anything useful in the past?

Yes.

> > Not a big deal. Did I make anything useful in the past?
>
> Yes.

Thanks.

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Forum admin

> Yes.

Elaborate, please!

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MS-DOS forever!

> > No recovery CDs (or just couldn't be bothered)?
>
> What do you mean?

Why not just reinstall Win2k if you like it and still have the install CDs?

> > The alternate CD uses less RAM (128 MB, IIRC) and a simpler installer.
>
> I know.

Ubuntu is clearly a popular favorite (probably due to freely mailing you a copy if desired). But it's also been called somewhat unstable, for adding too much fancy stuff, being too Windows-y. But if you like it, cool.

> > You could also try something like PC
> BSD.
>
> Why? Ubuntu satisfies my needs and supports all my hardware. Still not
> very common with Linux. And DOSEMU is only available for Linux.
> Also packages are easy to install and use.

I'm under the impression that PC BSD is very easy to use, has plenty of packages to install, and is fast and stable. (However, it's currently only based on FreeBSD 6.3, 7.0 is reputedly much better. Stay tuned.) I just wanted you to know about the alternative which I've read good things about on OS News.

> > BTW, does ACPI work for you? Oh, and why does your Pentium M need
>
> How could I verify that?
>
> The Pentium M needs no underclocking, but I love quiet systems. I
> don't need 1.5GHz while reading forum posts.

Okay, then yes, ACPI sounds like it works.

> > Pentiums, you could always try DeLi
> > Linux.)
>
> Nice, but Ubuntu has a larger community, I think.

Yes, maybe. I just wanted you to know about some good alternatives that I heard good things about.

> > And DOSBox (easy to adjust speed, take screen caps)?
>
> Why? I don't need it (now).

Can DOSEMU adjust speed and easily take .PNG screen caps? I just meant that DOSBox is nice and easy to use.

> > WINE (for some Win2k programs unavailable on *nix)?
>
> Which? I don't miss any so far.

I dunno, hardcore Windows people always seem to miss something in WINE (Photoshop, compatibility for which I think is currently being worked on). Maybe Picasa2, perhaps? (You don't need WinRAR etc. because of PeaZip. Also, forget Adobe PDF Reader, go for Foxit Reader.)

> Can DOSEMU adjust speed and easily take .PNG screen caps? I just meant
> that DOSBox is nice and easy to use.

I think DOSEMU cannot set speed but it's much much faster (esp. for progs using VESA graphics, DOSEMU allows direct LFB access and other HW access) than DOSBOX. On my system I cannot see much difference when running program under DOS and DOSEMU. But DOSBOX has better sound support and speed adjust. It's better for old games (I mean very old, before Doom). So I have installed both.

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

> > Can DOSEMU adjust speed and easily take .PNG screen caps? I just meant
> > that DOSBox is nice and easy to use.
>
> I think DOSEMU cannot set speed but it's much much faster

It runs in V86 mode, no? (Except under long mode.) Yes, it's not too fast (1 Ghz needed for 486 speed?) because it's full cpu emulation (486 DX only). But I think it will try to use "core=dynamic" sometimes.

> (esp. for progs
> using VESA graphics, DOSEMU allows direct LFB access and other HW access)

DOSBox "emulates" VESA 2.0 (S3 Incorporated. Trio64). Better than nothing.

> than DOSBOX. On my system I cannot see much difference when running
> program under DOS and DOSEMU. But DOSBOX has better sound support and
> speed adjust.

Yeah, it supports SB and GUS (and others too). I think they borrowed some of that from MAME.

> It's better for old games (I mean very old, before Doom). So
> I have installed both.

Some old games don't run too well on modern processors (e.g. Quest for Glory IV). So, you have to slow them down somehow. It's just that I'm somewhat unimpressed with MOSLO, SLOWDOWN, etc. (although I haven't used 'em in years). Not to overexaggerate, but DOSBox is a God-send. (But couldn't install it on bro's PuppyLinux box yesterday because the default binary wasn't static, had external dependencies I couldn't find. Meh.)

P.S. Don't ask me why, but they changed URLs: It's now dosbox.com.

> It runs in V86 mode, no? (Except under long mode.) Yes, it's not too fast
> (1 Ghz needed for 486 speed?) because it's full cpu emulation (486 DX
> only).

Unfortunately they don't seem to be interested to extend emulation to newer CPUs.

> DOSBox "emulates" VESA 2.0 (S3 Incorporated. Trio64). Better than
> nothing.

I know, it now works but VERY slow. E.g. my map tracking sw in djgpp runs on real HW over 100FPS in 1280x1024/32 (same for DOSEMU, dgVoodoo under XP) and only 0.25FPS in DOSBOX. Also games like Blood, Duke and some later DOS demos etc runs not very fast in DOSBOX even on Core 2 Duo. Maybe if it can utilize 2 or more cores it would run better.

> P.S. Don't ask me why, but they changed URLs: It's now
> dosbox.com.

I use DOSBOX from CVS builds http://ykhwong.x-y.net/cvs/frame.html
it's more updated.

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

> Unfortunately they don't seem to be interested to extend emulation to
> newer CPUs.

To be fair, though, how many DOS games need a Pentium or better? (I don't really know of any, but I'm no games expert. I bet Udo Kuhnt would know, though.)

> I know, it now works but VERY slow. E.g. my map tracking sw in djgpp runs
> on real HW over 100FPS in 1280x1024/32 (same for DOSEMU, dgVoodoo under
> XP) and only 0.25FPS in DOSBOX.

> Also games like Blood, Duke and some later
> DOS demos etc runs not very fast in DOSBOX even on Core 2 Duo.

Try backing up and then fiddling with the config file (DOSBOX.CONF). Also try frameskip.

> Maybe if it can utilize 2 or more cores it would run better.

Yes, definitely that would help. Do you know what compiler your build (or even the official) uses for Windows? Because MinGW uses an older GCC (and even only recent did GCC implement optimizations for Core2). Last I checked, there was a beta GCC 4.x on SourceForge:

GCC Version 4 Technology Preview: gcc-4.2.1-sjlj -2 August 14, 2007

If you're adventurous, you could try rebuilding it yourself. Or nag the official Windows builder to upgrade his setup.

> Why not just reinstall Win2k if you like it and still have the install
> CDs?

Some day MS will stop "supporting" Windows 2000.

> Ubuntu is clearly a popular favorite (probably due to freely mailing you a
> copy if desired). But it's also been called somewhat unstable, for adding
> too much fancy stuff, being too Windows-y. But if you like it, cool.

It is very stable here.

> I'm under the impression that PC BSD is very easy to use, has plenty of
> packages to install, and is fast and stable. (However, it's currently only
> based on FreeBSD 6.3, 7.0 is reputedly much better. Stay tuned.) I just
> wanted you to know about the alternative which I've read good things about
> on OS News.

Thanks for your efforts, but I already did some research before installing Ubuntu.

> > Why? I don't need it (now).
>
> Can DOSEMU adjust speed and easily take .PNG screen caps? I just meant
> that DOSBox is nice and easy to use.

DOSBox is for gamers. I'm not a gamer. But it has a nice debugger, which resembles Soft-ICE.

> > > WINE (for some Win2k programs unavailable on *nix)?
> >
> > Which? I don't miss any so far.
>
> I dunno, hardcore Windows people always seem to miss something in WINE
> (Photoshop, compatibility for which I think is currently being worked on).

Photoshop is a bloated thing and so I only tried it once several years ago.

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Forum admin

> > Why not just reinstall Win2k if you like it and still have the install
> > CDs?
>
> Some day MS will stop "supporting" Windows 2000.

To be honest, they are already pushing Vista pretty hard (esp. on new machines), so it seems like even XP will be second fiddle soon. Even Vista SP1 is out now (although I haven't gotten it yet, need to check laptop to see if it'll automagically download it).

> > Ubuntu is clearly a popular favorite (probably due to freely mailing you
> a
> > copy if desired). But it's also been called somewhat unstable, for
> adding
> > too much fancy stuff, being too Windows-y. But if you like it, cool.
>
> It is very stable here.

Well, I'm not sure where the problems are specifically. It's for sure a struggle to get Linux to work as well as Windows since some hardware vendors aren't too cooperative for various reasons. If ACPI, USB keyboard, and NIC work, then everything else should too.

> Thanks for your efforts, but I already did some research before installing
> Ubuntu.

Well, FreeBSD does have some advantages even over Linux (e.g. ZFS). It's supposedly pretty fast too. And now I hear that the next NetBSD (due Q4 2008?) will have some good improvements. Heh, whatever. It's all good.

> DOSBox is for gamers. I'm not a gamer. But it has a nice debugger,
> which resembles Soft-ICE.

You were the one who told us about Galactic Conquest.

> Photoshop is a bloated thing and so I only tried it once several years
> ago.

Well, I admit, I don't need it, but ya never know, some people have specific things that won't run elsewhere. (Yes, proprietary software was actually the norm in years past. Who knew?)

> Even Vista SP1 is out now ...

Yes, I finally got the 66 MB download of it yesterday (BTW, Happy Easter, everyone!), and while the "ver" says "6.0.6001" now instead of "6.0.6000" (big upgrade, eh? heh), it still won't allow > 32 MB for DPMI apps! Argh! (Such a long wait for basically nothing. And they even supposedly swapped in a new kernel based on 2k8. Oh well.)

> > Even Vista SP1 is out now ...
>
> Yes, I finally got the 66 MB download of it yesterday (BTW, Happy Easter,
> everyone!), and while the "ver" says "6.0.6001" now instead of "6.0.6000"
> (big upgrade, eh? heh), it still won't allow > 32 MB for DPMI apps!
> Argh! (Such a long wait for basically nothing. And they even supposedly
> swapped in a new kernel based on 2k8. Oh well.)

Too bad

There's hope, though. Wait for the next update. I've heard rumors ...

I'm also pretty sure that a fix is possible without relying on MS to "help" you ... if you know what you're doing ...

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > Even Vista SP1 is out now ...
> it still won't allow > 32 MB for DPMI apps!
>
> Too bad
>
> There's hope, though. Wait for the next update. I've heard rumors ...

Yeah right. T.R. Nicely's page had a supposed e-mail from somebody working on the NTVDM stuff, and they said SP1 would fix it (which it didn't). I'm not saying it should be priority #1, but still, my freakin' 12-year-old P166 has 32 MB of RAM. My current laptop has that much squared (1 GB). It seems silly to limit such programs. Where's Mark Zbikowski when you need him??

> I'm also pretty sure that a fix is possible without relying on MS to
> "help" you ... if you know what you're doing ...

I tried your HX_NTVDM .DLL thingy, remember? It didn't help.

> I tried your HX_NTVDM .DLL thingy, remember? It didn't help.

This proves almost nothing. If a DOS application can still load a Win32 dll in Vista - and this apparently is possibly, since you told the Vdd was loaded - it is very unlikely that there is a 32 MB memory limit for the dll itself. After all, it still is a Win32 process with 2 GB private address space.

---
MS-DOS forever!

(quoted from http://www.trnicely.net/misc/vista.html ):

> The point is that since no release of SP1 has yet fixed the
> 32MB limitation, no remaining release of SP1 can be expected to do
> so either. Considered along with the fact that Windows Server 2008
> also exhibits the 32MB limitation, it is now clear that Microsoft
> has no intention of fixing the deficiency, and it can be expected
> to appear in all future versions of Windows operating systems---
> from Microsoft's point of view, the 32MB limitation has become a
> feature, rather than a bug.

So technically, it's no longer a Vista-only problem. :(

> This proves almost nothing. If a DOS application can still load a Win32
> dll in Vista - and this apparently is possibly, since you told the Vdd was
> loaded - it is very unlikely that there is a 32 MB memory limit for the dll
> itself. After all, it still is a Win32 process with 2 GB private address
> space.

It certainly works. I tested hxntvdm with a DPMI program on one of my friends's Vista computer (I don't use Vista and I'm not interested in it) and the program successfuly allocated more than 32MB.

> It certainly works. I tested hxntvdm with a DPMI program on one of my
> friends's Vista computer (I don't use Vista and I'm not interested in it)
> and the program successfuly allocated more than 32MB.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But if you want to tell me exactly how you did it, I'll try again. (At worst it still doesn't work.)

> I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But if you want to tell me exactly how
> you did it, I'll try again. (At worst it still doesn't work.)

Better than being "pretty sure" that it doesn't work, try to understand why it didn't work for you.
With administrator privileges I put the VDD in the ...\system32\ folder and then I loaded the TSR and ran the program. Very complicated...

> (quoted from http://www.trnicely.net/misc/vista.html ):
>
> > The point is that since no release of SP1 has yet fixed the
> > 32MB limitation, no remaining release of SP1 can be expected to do
> > so either. Considered along with the fact that Windows Server 2008
> > also exhibits the 32MB limitation, it is now clear that Microsoft
> > has no intention of fixing the deficiency, and it can be expected
> > to appear in all future versions of Windows operating systems---
> > from Microsoft's point of view, the 32MB limitation has become a
> > feature, rather than a bug.
>
> So technically, it's no longer a Vista-only problem. :(

I'm confused about your intentions. Do you think that citing someone who you apparently believe is a guru does prove that the hxntvdm thing CANNOT work?

---
MS-DOS forever!

> Better than being "pretty sure" that it doesn't work, try to understand
> why it didn't work for you.
> With administrator privileges I put the VDD in the ...\system32\ folder
> and then I loaded the TSR and ran the program. Very complicated...

I tried this exact same thing months ago and posted here how it didn't work. Now I tried again with SP1, still nothing. What specific program do you get working? Because I tried two programs (DJGPP-compiled and Watcom32/Causeway) and neither works, both report "out of memory". Yes, I put the .DLL in \system32, yes I had admin privileges, yes I tried running the TSR with and without admin privileges, yes I even rebooted, still nothing. So, I dunno how it works for you (or your friend), but it doesn't seem to work for me. I'm open to suggestions.

> > So technically, it's no longer a Vista-only problem. :(
>
> I'm confused about your intentions. Do you think that citing someone who
> you apparently believe is a guru does prove that the hxntvdm thing CANNOT
> work?

Some people theorize that Microsoft is doing this as a security issue because some (badly-written) DOS programs can consume all available memory because they were written long ago (e.g. when 16 or 32 MB or less was the norm). If they implement it in more than one OS, don't you think they know about it by now?? And if it's not an accident, they probably won't fix it. (Bleh.)

> I tried this exact same thing months ago and posted here how it didn't
> work.

that was this post:

http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=2969

> Now I tried again with SP1, still nothing. What specific program do
> you get working? Because I tried two programs (DJGPP-compiled and
> Watcom32/Causeway) and neither works, both report "out of memory". Yes, I
> put the .DLL in \system32, yes I had admin privileges, yes I tried running
> the TSR with and without admin privileges, yes I even rebooted, still
> nothing. So, I dunno how it works for you (or your friend), but it doesn't
> seem to work for me.

> I'm open to suggestions.

then don't start such bloated DPMI applications. The best strategy is to test the DPMI memory allocation function directly. Write a simple DPMI prog which uses those functions. If you're unable to do that, then at least try DPMI.EXE from HXRT and see what it tells about free memory.

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > > So technically, it's no longer a Vista-only problem. :(
> >
> > I'm confused about your intentions. Do you think that citing someone
> who
> > you apparently believe is a guru does prove that the hxntvdm thing
> CANNOT
> > work?
>
> Some people theorize that Microsoft is doing this as a security issue
> because some (badly-written) DOS programs can consume all available memory
> because they were written long ago (e.g. when 16 or 32 MB or less was the
> norm). If they implement it in more than one OS, don't you think they know
> about it by now?? And if it's not an accident, they probably won't fix it.
> (Bleh.)

Is this supposed to be an answer to my question?

---
MS-DOS forever!

> then don't start such bloated DPMI applications.

Actually, now (after rebooting) it doesn't even seem to run any DPMI apps if HXNTVDM is loaded first. It just silently does nothing (although HXNTVDM unloads itself). So that's no help. (BTW, it's dated Jan 5th. Is there a newer version?)

> The best strategy is to
> test the DPMI memory allocation function directly. Write a simple DPMI
> prog which uses those functions. If you're unable to do that, then at
> least try DPMI.EXE from HXRT and see what it tells about free memory.

But yes, DPMI.EXE from HXRT.ZIP does say "largest free/lockable memory block (kB): 32768/11652 before loading the TSR and 529148/529148 afterwards. (But it still doesn't seem to work with other programs.)

> Is this supposed to be an answer to my question?

Neither of you use Vista on a regular basis, right? (You both use XP, last I heard.) Well, for Vista Home Premium SP1 for me, it doesn't seem to work for my personal compiles of PAQ8o8z (DJGPP or Causeway). I don't know why, so I'm (of course) inclined to say, "You haven't tested enough" because I own Vista and you don't and it still doesn't work. But hey, if I'm doing it wrong, oops. However, so far I haven't gotten any results. :-/

EDIT: By the way, GO32-V2.EXE from DJGPP 2.04 beta says (and has always falsely said) "DPMI memory available: 493918 Kb", so it's not just reporting the memory that is wrong, it's actually trying to use it that doesn't work.

> > The best strategy is to
> > test the DPMI memory allocation function directly. Write a simple DPMI
> > prog which uses those functions. If you're unable to do that, then at
> > least try DPMI.EXE from HXRT and see what it tells about free memory.
>
> But yes, DPMI.EXE from HXRT.ZIP does say "largest free/lockable memory
> block (kB): 32768/11652 before loading the TSR and 529148/529148
> afterwards. (But it still doesn't seem to work with other programs.)

Well, this is a valuable information. Why didn't you reveal that earlier? Because THAT proves reliable that the idea of hxntvdm is correct, even for Vista, and that a safe workaround is possible. It might need some additional work to make the thing work with other applications, but that's just a *minor* detail. You have the source, just go on ...

> Neither of you use Vista on a regular basis, right?

Of course no. IMO using Vista is LAME (no offense ).

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > But yes, DPMI.EXE from HXRT.ZIP does say "largest free/lockable memory
> > block (kB): 32768/11652 before loading the TSR and 529148/529148
> > afterwards. (But it still doesn't seem to work with other programs.)
>
> Well, this is a valuable information. Why didn't you reveal that earlier?

I only tried that because you suggested it.

> Because THAT proves reliable that the idea of hxntvdm is correct, even for
> Vista, and that a safe workaround is possible. It might need some
> additional work to make the thing work with other applications, but that's
> just a *minor* detail.

FASM for DOS reports lots more MB free after running HXNTVDM, and it does assemble something correctly (although I don't have any programs that need > 32 MB to reassemble, so it may be a red herring, may only report that much free and still not allow it, but at least FASM runs). And HXNTVDM doesn't unload after running FASM either.

> You have the source, just go on ...

You mean .ASM for HXNTVDM? I actually don't, and a quick search doesn't find it in HXDEV.ZIP either.

> > Neither of you use Vista on a regular basis, right?
>
> Of course no. IMO using Vista is LAME (no offense ).

It came with the cpu, and I doubt there'd be comparable drivers for XP (assuming I could legally downgrade anyways).

Did you try it with a simple program which only allocates memory (Edit: more than 32MB in a single block) using DPMI Allocate Memory Block function?

Edit: To be more specific, the program I tested with only tries to allocate a memory block larger than 32MB using DPMI function AX=501h. If the allocation fails it prints an error message, if the allocation succeeds it prints an OK message. It is true that I don't have available a Vista system and I tested the program only once, but I don't think that I missed something.

> Did you try it with a simple program which only allocates memory (Edit:
> more than 32MB in a single block) using DPMI Allocate Memory Block
> function?

No, I haven't. It refuses to run my DJGPP- and Watcom-compiled .EXEs at all. But FASM runs. Still, I don't know of any easy way to make FASM need > 32 MB of RAM.

> Edit: To be more specific, the program I tested with only tries to
> allocate a memory block larger than 32MB using DPMI function AX=501h. If
> the allocation fails it prints an error message, if the allocation
> succeeds it prints an OK message. It is true that I don't have available a
> Vista system and I tested the program only once, but I don't think that I
> missed something.

Well, if I were more experienced in the black arts of DPMI, I would write my own example. As is, I'm kinda stumped.

> Well, if I were more experienced in the black arts of DPMI, I would write
> my own example. As is, I'm kinda stumped.

This is not acceptable. To make a DPMI sample with some memory allocation you could view into the FD DEBUG package. It comes with 2 DPMI samples for 16/32 clients in NASM syntax. Just add some code which allocates 64 MB memory in protected mode. You can even use DEBUG to step thru your code and see if it has allocated the memory correctly. It's trivial and dull, almost like a DOS "hello world" with int 21h, ah=09.

---
MS-DOS forever!

> > Well, if I were more experienced in the black arts of DPMI, I would
> write
> > my own example. As is, I'm kinda stumped.
>
> This is not acceptable. To make a DPMI sample with some memory allocation
> you could view into the FD DEBUG package. It comes with 2 DPMI samples for
> 16/32 clients in NASM syntax. Just add some code which allocates 64 MB
> memory in protected mode. You can even use DEBUG to step thru your code
> and see if it has allocated the memory correctly. It's trivial and dull,
> almost like a DOS "hello world" with int 21h, ah=09.

Lazy, busy, inexperienced, preoccupied with other things on the brain, the usual .... I'll see what I can do, but no promises as to when.

---
Know your limits.h

> I'll see what I can do, but no promises as to when.

There's possibly a confusion. I'm not interested in Vista, there was no "request" for anything from my side and you're not expected to do anything ...

---
MS-DOS forever!

> You could also try something like PC BSD.
> However, I'm far from experienced in *nix-land, so take all that with a
> bucket of salt.

PC BSD will work fine in general. It is FreeBSD based. On my (albeit a bit older) NForce3 mobo, everything worked, wireless, multi GB lan, sound, firewire and SATA included.

> I completely moved from (DOS +) Windows 2000 Professional to (DOS +)
> Ubuntu 7.10, because I had screwed up
> my laptop's MBR and so had to reinstall anyway.

I silently returned to Windows 2000, because I feel home there.

---
Forum admin

> I silently returned to Windows 2000, because I feel home there.

Sounds very reasonable.

I won't say that I knew it.

You know, 1 million flies cannot be wrong ...

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MS-DOS forever!

> Sounds very reasonable.
>
> I won't say that I knew it.
>
> You know, 1 million flies cannot be wrong ...

Don't feel guilty. I expected such an answer from you.

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Forum admin

> > But yes, DPMI.EXE from HXRT.ZIP does say "largest free/lockable memory
> > block (kB): 32768/11652 before loading the TSR and 529148/529148
> > afterwards. (But it still doesn't seem to work with other programs.)
>
> Well, this is a valuable information. Why didn't you reveal that earlier?
> Because THAT proves reliable that the idea of hxntvdm is correct, even for
> Vista, and that a safe workaround is possible. It might need some
> additional work to make the thing work with other applications, but that's
> just a *minor* detail. You have the source, just go on ...

Okay, so I've been searching (yet again) for webpages about this, mainly so that I could find MS's knowledge base article (if there is one) to see what they say (if it's a bug, feature, etc). And instead, I came upon this:

(from DOSBox forum):

> > Re: Vista limits DPMI servers to a max of 32mb :: 2008-5-21 @ 08:49 am
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I updated the tool mentioned above, and source code is now included
> > as well.
> >
> > I don't know if it helps with Vista, I don't own that "OS", but for XP
> > it works. If someone is willing to do tests in Vista with it, I'll be glad
> > to help.
> >
> > -- (Japheth)

News to me! Guess you don't like me enough to let me test your stuff.

"HXNTVDM (12k), support tool for NTVDM: This is a DPMI TSR which supplies additional functionality for DPMI applications in NTVDM. Might be useful for native DOS-extended applications. Source is included."

So I tried it ...

OLD                (DIR)              paq8o8z  cpp       151,633
paq8o8z  exe       113,485            paq8o8z  zip       342,016
tony     txt       552

7 items: 3 dirs, 4 files totaling 607,686 bytes
Wed May 28,2008 03:47:27.88am ; video mode 3 (80*25) on video page 0

[ Vista ] - Wed 05/28/2008 >paq8o8z doydoy *.cpp

paq8o8z compiled by DJGPP v2 for FreeDOS

Checking CPUID availability ...
Testing CPUID feature flags for MMX or SSE2 ...
Using SSE2

Creating archive doydoy.paq8o8z via level 1 with 1 file(s)...
paq8o8z.cpp 151633 -> 35858
151633 -> 35892
Time 4.12 sec, used 37286742 bytes of memory

[ Vista ] - Wed 05/28/2008 >scrndump wow.txt



However, it seems to crash NTVDM if I run my DJGPP v2 .EXE again (although multiple runs of the Causeway/Watcom32 .EXE work fine). Similar problems (exception 0D: CS=01E7, IP=00000FA7) when rerunning an old LPAQ1 (DOS PMODE/W version) a second time (i.e., first time works fine). Still, major improvement!

http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/paq8o8z-may27.zip (test files w/ srcs, 334k)

EDIT: And just to mention Linux / Windows compatibility (re: rr's Win2k vs. Ubuntu experiences), I seem to have to use some combination of the following "cheat codes" whenever I boot a Linux liveCD on this laptop (Compaq Presario F572US) else something won't work (e.g. sound): noapic acpi=off vga=normal irqpoll nosmp pnpbios=off

> News to me! Guess you don't like me enough to let me test your stuff.
>

No, I love you a lot. But this forum is about DOS, not NTVDM, and the "emulation" subforum states intentionally that it doesn't cover "DOS boxes".

The DOSBox forum is also not really suitable for this issue, but since the hxntvdm tool was already mentioned ...

> So I tried it ...
>
>

Good to know.

> However, it seems to crash NTVDM if I run my DJGPP v2 .EXE again (although
> multiple runs of the Causeway/Watcom32 .EXE work fine). Similar problems
> (exception 0D: CS=01E7, IP=00000FA7) when rerunning an old LPAQ1 (DOS
> PMODE/W version) a second time (i.e., first time works fine). Still,
> major improvement!

The source is included, you are welcome to improve it. Don't take that "I'm glad to help" too serious, this was due to my usual politeness merely.

I added a copyright notice to the readme, but that was just to prevent some idiots from grabbing it and then sell it as a 10$ shareware. If you are able to make it stable, you'll own the copyright.

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MS-DOS forever!

I installed DOSEMU 1.4.0 on my bro's late-model PII 366 Mhz (Mendocino??) PuppyLinux 3.01, and it runs pretty well (surprisingly). Of course, I tried one or two little games, and sound either didn't work (Cash Invaders) or it wouldn't load / crashed (BioMenace ... no surprise there). And one image viewing app wouldn't work correctly (SEE), but otherwise it ran most stuff pretty well (e.g. DJGPP apps, even my unfinished PAQ8o8z port using MMX, compressing its own src in a very speedy 20 secs).

DOSBox is good, but it's 486 DX only and dog slow (emulation). And it's hard to find a decent Linux port of it for certain distros (although antiX Mepis 7.2 has 0.72, go figure). Actually, QEMU/KQEMU/SSE2 on my AMD64x2 seems fairly slow too (as does MMX, which is no faster/slower, oddly). So it is indeed a good thing if your Windows can use V86 mode to use DPMI (see next post). Oh, and BTW, DOSEMU also supports VESA 2.0 (as does DOSBox), and DOSEMU can somewhat modify its speed (although I didn't try it).

BTW rr, I've heard that the latest Linux kernels have MUCH MUCH better ACPI support, so it might be worth another try (dual boot, preferably).

EDIT: Latest Ubuntu has a Windows-based installer, even (WUBI).

So, it has already been mentioned that HXNTVDM TSR/DLL combo fixes the Vista DPMI limit, more or less. Then I found out from someone "in the know" that there's an undocumented registry setting (dword) you can add via REGEDIT (since it doesn't already exist) to increase the built-in limit (I used "128000000", and it works fine on Home Premium SP1):

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Wow\DpmiLimit

So, I e-mailed T.R. Nicely to tell him, but he claims the above doesn't work for him (Vista Home Basic, no SP1 yet because he's on dialup). So for people like that, HXNTVDM (only 13k download instead of 66 MB for SP1) is probably a better solution.

[ Vista ] - Tue 06/03/2008 >make -O3

Compiling via DJGPP ...

[ Vista ] - Tue 06/03/2008 >redir -t gpp -O2 -Wall -Wno-parentheses -mtune=i686
-O3   fast-paq.o paq8o8z.cpp -o paq8o8z.exe
Elapsed time: 13.570 seconds

    798281 ->    111792   14.00%   djgpp2/coff   paq8o8z.exe

[ Vista ] - Tue 06/03/2008 >paq8o8z -3 doydoy *.cpp

paq8o8z compiled by DJGPP v2 for FreeDOS

Checking CPUID availability ... yes
Testing CPUID feature flags for MMX or SSE2 ... yes yes
Using SSE2

Creating archive doydoy.paq8o8z via level 3 with 1 file(s)...
paq8o8z.cpp 153695 -> 36359
153695 -> 36393
Time 4.18 sec, used 55767894 bytes of memory

[ Vista ] - Tue 06/03/2008 >scrndump

EDIT: Even DOSEMU has a DPMI limit of ~ 20 MB by default, but if you "cp dosemu/conf/dosemurc ~/.dosemurc ; sed -i '/$_dpmi.*5000)/s/5000/A000/' ~/.dosemurc" it should be more comfortable.

> Vista DPMI limit fix(es)

And Ring0 / Physical memory / hardware access ?

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

> > Vista DPMI limit fix(es)
>
> And Ring0 / Physical memory / hardware access ?

I don't understand what you're asking. But this laptop here can flash the BIOS in Windows, and that's pretty low-level, so they must have some APIs for that.

> > > Vista DPMI limit fix(es)
> >
> > And Ring0 / Physical memory / hardware access ?
>
> I don't understand what you're asking.

That's "criminal bug" DOS386.

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Forum admin