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Considering MS-DOS (Users)

posted by Dennis, 30.07.2011, 20:43

> I'm considering using MS-DOS on a 'modern' computer (dual-booting with XP
> or Windows 7) and I have a few queries.
>
> (1) should I use MS-DOS 6.22/MS-DOS 7.1 or one of the compatible OSs e.g.
> FreeDOS, and if so why?
How modern? The first problem you'll encounter is whether a 64 bit system will run a 16 bit OS. I've seen discussions elsewhere from folks losing legacy MS-DOS applications when moving to a 64 bit box because they don't run under Win7 unless you use a virtual machine setup.

> (2) given that I'll be running DOS on a PC with 3 or 4 GB of RAM, I presume
> DOS won't cough at this i.e. DOS will just 'see' 640k conventional RAM or
> up to 16MB EMS/XMS?
It sees 640K conventional, and 16MB XMS.

I triple boot Win2K Pro, WinXP Pro, and Ubuntu 11.04 on a 2.6 CoreDuo box with 4GB RAM. 32 bit Windows can't use all 4GB for architectural reasons - it can only use about 3.2GB - but I founds a freeware ramdisk driver that can use the extra memory, so I have a 763MB ramdisk seen as a compressed NTFS volume called Z: by Windows. I run Firefox from it, and put the profile there too. Quick...

XP will run MS-DOS apps in a sandbox provided by NTVDM, which implements a virtual MS-DOS 5.0 environment. When I'm in the virtual DOS environment, I see this, using 4DOS as my command processor::

[0]4DOS> mem /c

Conventional Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
MSDOS 12368 ( 12.1K) 3050
KBD 3296 ( 3.2K) CE0
HIMEM 1248 ( 1.2K) 4E0
ANSIPLUS 6656 ( 6.5K) 1A00
COMMAND 4768 ( 4.7K) 12A0
DOSX 34720 ( 33.9K) 87A0
4DOS 283312 (276.7K) 452B0
FREE 112 ( 0.1K) 70
FREE 308640 (301.4K) 4B5A0

Total FREE : 308752 (301.5K)

Upper Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
SYSTEM 192496 (188.0K) 2EFF0
DOSX 128 ( 0.1K) 80
4DOS 3104 ( 3.0K) C20
MOUSE 12528 ( 12.2K) 30F0
MSCDEXNT 464 ( 0.5K) 1D0
REDIR 2672 ( 2.6K) A70
CmdEdit 10272 ( 10.0K) 2820
FREE 1952 ( 1.9K) 7A0
FREE 38368 ( 37.5K) 95E0

Total FREE : 40320 ( 39.4K)

Total bytes available to programs (Conventional+Upper) : 349072 (340.9K)
Largest executable program size : 306544 (299.4K)
Largest available upper memory block : 38368 ( 37.5K)

15728640 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
15547392 bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

XP uses the files AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT in Windows\System32 to initialize DOS sessions, and anything specified in them is applied to any DOS session you run. I do this:

CONFIG.NT:

dos=high, umb
files=40
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
device=d:\console\ansiplus\ansiplus.exe /h

I'm loading Kristopher Sweger's old shareware ANSIPlus ANSI driver high. It's freeware now, and available here: http://www.sweger.com/ansiplus/

AUTOEXEC.NT:

@echo off
:: AUTOEXEC.BAT is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
:: AUTOEXEC.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless a
:: different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.

:: Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe
:: Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir
:: Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

:: Install enhanced command line editor
lh d:\Console\DOS\cmdedit.com -qcikp" " /h1024 /s1024 /m512 /ah256 d:\Console\DOS\cmdedit.cfg

setaplus keyfile d:\Console\DOS\keydef.cfg tone 1397,110,1047,165
setaplus enable ctrlc ndlast capsun capsre smooth speedup winsmooth scroll32bit clsback
kscolors

path d:\console\4dos;c:\mingw\msys\1.0\bin;c:\mingw\bin;d:\windows\system32;
d:\windows;d:\windows\system32\wbem;d:\console\dos\;d:\console\dos\batch;
d:\program files\gnuwin32\bin;d:\console\usr\local\wbin;d:\console\bin

set BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3
set TMP=z:\tmp
set temp=z:\Temp
set TZ=EST8EDT
cls
echo Windows XP command shell on %computername%

The entries that load mscdexnt, redir, and dosx are the default. IF you decide you don't need those capabilities, you can remove them or comment them out to get more DOS conventional memory. (They can be loaded in an application batch file if an app does need them.)

I load an old PC Magazine command line editor called CMDEDIT, in an enhanced version from Jason Hood. I normally run 4DOS as my command processor, which has built-in command line editing. CMDEDIT is there for the benefit of applications like Vern Buerg's old LIST and MS-DOS debug, which use DOS function 0AH to get keyboard input. A TSR command editor is active within them as well as at the command line in places where user input can be given.

I also specify the PATH I want DOS apps to see, and run a utility that does ANSIPlus setup.

I do *not* specify the prompt. CONFIG.NT and AUTOEXEC.NT are processed *every* time a copy of COMMAND.COM is spawned in an NTVDM. I prefer to use application specific prompts, set in the batch file that runs them (so I have some reminder of which app I'm shelled out of if I shell to DOS), and defining the prompts in AUTOEXEC,NT will reset it to whatever is defined there when I shell.

An important note on the NTVDM sandbox: 16 bit DOS apps run in it, and if you shell out of one a copy of COMMAND.COM is spawned, but whenever you run an external program, it gets passed back to CMD.EXE to process. Only DOS apps are trapped in the sandbox, and you can execute 32 bit Windows programs when shelled out of a DOS app.

For instance, I run Eric Meyer's MS-DOS VDE word processor. VDE lets you shell out by pressing AltR. AltR produces a prompt line. If you just press Enter, you'll be in a sub-shell with whatever COMSPEC points to. If you specify something on the VDE AltR line, you'll get whatever it is.

So I can do AltR cmd /c start /shared 4DOS.com to spawn a copy of 4DOS in a separate window, inheriting the VDE environment. I can spawn anything in a separate window this way, including a Windows GUI app. :-D

> (3) would I be better using FAT16 or FAT32 filing system? If FAT32 am I
> right in assuming I'd need MS-DOS 7.1 (or FreeDOS)?
I have FreeDOS 1.0 quad-booting on an old notebook with Win2K and two flavors of Linux. FreeDOS is on a FAT32 partition, and works fine. (Getting FreeDOS to boot from Grub required fiddling, and I don't recall exactly which* fiddle made it work :-P )

FAT16 has a 2GB limit on volume size, so if you want to use a larger partition for DOS, you'll need FAT32.

> (4) are the utilities in FreeDOS e.g. JEMM386, 'better' than their MS-DOS
> equivalents?
At least equivalent.

> (5) what other utilities (not included in MS-DOS or FreeDOS) do the experts
> on this forum recommend?
Substitute 4DOS for command.com. 4DOS was JPSoftware's shareware drop in COMMAND.COM replacement. It added command line history, recall, and editing, command aliases, a full screen file viewer ala LIST, a vastly enhanced batch language, and an assortment of other features. 4DOS author Rex Conn released it as open source when MS-DOS was no longer used enough to justify continued support and enhancement, and now offers a shareware 32 bit Windows offering called Take Command instead. A Bulgarian developer picked it up, and the current 8.0 version is here: http://4dos.isgreat.org/

(A freeware console version of Take Command called TCC/LE is available, and I have it here. The stuff the Limited Edition omits is mostly stuff I don't need. But it's based on 4DOS code, and uses the same config files, so I have the same 4DOS features in a 32 bit Windows console.

See http://jpsoft.com/tccle_cmd_replacement.html )

Other things I'm fond of include:

ListPlus: The late Vern Buerg's fill screen file browser utility. The last version includes Long File Name support if you run a DOS extender that provides it. Look here: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/fileutil/listp96x.zip

It was no-nag shareware back in the day, and all functions work properly, even though it can no longer be registered.

Directory Freedom: Gordon Haff's DOS file manager utility, based on a PC Magazine utility by Michael Mefford. DF is highly configurable, and will let you customize what actions are taken on files based on the file extension, so you can add custom viewers for handling various file types.

Look here: http://home.comcast.net/~ghaff/bitmason/dflyer.html

T: Editor for DOS and OS/2, written by Tim Baldwin at IBM's UK labs. The design resembles the old IBM Personal Editor. The DOS version weighs in at 9KB. I keep it on a ramdisk for instant use.

Look here: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/apps/editors/tinyed.zip

VDE: Eric Meyer's MS-DOS word processor, using the WordStar command set. It began as an alternative to WordStar under CP/M, and was later ported to DOS. It's freeware these days, and Eric still maintains it. There was a 1.96a release in November 2009.

Look here: https://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/

There are others but that's a start.

> TIA
> Paul
> Melbourne, Australia
 ______
Dennis

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