DOS ain't dead

Berlin, Germany,
28.04.2009, 09:56

New UIDE Available (Announce)

Today I've received this e-mail from Jack R. Ellis:

The new 2-GB "small memory" UIDE has been announced on EDR-DOS and has been posted, along with XMGR and their sources, at Johnson Lam's site: http://johnson.tmfc.net/

Home page & download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html

Changes:
25-Apr-09 XMGR/UIDE license and FreeDOS prohibition deleted, drivers and sources are again available to all. Corrected UIDE error in posting CD/DVD "return codes". UIDE /R switch re-added to support ROM-DOS. 21-Apr-09 Minor UIDE error (disk "A20 error" code not set) is fixed. 17-Apr-09 UIDE now caches 2 GIGABYTES, using 1056 upper-memory bytes and 3760 HMA bytes for any cache size; search tables now use XMS! /L deleted. Fixed BAD audio byte-count error. 2-Jan-09 UIDE problem handling CD/DVD read errors has been fixed. 29-Dec-08 UIDE can now cache up to 1.8 GIGABYTES of data! Loading scheme and "MvData" XMS subroutine improved. Fixed an "I-O busy" error during CD/DVD reads. 16-Jan-08 UIDE again allows up to 511-MB caches, using HMA space for most systems, upper-memory for > 255-MB on V7.10 MS-DOS. 14-Dec-07 UIDE /R switch and "big" caches deleted.

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Forum admin

Rugxulo Usono, 28.04.2009, 22:43 @ rr	New UIDE Available Post reply
	> Today I've received this e-mail from Jack R. Ellis: God bless him! > Changes: > > 28-Apr-09 Fixed UIDE save/restore error during CD/DVD init messages. > > 25-Apr-09 XMGR/UIDE license and FreeDOS prohibition deleted, > drivers and sources are again available to all. Corrected UIDE > error in posting CD/DVD "return codes". UIDE /R switch re-added to > support ROM-DOS.

sol 29.04.2009, 00:37 @ Rugxulo	New UIDE Available Post reply
	Strange. Jack had a change of heart?

Berlin, Germany,
29.04.2009, 22:40

@ rr

New UIDE Available

Post reply

Jack R. Ellis has released another update.

Changes:
28-Apr-09 Fixed UIDE save/restore error during CD/DVD init messages.

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Forum admin

Ninho

01.05.2009, 13:09

@ rr

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> Jack R. Ellis has released another update.

I have a suggestion for Mr Ellis, apropos his high mem manager (XMGR.SYS).
Can he be contacted either directly or through you ?

The point I wish to make - no reason to make it in private - is that sadly, xmgr asks the BIOS (int 15/AH=C0 iirc) for the presence of PS-2 style "port 92" HMA management and reverts to plain old "keyboard controller" type if BIOS doesn't report its port 92. Unfortunately many chipsets (most indeed) have port 92 A20-gate (and Reset) available for use, but still fail the PS2 int15 check.

I think it would be beneficial to ask Mr Ellis to add a command line switch meaning "bypass the int 15-PS2 test and try to use port 92h anyway. (MS DOS himem.sys has a /machine: switch)

Of course since source is provided it is easy for most of us here to modify it for one's sake but this is so generally useful an addition that ISTM best is to ask the author/maintainer for it.

Regards...

---
Ninho

Khusraw

Bucharest, Romania,
01.05.2009, 15:04

@ Ninho

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> I have a suggestion for Mr Ellis, apropos his high mem manager
> (XMGR.SYS).
> Can he be contacted either directly or through you ?

You may contact Mr. Ellis directly, you can find the contact data here, at the end of the message.

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Glory to God for all things

Ninho

02.05.2009, 11:06

@ Khusraw

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> You may contact Mr. Ellis directly, you can find the contact data
> here,
> at the end of the message.

Done! thank you (and thank Laaka who emailed with similar info)

---
Ninho

Khusraw

Bucharest, Romania,
02.05.2009, 14:36

@ Ninho

New UIDE Available

Post reply

Mr. Ellis has tried to send you by E-Mail the updated drivers dated 1-May-2009, but your E-Mail address failed giving an "Unknown user" response. The updated drivers package having the XMGR problem "corrected" will be available for download from Johnson Lam's page, perhaps later today.

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Glory to God for all things

Ninho

02.05.2009, 23:23

@ Khusraw

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> Mr. Ellis has tried to send you by E-Mail the updated drivers dated
> 1-May-2009, but your E-Mail address failed giving an "Unknown user"
> response.

Strange. Thx for the heads-up, I'm mailing him again from another account.

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Ninho

Berlin, Germany,
04.05.2009, 22:52

@ Khusraw

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> Mr. Ellis has tried to send you by E-Mail the updated drivers dated
> 1-May-2009, but your E-Mail address failed giving an "Unknown user"
> response. The updated drivers package having the XMGR problem "corrected"
> will be available for download from
> Johnson Lam's page,
> perhaps later today.

The download is still dated 28-APR-2009.

EDIT: The download is correct. It was a problem with my download manager (FDM).

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Forum admin

Ninho

05.05.2009, 10:52

@ Khusraw

New UIDE Available

Post reply

> The updated drivers package having the XMGR problem "corrected"
> will be available for download from
> Johnson Lam's page

Peeked at the new code and "field tested" the new XMGR for the last two days;
nothing extensive, but FWIW I'm confident this works as designed (and expected). Well done, Jack !

---
Ninho

Rugxulo

Usono,
10.05.2009, 03:29

@ Ninho

New UIDE Available (May 6)

Post reply

Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html

6-May-09 Added the non-caching UIDEJR ["junior" UIDE] driver, using only 768 upper-memory and 2528 HMA bytes! UIDE/UIDEJR now run up to 10 controllers, 36 disks, 8 CD/DVD drives. 1-May-09 Fixed XMGR "Port 92h" logic error. Added XMGR /PA and /PN switches to control use of "Port 92h" logic. Users wishing a smaller driver can use the non-caching UIDEJR ["junior" UIDE]. UIDEJR also runs up to 10 SATA or IDE controllers, 36 SATA/IDE hard-disks and 8 SATA/IDE/"PIO mode" CD/DVD drives. It needs only 768 bytes of upper-memory and 2528 bytes of HMA. Its /N2 switch dismisses all CD/DVD logic, giving a disk-only driver taking 768 upper-memory and 848 HMA bytes. UIDEJR can also load entirely in upper- or DOS memory. It allocates a 128K XMS memory buffer, so "misaligned" I-O can still be done at UltraDMA speeds. UIDEJR can play audio CDs and also do "raw" (trackwriter) CD/DVD input.

Rugxulo

Usono,
17.05.2009, 01:10

@ Rugxulo

New UIDE Available (May 15)

Post reply

Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html

15-May-09 Added the RDISK driver, which creates a 2-MB to 2-GIGABYTE "fast" RAM-disk using XMS memory! XMGR/UIDE unchanged. RDISK is a DOS RAM-disk driver, which creates a "fast" disk drive using from 2 Megabytes to 2 GIGABYTES of XMS memory! On loading, it assigns the next free DOS drive letter to its memory, then writes a FAT-16 disk structure in the memory. DOS can copy critical programs or data files to the "disk" and then access them much faster. Other read and write directories needing fast access (compiler TEMP files, a database, etc.) can be set up in the RAM-disk as well. RDISK can be used with V2.0 or V3.0 XMS managers (60-MB limit for V2.0 XMS). It needs only 640 bytes of upper-memory plus a disk control-block of 48 to 96 bytes on some DOS systems. If desired, RDISK can also load in 640K DOS memory. RDISK is a simple "load it and forget about it" driver, for users that do not need resizing or other complex features. 19072 05/15/2009 15:00 RDISK.ASM 1132 05/15/2009 15:00 RDISK.SYS

Note that someone should test to see if various file managers recognize it or not (DNOSP, DC-SK, NDN, DOSZip) since that's yet another reason why I stick to TDSK 2.3 on my P166 (although it's buggy for > 32 MB or so I hear). I forget, but I think XMSDSK crashes if no XMS found (plus no srcs, meh). Never tried SRDISK, but I didn't like its interface, IIRC. Jason's SHSURDRV works pretty well but is 15k UPX'd and is XMSv2 (16-bit build) or XMSv3 (32-bit build) only, which duplicates effort. I admit it's less useful for modern machines, but for my old P166, I like the fact that TDSK works with DC-SK, works with XMSv2, EMS, or conventional memory and can resize (only really useful in low memory situations). However, it's 18k (10k UPX'd), probably due to i18n messages embedded inside. It's little brother BITDISK is 10k (6k UPX'd) and XMS only. Oh, and SHSURDRV and XMSDSK can unload and choose drive letter (a big complaint against TDSK). But ou can use Eric's FINDDISK to search for a volume (e.g. RAM disk) with a known label if it doesn't let you select what drive letter to use.

I'm quite glad we have another (very tiny!) one to test! :-)

DOS386

17.05.2009, 05:26

@ Rugxulo

New UIDE (May 15) - Does this work for anyone at all ???

Post reply

Sol wrote:

> Strange. Jack had a change of heart?

Please fix your terminology: change of heart :hungry:

Rugxulo wrote:

> forget, but I think XMSDSK crashes if no XMS found (plus no srcs,meh).

meh ...

> Never tried SRDISK, but I didn't like its interface, IIRC.

So do it now ... it's very good :-)

UIDE test
---------

Tried 2 PC's and it hangs on both, while XDMA 3.1 works well on both :-( With XMGR instead of HIMEMX it seems to work (critical BUG of HIMEMX or UIDE ??? :confused: ) , but 1.3 times slower than XDMA 3.1 :-(

Anyone tested it with some of the latest/fastest/greatest controllers (native, SATA, AHCI, PCI/PCIE addon card) ? :hungry:

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

sol 17.05.2009, 20:03 @ DOS386	New UIDE (May 15) - Does this work for anyone at all ??? Post reply
	> Sol wrote: > > > Strange. Jack had a change of heart? > > Please fix your terminology: > change of > heart Learn to understand the terminology instead.

Rugxulo

Usono,
17.05.2009, 22:58

@ DOS386

New UIDE (May 15)

Post reply

> > Never tried SRDISK, but I didn't like its interface, IIRC.
>
> So do it now ... it's very good :-)

Unlikely unless I'm bored since I have no use for it. Why, what unique features does it offer?

> UIDE test
> ---------
>
> Tried 2 PC's and it hangs on both, while XDMA 3.1 works well on
> both :-( With XMGR instead of HIMEMX it seems to work (critical BUG of
> HIMEMX or UIDE ??? :confused: ) , but 1.3 times slower than XDMA 3.1 :-(

It works with JEMMEX on my P166 (440VX?), actually seems noticeably faster than the Nov. 1 2007 version.

> Anyone tested it with some of the latest/fastest/greatest controllers
> (native, SATA, AHCI, PCI/PCIE addon card) ? :hungry:

I don't think it supports AHCI (yet), and Rod P. on news://comp.os.msdos.programmer did test it, but it didn't work for him under Win98SE (although it may have worked in very limited testing in pure DOS, I dunno, hard to ask him for more details since he has no e-mail, just post on the newsgroup via Google Groups if curious).

DOS386

18.05.2009, 06:16

@ Rugxulo

New UIDE4W98SSE (May 15) R.P.

Post reply

> Unlikely unless I'm bored since I have no use for it. Why

DGJPP compiling ?

> I don't think it supports AHCI (yet), and Rod P. on comp.os.msdog.programmer
> did test it, but it didn't work for him under Win98SE

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.programmer/browse_thread/thread/3feb9b78368a99ff

Rod Pemberton wrote:

> However, I've never seen a DOS device driver *not* work
> with Win98SE...until now:
> "Write fault error writing device PRN. Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?"
> And, it corrupts something in the Windows registry files...

Heh ??? :confused: This shows how far the decay of DOS has already progressed if someone tests DOS drivers in Windaube (!!!) and then even publicly whines about his achievements :crying:

> I hope whoever tries this

NO. :-(

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

Rugxulo

Usono,
18.05.2009, 08:34

@ DOS386

New UIDE4W98SSE (May 15) R.P.

Post reply

> > Unlikely unless I'm bored since I have no use for it. Why
>
> DGJPP compiling ?

I meant what does SRDISK have over SHSURDRV or RDISK, TDSK, etc.?

> > I don't think it supports AHCI (yet), and Rod P. on
> comp.os.msdog.programmer
> > did test it, but it didn't work for him under Win98SE
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.programmer/browse_thread/thread/3feb9b78368a99ff
>
>
> Rod Pemberton wrote:
>
> > However, I've never seen a DOS device driver *not* work
> > with Win98SE...until now:
> > "Write fault error writing device PRN. Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?"
> > And, it corrupts something in the Windows registry files...
>
> Heh ??? :confused: This shows how far the decay of DOS has already
> progressed if someone tests DOS drivers in Windaube (!!!) and then even
> publicly whines about his achievements :crying:
>
> > I hope whoever tries this
>
> NO. :-(

Believe it or not, Win9x has mostly decent DOS support unlike more modern Windows, so it's not entirely out of the question to expect stuff to work there.

Zyzzle 18.05.2009, 03:58 @ Rugxulo	New UIDE Available (May 15) Post reply
	Another wonderful utility! Can RDISK.SYS be modified to allow 64 KB cluster sizes? Thereby, we could create a FAT16 drive with up to 4 GB of XMS. SHSURDRV does allow this. Indeed, I've allocated up to 3.5 GB with it successfully.

Berlin, Germany,
19.05.2009, 13:49

@ Zyzzle

New UIDE Available (May 15)

Post reply

> Can RDISK.SYS be modified to allow 64 KB cluster sizes? Thereby, we could
> create a FAT16 drive with up to 4 GB of XMS. SHSURDRV does allow this.
> Indeed, I've allocated up to 3.5 GB with it successfully.

Jack sent the following to me:

To "Zyzzle": I regret that I cannot modify RDISK to
allow up to 4-GB of RAM memory. On my V6.22 MS-DOS
system a 64K cluster size works, but CHKDSK declares
a Divide Overflow!! Limiting RDISK to 32K clusters
permits CHKDSK to work O.K. Thus, 64K clusters are
NOT a "safe" option on all DOS systems, and I do not
want them in RDISK.

If you want to re-assemble RDISK "for your use only"
note the following:

I_Siz1: mov ax,DrvSize.lw ;Get user's desired size. cmp ax,2047 ;Does user want over 2-GB?

If you use 4095, not 2047, RDISK will go up to 4-GB.

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Forum admin

Zyzzle 20.05.2009, 00:07 @ rr	New UIDE Available (May 15) Post reply
	@ Jack & rr: Many thanks, I did recompile it "for my use only" and now it can create a RAMDISK of > 2 GB... I of course realize the 64 kb cluster sizes aren't safe nor officially supported in DOS, but I like to live dangerously!

Rugxulo

Usono,
18.05.2009, 08:40

@ Rugxulo

New UIDE Available (May 15)

Post reply

> Note that someone should test to see if various file managers recognize it
> or not (DNOSP, DC-SK, NDN, DOSZip) since that's yet another reason why I
> stick to TDSK 2.3 on my P166 (although it's buggy for > 32 MB or so I
> hear).

Reported to be detected in DOSZip okay. (I should test more myself, but I'm busy with other miscella, as usual.)

I didn't exhaustively test it, but it worked okay on a DOS bootdisk (benchmarking a certain routine I compiled with various GCCs on various setups).

> But you can use Eric's
> FINDDISK
> to search for a volume (e.g. RAM disk) with a known label if it doesn't let
> you select what drive letter to use.

In other words, if you rely on your RAM disk being a certain drive for your .BATs, you can always just do "finddisk + HalleLU-Jah" and it will cd to the newly-created RDISK drive. Then, with FreeCOM or 4DOS at least, you can "set RDISK=%_CWD%", and now you can use %RDISK% in place of your hardcoded RAM drive letter. (Besides, finddisk is only 511 bytes, not exactly huge!)

Japheth

Germany (South),
19.05.2009, 12:22
(edited by Japheth, 19.05.2009, 12:41)

@ Rugxulo

RDISK test - small bugfix.

Post reply

I tested RDISK with XMGR and HimemX. While it worked ok in Qemu, I encountered severe problems on a real machine. Usually DOS is telling that it cannot write to the ram-disk's directory.

Using WDE I saw that the ram-disk's root directory contained all 0xFFs, which isn't the proper value (should be 0x00).

I checked the RDISK.ASM source. It's supposed to clear 160 kB of memory in an XMS memory block, but actually clears 80 kB only. This modification might fix it (at least it runs on that particular machine now):

; mov cx,320 ;Get 256-byte block count in 160K. mov cx,320*2 ;Get 256-byte block count in 160K. mov si,(XMSBlk-@) ;Point to our XMS move block. mov [si+8],cs ;Set move source-address segment. I_ClrX: push cx ;Zero next 256-byte block of XMS.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Berlin, Germany,
19.05.2009, 16:30

@ Japheth

RDISK test - small bugfix.

Post reply

> I tested RDISK with XMGR and HimemX. While it worked ok in Qemu, I
> encountered severe problems on a real machine. Usually DOS is telling that
> it cannot write to the ram-disk's directory.

Jack has confirmed this bug and will fix it today.

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Forum admin

Rugxulo

Usono,
28.05.2009, 22:13

@ Rugxulo

New UIDE Available (May 27)

Post reply

> Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html

27-May-09 UIDE now uses 992 upper-memory bytes (external-entry logic made an assembly option). UIDE move-memory logic fixed for older 80386/80486 CPUs. CD/DVD entry code in UIDE/UIDEJR improved. XMGR/RDISK unchanged. 19-May-09 Fixed RDISK clear-memory error and added removable-inquiry support. Other drivers unchanged (re-dated only).

Rugxulo Usono, 03.06.2009, 16:13 @ Rugxulo	New UIDE Available (June 1) Post reply
	Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html `1-Jun-09 UIDE optimized for JEMM386, UIDE /K switch added. JEMM386 is now recommended with UIDE. See the README "Technical Notes" for full details. Other drivers unchanged.`

Rugxulo Usono, 11.06.2009, 04:03 @ Rugxulo	New UIDE Available (June 9) Post reply
	Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html `9-Jun-09 UIDE/UIDEJR /N3 switch added for no XMS memory. Override of /D: name with UIDE$/UIDEJR$ added if no CD/DVD drives are found. XMGR/RDISK unchanged (re-dated only).`

Rugxulo Usono, 24.06.2009, 22:54 @ Rugxulo	New UIDE Available (June 23) Post reply
	> Home Page & Download: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html `23-Jun-09 RDISK now a .COM file, loadable by CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC. RDISK /: switch added to use any free drive letter, when loaded thru AUTOEXEC or later. RDISKON program added. Corrected UIDE CD/DVD handling of VDS errors. XMGR and UIDEJR unchanged (re-dated only).`

Paul

16.07.2009, 23:18

@ Rugxulo

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> RDISK /: switch added to use any free drive letter, when loaded
> thru AUTOEXEC or later. RDISKON program added.

I have modified this version of RDISK to make it work with kilobyte (rather than megabyte) accuracy.

The download is here:
http://superkeen.com/peacecorpsfiles/drvrs-pb.zip

I made this change because:
-RDISK has an amazingly small footprint, so wanted to stick with it. The closest competition is the IBM RAMDRIVE.SYS that comes with PC-DOS 7.1, and that's over double the size of RDISK.COM!
-I'm working on a DOS boot disk that needs to extract a 7Z file from and to a ramdrive. The 7Z Extractor needs roughly 2.3MB of RAM, so a ramdrive of 6MB would cause the extraction to fail on a machine with 8MB total RAM, and a ramdrive of 5MB would be too small to hold the contents of the 7Z file!

The bootdisk details:
http://superkeen.com/peacecorpsweblog/learning-software/

My RDISK changes are hackish (I don't actually know assembly), and as a result you can't make very large ramdrives with my custom build. Therefore, this doesn't supersede the capabilities of RDISK. To avoid confusion, I called my build RDISK-S (as in Small).

I would love to see this option implemented in the next version of the real RDISK!

Thanks,
Paul

PS- I hope this kind of code sharing and modifying is OK. I'm not sure what the letter of the law is with these releases, but my intentions are good!

Rugxulo

Usono,
17.07.2009, 08:50

@ Paul

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> > RDISK /: switch added to use any free drive letter, when loaded
> > thru AUTOEXEC or later. RDISKON program added.
>
> I have modified this version of RDISK to make it work with kilobyte
> (rather than megabyte) accuracy.
>
> The download is here:
> http://superkeen.com/peacecorpsfiles/drvrs-pb.zip
>
> I made this change because:
> -RDISK has an amazingly small footprint, so wanted to stick with it. The
> closest competition is the IBM RAMDRIVE.SYS that comes with PC-DOS 7.1,
> and that's over double the size of RDISK.COM!

BITDISK (from TurboDisk) is pretty small, 10k UPX'd. Okay, not that small, but it's also open source and can handle kilobytes. You're using an XMSv2 driver anyways, and your computers are max. 32 MB, so you don't need the massive power of RDISK (gigs). Besides, you apparently have 30k free space left anyways. But yeah, RDISK is definitely cool. ;-)

> -I'm working on a DOS boot disk that needs to extract a 7Z file from and
> to a ramdrive. The 7Z Extractor needs roughly 2.3MB of RAM, so a ramdrive
> of 6MB would cause the extraction to fail on a machine with 8MB total RAM,
> and a ramdrive of 5MB would be too small to hold the contents of the 7Z
> file!

Yeah, I see an OpenWatcom-built 7.EXE that uses D3X, nice idea! :-P :-D :-D Although just FYI, the 9.04 one also handles unpacking dirs ('x').

> I would love to see this option implemented in the next version of the
> real RDISK!

That's up to Jack Ellis. I think he still reads (but doesn't post) here occasionally. ;-)

P.S. I noticed you used (and semi-worried) about PC-DOS 3.30 COMMAND.COM for its small size. Just for comparison, you could consider FreeDOS' old GCom 0.85. It's approx. 12k UPX'd, but it lacks FOR, IF, SHIFT. Still, it's quite small, so if you don't need complex .BATs, it might do what you want.

P.P.S. As much as I typically shun overformatting, I don't see how you can get around that without using stronger, more memory-intensive compression.

roytam

17.07.2009, 13:12

@ Rugxulo

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> > > RDISK /: switch added to use any free drive letter, when loaded
> > > thru AUTOEXEC or later. RDISKON program added.
> >
> > I have modified this version of RDISK to make it work with kilobyte
> > (rather than megabyte) accuracy.
> >
> > The download is here:
> >
> http://superkeen.com/peacecorpsfiles/drvrs-pb.zip
> >
> > I made this change because:
> > -RDISK has an amazingly small footprint, so wanted to stick with it.
> The
> > closest competition is the IBM RAMDRIVE.SYS that comes with PC-DOS 7.1,
> > and that's over double the size of RDISK.COM!
>
> (snipped)

I think you can use INSTALL=rk.com /s5632 /:l and get rip of s.sys

> P.S. I noticed you used (and semi-worried) about PC-DOS 3.30 COMMAND.COM
> for its small size. Just for comparison, you could consider FreeDOS' old
> GCom
> 0.85. It's approx. 12k UPX'd, but it lacks FOR, IF, SHIFT. Still,
> it's quite small, so if you don't need complex .BATs, it might do what you
> want.
>
> P.P.S. As much as I typically shun overformatting, I don't see how you can
> get around that without using stronger, more memory-intensive compression.

just hex-edit COMMAND.COM for getting rip of version=3.30 line in config.sys:
00000D3A: 74 EB

15KB UPX'd with FOR, IF, SHIFT :-D

Paul

18.07.2009, 21:48

@ roytam

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> I think you can use INSTALL=rk.com /s5632 /:l and get rip of
> s.sys

For some reason that made 7-Zip freeze. (7-Zip uses XMS, which probably has something to do with it.) I need to narrow down the problem before I declare it an RDISK "bug," but for the time being I'm using RDISK as a device driver and not an executable.

> just hex-edit COMMAND.COM for getting rip of version=3.30
> line in config.sys:
> 00000D3A: 74 EB

Nice tip. In RDISK-S I removed the DOS version check to work around this, but yours seems like a better solution.

> 15KB UPX'd with FOR, IF, SHIFT :-D

Does this mean you have such a build? I really do need IF (NOT) (ERRORLEVEL / EXIST) and GOTO. I can probably find external commands or workarounds for CLS, COPY, MD, and DEL.

The UPX'd size is nice, but one of the programs I uses will crash on exit if using a UPX'd command.com. It's weird. Anyway, in its current state it's 23K, which makes it competitive as-is.

roytam

19.07.2009, 03:55

@ Paul

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> > 15KB UPX'd with FOR, IF, SHIFT :-D
>
> Does this mean you have such a build? I really do need IF (NOT)
> (ERRORLEVEL / EXIST) and GOTO. I can probably find external commands or
> workarounds for CLS, COPY, MD, and DEL.
>
> The UPX'd size is nice, but one of the programs I uses will crash on exit
> if using a UPX'd command.com. It's weird. Anyway, in its current state
> it's 23K, which makes it competitive as-is.

UPXing hex-edited COMMAND.COM you'll have a 15KB version. ;-)

Paul

19.07.2009, 18:44

@ roytam

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> > > I think you can use INSTALL=rk.com /s5632 /:l and get rip
> > of
> > > s.sys
> >
> > For some reason that made 7-Zip freeze. (7-Zip uses XMS, which
> probably
> > has something to do with it.) I need to narrow down the problem before
> I
> > declare it an RDISK "bug," but for the time being I'm using RDISK as a
> > device driver and not an executable.

Update: The bug was my own... not present in the original RDISK. I updated "RDISK-S" for my FUZOMA project here, so I can now take your advice and drop the SRDisk Dummy Device Driver.

RDISK actually handles the drive letters more gracefully, anyway. It doesn't destructively occupy all the lower letters the way SRDISK does.

> > > just hex-edit COMMAND.COM for getting rip of
> version=3.30
> > > line in config.sys:
> > > 00000D3A: 74 EB
> >
> > Nice tip. In RDISK-S I removed the DOS version check to work around
> this,
> > but yours seems like a better solution.

In practice I wasn't able to get this to work. I get the same Incorrect DOS Version error as always, so I'm continuing to keep the version check out of RDISK-S.

roytam 20.07.2009, 12:23 @ Paul	Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S") Post reply
	> In practice I wasn't able to get this to work. I get the same Incorrect > DOS Version error as always, so I'm continuing to keep the version check > out of RDISK-S. You should change the 0x74 in offset 00000D3A to 0xEB in order to work.

Paul 21.07.2009, 23:38 @ roytam	Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S") Post reply
	> You should change the 0x74 in offset 00000D3A to 0xEB in order to work. Genius, thanks.

Paul

18.07.2009, 21:48

@ Rugxulo

Custom RDISK Build ("RDISK-S")

Post reply

> BITDISK (from
> TurboDisk)
> is pretty small, 10k UPX'd. Okay, not that small, but it's also open
> source and can handle kilobytes. You're using an XMSv2 driver anyways, and
> your computers are max. 32 MB, so you don't need the massive power of
> RDISK (gigs). Besides, you apparently have 30k free space left anyways.
> But yeah, RDISK is definitely cool. ;-)

Tried Bitdisk briefly. Also used DR-DOS's VDISK for a bit. Not open source, but freeware, I think, although the licensing around DR-DOS is confusing. RDISK beats them all for size.

Don't let that 30k free space fool you... I've got lots of ideas for educational programs to wedge in there.

> Yeah, I see an OpenWatcom-built 7.EXE that uses D3X, nice idea! :-P :-D
> :-D Although just FYI, the
> 9.04 one also handles
> unpacking dirs ('x').

It helped that someone anticipated my "idea" and compiled it for me! :-) I'll probably stick with my non-beta version for the time being, although having subdirectories would help me keep my sanity.

> > I would love to see this option implemented in the next version of the
> > real RDISK!
>
> That's up to Jack Ellis. I think he still reads (but doesn't post) here
> occasionally. ;-)

I also emailed him before I started modifying the source. If he can't squeeze it in, no problem. I know he's keen on the exactly-1.5KB file size, but it would be cool if he could make it work.

> P.S. I noticed you used (and semi-worried) about PC-DOS 3.30 COMMAND.COM
> for its small size. Just for comparison, you could consider FreeDOS' old
> GCom
> 0.85. It's approx. 12k UPX'd, but it lacks FOR, IF, SHIFT. Still,
> it's quite small, so if you don't need complex .BATs, it might do what you
> want.

More on that in my response to roytam.

> P.P.S. As much as I typically shun overformatting, I don't see how you can
> get around that without using stronger, more memory-intensive compression.

I drew the line at overformatting to 1680k. 2M was really tempting but I wanted to people to be able to make the disks with a Windows machine with no extra steps. Even with 1680, it doesn't work on USB floppies, but that's why I have USB stick and CD options as well.

I tried really hard to get Uharc to work on a machine with 8MB RAM, but it just wasn't going to happen. Nevermind Paq8o8.

If I de-UPX all the EXEs in the 7z file, it actually compresses a lot better, but then the ramdrive needs to be a lot bigger, so it ends up being counterproductive. Ah, the endless cycle of optimization!

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