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Open Sourcing DOS 4

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271–280 of 382 posts

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#271

Post by captaincrunch »

The input handling for file names is shit -- the GETWORD and MUSTGETWORD routines, doesn't check if the file name (or) extension exceeds the length (8 characters for the filename and 3 for the extension).

GETWORD: CALL GETLET JBE NONAM ;Exit if termination character DEC SI MUSTGETWORD: CALL GETLET JBE FILLNAM JCXZ MUSTGETWORD DEC CX CMP AL,"*" ;Check for ambiguous file specifier JNZ NOSTAR MOV AL,"?" REP STOSB NOSTAR: STOSB CMP AL,"?" JNZ MUSTGETWORD OR DL,1 ;Flag ambiguous file name JMP MUSTGETWORD FILLNAM: MOV AL," " REP STOSB DEC SI

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#272

Post by knute »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #241
thrdbndndn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2006, he was honored for 25 years of service with the company, the third employee to reach this milestone, after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He retired the same year from Microsoft Considering he "only" joined MS in 1981 (which was found in 1975?), I'm surprised no more people between him and Bill stayed at MS. Also shouldn't Paul Allen still count (from Wikipedia, "Allen resigned from his position on the Micr…

Early Microsoft seemed to be a pretty hardcore environment. I guess many employees came and got burned out in a few years.

And/or they cashed out $TEXAS in stock and rode off into the sunset.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#273

Post by suprjami »

billpg wrote: post #269

I'm seeing FreeDOS mentioned here, but I do wonder what practical use it is being put to. I only ever see it as something computer makers write into the hard disk because they have to put something there, which gets promptly wiped and replaced with a variety of Linux. (Why they couldn't ship an empty HD, I have no idea.)

It was a workaround from the time the Microsoft OEM agreement required them to ship an operating system, but the contract didn't specify which system.

Anyway, FreeDOS is useful for updating BIOS images, it also seems to run a lot of legacy industrial equipment, you can play retro games with it, and Jim Hall has a wonderful YouTube channel where he regularly shows using FreeDOS as an educational tool: https://youtube.com/@freedosproject

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#274

Post by sponaugle »

metadat wrote: post #167
at_a_remove wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If not for space considerations, I would be right there with you. I still have hardware and software to get me back to NT 4.0 or Windows 95 (OSR 2, please, it wasn't tolerable before that). I haven't needed to in a while, but in a previous job, we'd run across old disks in some author's archive and I'd go home to dig around, find a 5.25" drive and rig something up, reach back in time. I could maybe do Windows for Wor…

SCSI drives almost never go bad. Compared to IDE/SATA, they were significantly better built and had lower failure rates. I still have a few 15k RPM Cheetahs that still work, last I checked :).

In general, it is surprising how many old hard drives still work. I have a good number of old SCSI drives (even Seagate!) that still work 40 years on. The ST225 in one of my XTs still works great as well. I actually have a ST238R still new in box, and I'll be curious to see if it can spin up some day. I suspect the bearings might be a stuck after all of these years!

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#275

Post by pradn »

It's worthwhile to note the big impact a small set of driven volunteers can have in archival and preservation work! This was not inevitable!

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#276

Post by sponaugle »

at_a_remove wrote: post #156
mattl wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is always great to have period software on period hardware! Really is. This is why I keep a load of old hardware around. Stuff like Mac OS 9 should be run on real hardware and same for old MS-DOS.

If not for space considerations, I would be right there with you. I still have hardware and software to get me back to NT 4.0 or Windows 95 (OSR 2, please, it wasn't tolerable before that). I haven't needed to in a while, but in a previous job, we'd run across old disks in some author's archive and I'd go home to dig around, find a 5.25" drive and rig something up, reach back in time. I could maybe do Windows for Wor…

Indeed - Space is a key for being able to collect and restore this kind of stuff. I have most of my working machine lined up along a wall in one of my garage/lab areas (https://youtu.be/XHvdqB6LSg0). My wife has pretty much no idea what those computers are for, and my daughter just wants to play Oregon Trail on them.

They are fun to collect and restore. It is also helpful to be good at replacing capacitors. ;). Those surface mount ones on the Mac mainboards are almost always bad!

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#277

Post by kasajian »

sponaugle wrote: post #53

As Scott mentioned in the blog post, we were able to get this running on one of my original IBM XTs with an original IBM monochrome display adapter and display. It was very cool to be able to switch between a running version of a small game, Turbo Pascal, and a DOS prompt with a single key press. It is always great to have period software on period hardware! (added: Short video of it running - https://www.youtube.com…

https://www.os2museum.com/wp/how-not-to-release-historic-sou...

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#279

Post by jesuslop »

Our lab pcs run about that, with password protected BIOS. DOS has some filenames wired to devices (con, aux, prn)... as in linux /dev. Don't recall why but one time I summoned "echo kk > clock$" and not only did the real time clock lose sense of time, but upon reboot the bios was struck with bios checksum failed, bad crc, password protect forgotten and bios open to any mischief.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#280

Post by 1970-01-01 »

garaetjjte wrote: post #278

https://www.os2museum.com/wp/how-not-to-release-historic-sou...

This is important. If we're really trying to open source and preserve DOS, we need a better system. Someone at MS needs to create museuem.github.com and allow us to browse everything just as it was preserved on disk.
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