0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

[ItalianGrandma]

I didn't know that > NUL mattered as I'm pretty sure it works without it, but I added it back.

Sorry that was a typo on my part, it's the MENU part that's breaking it. Needs to be SYS.

I'l try the updated version later today, but even the 0.2 version gets me working results.

Hmm, MENU works for me. The reason I did that is because I believe it sets those parameters but still allows you to access the menu and change stuff?

I can certainly change it back if you can confirm it causes issues elsewhere. I’ll also do some testing on it tomorrow.

Edit: Ok, so I realized that it doesn’t actually work right for me either.

[Idelacio]

It doesn't change any values with the menu argument for me, that said I notice the core was updated last week so maybe I need to update.

[Fuzzball]

I am considering using Dosbox on my PC rather than the ao486 core on the Mister. I thought I would see if I can attach a vhd from the 0mhz collection to it. However on using the imgmount command to mount it I get the error:

Could not extract drive geometry from image.
Use parameter -size bps,spc,hpc,cyl to specify the geomettry.

Does anyone know what the parameter values should be? Is this the same or different for each vhd? If it is different for each then I won't bother but I don't know anything about vhd files so I thought I would ask.

(I don't think it makes any difference but I am using Dosbox-staging on Linux)

[Bas]

Those are different for each VHD unless they are all the exact same size every time. A properly generated VHD contains the geometry in a footer field so DOSBox should be able to detect it. Not sure though, I don't use DOSBox a lot.

[Fuzzball]

Thanks. I will look into why Dosbox isn't detecting the geometry in the footer.

[Bas]

It may not be in there, it may be different from what the OS did on there.. many things can fudge up disk geometry.

To expand on this a bit. You can generate a VHD, then format it with a geometry that boils down to the same size in bytes but is composed of different ratios between cylinders, heads and sectors per track.

This is what bit me when trying to support ancient MS-DOS. The OS never knew about sector counts over 17 because those didn't exist in 1983-ish. Now when modern Windows calculates a geometry it just assumes 63 sectors per track because "everyone does that". And it's valid for everyone younger than the 1980's and MS-DOS 4.00. It does sometimes bite us retro geeks though.

[ItalianGrandma]

Made a couple minor changes and changed the default sysctl settings back to SYS to better follow 0MHz conventions.

Tested a couple more VHDs this morning and my games booted up just fine

EDIT: Re-uploaded because I made a couple changes to the readme

EDIT #2: Just a note for those that haven't seen my progress through the rest of the thread. This tool does the following:

1) Asks you to enter a size in MB for your new VHD
2) Generates a new VHD of that size with DOS 7.1 installed (Defaults are HIMEM ON, MOUSE ON, CD-ROM OFF, EMM386 OFF) and AO486 core settings of CPU=90MHz, L1 Cache=ON, L2 Cache=ON

This is just a preliminary version I wanted to put out there so people could test because it is very stable for me at this point. You will still need to:

1) Mount the VHD and add your game files to the GAME folder
2) Adjust the RUNGAME.BAT file in the GAME folder to point to your game's EXE/BAT file
3) Adjust any settings that are needed for your game in the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files (i.e. CD-ROM, EMM386)
4) Run any additional setup files the game itself may have to configure things like Joysticks, Music, etc.
5) Create your own MGL file

I am working on a better version that will automate most of the steps above, so I will hopefully have that out soon . I know Bas's upcoming DOSContainer tool will probably supercede this, but I wanted to get something out in the interim that is really user friendly for us Windows users.

EDIT: Latest here ---> viewtopic.php?p=85737#p85737

[ItalianGrandma]

Slight update in that VHD Kitchen will now prompt you if your VHD Size already exists in the "VHDs" folder. You can cancel the process or overwrite the file.

This will change soon where the user will specify the name of the file, but for now I thought it was good to add.

EDIT: Updated again because I realized that DOSBox-X is open source and I am free to share it! The ZIP now includes DOSBox-X preinstalled, so all you have to do to start is just run the program

Latest ———> viewtopic.php?p=85737#p85737

[ItalianGrandma]

Another small update with better error handling!

This release also includes my source AutoHotKey script in the "assets" folder in case anyone wants to modify things or take a stab at improving it (obviously, you'll need AutoHotKey installed to run that file or recompile it). It's still a WIP that I'm actively working on, but I figured I'd put it out there just in case...also, since I'm including DOSBox-X in the package now, I am supposed to include the source code.

---

Latest version here! ------> viewtopic.php?p=85737#p85737

[mrchrister]

I'm contemplating adding a setname same dir option to 0mhz downloader, where every game gets it's own config file named after the mgl. Is this feature already in main and is it even a good idea to add this option to all mgls?

[Idelacio]

I'm contemplating adding a setname same dir option to 0mhz downloader, where every game gets it's own config file named after the mgl. Is this feature already in main and is it even a good idea to add this option to all mgls?

How about limited presets as needed, so you'd have say 5 config files for various requirements instead of 200. So far I have ine game that will only load from 16MB Ram setting and another that needs to boot from floppy. The default config has been fine otherwise.

[ItalianGrandma]

I'm contemplating adding a setname same dir option to 0mhz downloader, where every game gets it's own config file named after the mgl. Is this feature already in main and is it even a good idea to add this option to all mgls?

same_dir attribute is not in stable main just yet, it’s still only available in unstable.

That said, I think it’s a good idea once it hits stable main because the best part about separate configs, in my opinion, is that you can do unique keyboard>controller mappings per game.

Also, I might be wrong, but I don’t think having setname means it will automatically create config files? I think it will only happen if you actually click “save settings” for a game that has a setname. What would be really great is if sysctl.exe could just force any core settings (all cpu presets, ram size, etc.) so that separate configs for at least that stuff wasn’t needed.

[mrchrister]

I'm contemplating adding a setname same dir option to 0mhz downloader, where every game gets it's own config file named after the mgl. Is this feature already in main and is it even a good idea to add this option to all mgls?

same_dir attribute is not in stable main just yet, it’s still only available in unstable.

That said, I think it’s a good idea once it hits stable main because the best part about separate configs, in my opinion, is that you can do unique keyboard>controller mappings per game.

Also, I might be wrong, but I don’t think having setname means it will automatically create config files? I think it will only happen if you actually click “save settings” for a game that has a setname. What would be really great is if sysctl.exe could just force any core settings (all cpu presets, ram size, etc.) so that separate configs for at least that stuff wasn’t needed.

Thanks for the info. I'll hold off on it until it hits stable main. Having different button remaps for games would be great!

[ThumbKnock]

Could not extract drive geometry from image.
Use parameter -size bps,spc,hpc,cyl to specify the geomettry.

Does anyone know what the parameter values should be?

It would depend on the size of the VHD file. I've also been trying to get these VHDs to work in DOSBox Staging, but with limited success.

An earlier post in this thread showed some geometry data for the Colonization image, but when I use those numbers (-size 512,17,4,361), imgmount says "Can't create drive from file" without any explanation.

This imgmount guide says that the first three "size" numbers should always be 512,63,16, which might mean that DOSBox expects VHD sizes to be multiples of 516096 (512 * 63 * 16) bytes.

I can actually get imgmount to mount Colonization with -size 512,63,16,25, even though those numbers give a different total size (512 * 63 * 16 * 25 > 512 * 17 * 4 * 361). But I assume it's probably bad to mount an image with the wrong geometry, or at least with a different total size. Also, DOSBox Staging still won't boot the drive after I've mounted it this way. And the imgmount guide says you don't normally need to specify the size of a formatted VHD image to mount it, so this shouldn't be necessary.

[Bas]

Windows has a different idea about geometry than the AO486 core. The VHD footer likely won't match what DOS put into the BPB. There's a reason why I'm rolling my own from scratch.

That said, if you need a tool that spits out an empty VHD of a certain geometry, let me know. It'd be trivial for me to rip my project apart and recompose the working bits into something that you simply feed a geometry into and it spits out an empty VHD that fits.

[ThumbKnock]

which might mean that DOSBox expects VHD sizes to be multiples of 516096 (512 * 63 * 16) bytes.

The source code for DOSBox and DOSBox Staging seems to confirm this. They don't even attempt to read the geometry data from the VHD, as far as I can tell.

DOSBox-X does read the geometry data. When I used DOSBox-X for macOS, I was able to mount the Colonization VHD without a problem. But then I tried mounting it in DOSBox-X for Linux and got an error. (I don't have the error in front of me.)

So it seems like DOSBox itself just doesn't have good support for the VHD format. Generating VHDs with the geometry it expects should fix the problem, though.

[Fuzzball]

which might mean that DOSBox expects VHD sizes to be multiples of 516096 (512 * 63 * 16) bytes.

The source code for DOSBox and DOSBox Staging seems to confirm this. They don't even attempt to read the geometry data from the VHD, as far as I can tell.

DOSBox-X does read the geometry data. When I used DOSBox-X for macOS, I was able to mount the Colonization VHD without a problem. But then I tried mounting it in DOSBox-X for Linux and got an error. (I don't have the error in front of me.)

So it seems like DOSBox itself just doesn't have good support for the VHD format. Generating VHDs with the geometry it expects should fix the problem, though.

Thanks for this info. I just tried Dosbox-X on Linux and it mounts the vhds just fine. It's the first time I tried Dosbox-X rather than staging.

[ItalianGrandma]

Still working on v1.0, but here's another small update for VHD Kitchen so it now checks to make sure that you enter a number >= 3. Apparently, you can't make a VHD any smaller than 3MB and I didn't catch that before This is also true in Windows Disk Management.

It's also worth noting that you can't enter decimals either, you must specify a whole number. Creating VHDs in Windows directly works the same way.

[Bagel]

Hi, I've been messing around with this and it looks like Monkey Island 1+2 are using the mods that give them the voice acting from the special editions? Are you aware of if there is a way to remove the voices from these easily? Thanks.

[Idelacio]

Hi, I've been messing around with this and it looks like Monkey Island 1+2 are using the mods that give them the voice acting from the special editions? Are you aware of if there is a way to remove the voices from these easily? Thanks.

I was thinking of putting up a download that lets you select the version from a single VHD, just like ExoDOS. Wouldn't be part of the main pack though.

If you are interested I'll put it at the top of teh todo list.

[mrchrister]

Updated 0mhz_downloader:

• Added auto updater for script
• Added unofficial 0mhz games addon downloader

https://github.com/mrchrisster/0mhz-col ... nloader.sh

[Koston]

This is absolutely fabulous, very cool collection!

I've added support for it to the ROMweasel game downloader tool.

[Spookyy]

Can it run Gunship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunship_(video_game) and Gunship 2000? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunship_2000

[Higgy]

Updated 0mhz_downloader:

• Added auto updater for script
• Added unofficial 0mhz games addon downloader

https://github.com/mrchrisster/0mhz-col ... nloader.sh

Thanks for the script. I just downloaded a 30GB pack, so was going to install that then use your script to keep up to date.
I had a quick glance at your script and saw:
base_dir="/media/fat/games/AO486"

I was planning on installing the smaller files like MGL etc in FAT, but I use external storage for large file collections (PSX, Saturn etc) so should I just edit the above line to:
base_dir="/media/USB0/games/AO486". ?

I don't want my MiSTer going off and downloading the pack again to FAT.

Thanks

[mrchrister]

Just change the first setting at the top games_loc to usb

[Higgy]

Just change the first setting at the top games_loc to usb

I should not have looked at your script on a small phone screen! Yes sorry I now see your commented games_loc line. Thanks again.

[mrchrister]

Just change the first setting at the top games_loc to usb

I should not have looked at your script on a small phone screen! Yes sorry I now see your commented games_loc line. Thanks again.

No problem, hope it works well for you.
I should really have auto detection for fat/USB. I use USB as well and Everytime I upload a new version I have to change it back to fat in the script

[Higgy]

Guys, I’m having trouble getting this working.

WOKanx8.jpeg

r9PYTYy.jpeg

I was using the Top 300 VHD games before and I think that’s what’s stopping this from working. I’ve not used this core in ages though.

Did anyone come up with an answer for this issue on Page 5?
I've got the MGLs working and it is pulling in the VHDs from my USB Media, but it gets the image populated in both IDEs 0-0 and 1-1 and it does not boot.
I guess there should just be 1 ao486 config file stored along with all the other Core configs.
How about the ao486 boot and hot swap settings?

Update - I solved the issue. It was because on my USB 'Media' was in Root, instead of Games-AO486-Media.
The MGL populates the IDE 0-0 txt, but the Core could not actually fine the VHD, that is what was confusing me.

[Emubastard]

I am new to Mister and have been really enjoying this great collection of DOS games. Thanks for all the efforts for those involved in developing this! Just an FYI it seems that the MT-32 version of Monkey Island is not working with the MT-32 pi. Sound works fine but it is not using the MT-32 pi.

Fixed

[segamemister]

ok a few questions relating to

Can I put the games on external storage or a network storage?
Yes, this should work. Just make sure the DOS Games directory and ao486.cfg file is located on your SD card, then the HD images can be on your USB or NAS.

do i just copy an ao486.cfg from one of the game folder or is done this way

1. Create _DOS Games sd card

2. copy mgl and cfgs to said folder?

   leave the rest which is chd & vhd on ssd