FreeDOS VHD

[Reed_Solomon]

I created a freely distributable FreeDOS-1.3-RC3.VHD for the default fresh install (including sources) of the latest version of FreeDOS. It's zipped to 225MB but it expands to a 2GB VHD unzipped. Might make things easier for people to get started running the core. Since it's open source and free to distribute it could easily be included in any update scripts or github.

https://mega.nz/file/N7oDHbYR#gMalHDkyn ... t8mJ4f_5To

[Caldor]

Nice. I shared one earlier today, a 4gb one zipped to... I think its 1.2gb. It was put together a bit fast because it was a request someone made, so plan to polish it when I get home. Making it completely freeware and shareware based, so I will be adding a collection of shareware apps and games.

My idea was pretty much the same as yours, making something that helps people get started.

[NegSol]

Maybe you two collaborate? I could see that your effort would be appreciated by many. Anyhow thanks for providing the FreeDOS VHDs.

[Reed_Solomon]

Making it completely freeware and shareware based, so I will be adding a collection of shareware apps and games.

While my VHD includes a small selection of open source games that come bundled with FreeDos, my thinking is that best practice would be to keep games and other applications on a second VHD. That way you can easily change between OS's if you wish but still have access to any games you might want to run.

[Caldor]

Making it completely freeware and shareware based, so I will be adding a collection of shareware apps and games.

While my VHD includes a small selection of open source games that come bundled with FreeDos, my thinking is that best practice would be to keep games and other applications on a second VHD. That way you can easily change between OS's if you wish but still have access to any games you might want to run.

Very true... its also what I usually do. I think I will download yours, then maybe see if there are some apps or config changes I would try out on it, then a second disk for shareware stuff.

I finally found a great source for shareware games. It even lists several versions of each game, and whether each version is for DOS, Win16 or Win9x.
https://www.classicdosgames.com/

[Caldor]

Been going through GOG since GOG has a bunch of games that has become freeware officially.

Found something else interesting... seems the Windows version of ScummVM can be run with FreeDOS using some extender?
https://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=10327

Gotta give that a try... but it was used on modern hardware, I guess there is a chance it wont work well on an actual DOS computer.

[Chris23235]

Been going through GOG since GOG has a bunch of games that has become freeware officially.

Found something else interesting... seems the Windows version of ScummVM can be run with FreeDOS using some extender?
https://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=10327

Gotta give that a try... but it was used on modern hardware, I guess there is a chance it wont work well on an actual DOS computer.

Just out of interest, why use ScummVM on an old DOS computer that is capable to run the games natively? Are there any advantages in this?

[Caldor]

Been going through GOG since GOG has a bunch of games that has become freeware officially.

Found something else interesting... seems the Windows version of ScummVM can be run with FreeDOS using some extender?
https://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=10327

Gotta give that a try... but it was used on modern hardware, I guess there is a chance it wont work well on an actual DOS computer.

Just out of interest, why use ScummVM on an old DOS computer that is capable to run the games natively? Are there any advantages in this?

The most interesting bit, is that the method used to run ScummVM under DOS is not specific to ScummVM, its for Windows apps in general, making it possible to run several Win16 and Win32 bit apps directly under DOS.

The reason I was looking for it under ScummVM, is because some of the games made free on GOG, are using ScummVM, so I figured I would look up the DOS version of ScummVM to see if that might be used to help run it. Including the rest of the files from the full DOS game would probably stop it from being the free game... which leaves us with ScummVM as the way to run it.

It might actually improve the game though, and also... it could make it possible to run other Windows 95 games in DOS like... Curse of Monkey Island?

Which could be nice, given that for a freeware distribution, its not possible to just include Windows 95, and I do not know of any opensource project that tries to recreate Windows 9x using opensource replacements for all the drivers and such. But... this HX DOS Extender though... it might really open some doors in this regard. I am guessing its going to be too heavy for the MiSTer, but I have to try out what this might do

[Chris23235]

Thanks for the explanation, this makes sense.

[SuperBabyHix]

I could think of some use cases where someone would have a DOS capable system where using ScummVM would be a better way to play than the original DOS executables. A fast, late era computer with no ISA slots, thus having to rely on PCI sound cards. Compatibility and sound quality (especially FM synth) in DOS with PCI sound cards is typically spotty. So I could see wanting to use the FM or MIDI emulation of ScummVM, though I would also argue why not use the Windows version on such a system.

Cant think of a reason to use it on the ao486 core other than just for the fun of it. At some point I want to try out some other x86 compatible OSes on the ao486 core (OS/2, Linux, NeXTSTEP, etc...). It would be interesting to see if ScummVM works on any of those on the core.

[Caldor]

I could think of some use cases where someone would have a DOS capable system where using ScummVM would be a better way to play than the original DOS executables. A fast, late era computer with no ISA slots, thus having to rely on PCI sound cards. Compatibility and sound quality (especially FM synth) in DOS with PCI sound cards is typically spotty. So I could see wanting to use the FM or MIDI emulation of ScummVM, though I would also argue why not use the Windows version on such a system.

Cant think of a reason to use it on the ao486 core other than just for the fun of it. At some point I want to try out some other x86 compatible OSes on the ao486 core (OS/2, Linux, NeXTSTEP, etc...). It would be interesting to see if ScummVM works on any of those on the core.

Yeah, with ScummVM its mainly a "because you can" thing... also a bit because its probably a pretty good way to test the core, and if it really is possible to get Windows games to run under DOS, that would be pretty incredible. I suspect it might not run well though, but looking forward to trying out all the software I have been collecting.

[SuperBabyHix]

Ha, I was typing all that when you responded and didn't see your explanation about possibly running Windows games in Dos. That is a really interesting prospect. I'll be curious to see what turns out.

[Caldor]

I have been trying out a lot of things. I have been trying to use Star Commander to replace Norton Commander. I really miss being able to open zip files in the program though, as if its a folder like NC does.

Anyone know of other Norton Commander alternatives for DOS?

So far I have not had luck using the HX DOS Extender to run Total Commander, might be that I need to find some portable version of it and then that might help. For now I am testing out the disk I made with shareware apps to see how well they work... they are all in zip and installation files though, so I am trying to install them one by one. I should probably first use DOS box to install them all and test them, then copy them to a VHD.

The HX DOS Extender does seem capable of running simple extender apps. Some issues might be this core I am using is having some memory issues or something.

[Caldor]

I took the image Reed shared and added a few more apps to it and moved a lot of the stuff in the root of it to subfolders.

One app I added is Star Commander, and gave it an NC bat file since I am so used to using Norton Commander, so NC will run SC from anywhere. I also added an app for benchmarking and the HX DOS Extender. Typing "windos" will activate it, making it try to run windows apps when in DOS. There is also so you can type runwin + some app name and it will try to run it in a way that tries to force it to use Win32 GUI mode or something.

So far I have not had much luck with it. I should probably try using it under DOSBox to see how its supposed to run when it works and what its supposed to work with. I have added some DLL files to its bin folder that the readme files says help it run more stuff, like an SDL.dll, that should help it run ScummVM, but have not had any luck so far.

http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/FreeDOS1.3rc3.zip

For some reason none of the games that comes with it seems to run... guessing they all use some memory or cache or something that this core does not want it to use... or maybe its because its a release candidate, but, I doubt that is it.

I made another image full of shareware apps but it has some errors on it, showing several folders I had deleted from it, but still show as being there, so I need to do some more work on it. Besides all the games are still in zip files and such, and it would be better to have installed games that are ready to run. I have made another VHD disk with free games. Full version games that are now free. Some of them are Windows games though, some of them because they rely on ScummVM since GOG did not supply the original executables. I might have to remake that as well, so that it is on a disk that can be used by DOS6.22. Even though this one is 2gb, it is a fat32 disk, so not supported by Dos 6.22.

Link to the free games VHD:
http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/FreeGames.zip

Some games on it are Teen Agent and Shadow Warrior. Ultima 4, two Ultima Worlds games, Tyrian 2000 and Bio Menace. Those are all for DOS.

Then there is Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of the Temptrees and Flight of the Amazon Queen for ScummVM so they require Windows. I am guessing ScummVM might run under Windows 95 since its the 32 bit version... at least I am pretty sure it is. Also there is Doomdarks Revenge, Lords of Midnight and War Wind, which are all Windows games that should work under Windows 9x I think. But maybe not on the core as it is now.

[NML32]

Does anyone have a 2Gig FreeDOS VHD handy that only has FreeDOS installed? I've been unsuccessful in getting FreeDOS installed on a VHD.
Thanks

[Reed_Solomon]

Does anyone have a 2Gig FreeDOS VHD handy that only has FreeDOS installed? I've been unsuccessful in getting FreeDOS installed on a VHD.
Thanks

Check out the first post in this thread

[NML32]

Does anyone have a 2Gig FreeDOS VHD handy that only has FreeDOS installed? I've been unsuccessful in getting FreeDOS installed on a VHD.
Thanks

Check out the first post in this thread

Thank you.

[SuperBabyHix]

Anyone know of other Norton Commander alternatives for DOS?

I've usually used Volkov Commander for my dos machines, https://vvv.kiev.ua/ , it's freeware as far as I know, so should be ok to distribute.

I'm downloading the VHDs in this thread now. Will give any feedback if I have any. Thanks to the both of you for posting.

[wark91]

Is Freedos case-sensitive ?
I have a game settlers 1 working without issue with dos 6.22 but failed to launch on Freedos because it searched for a file in lowercase but it is on uppercase on my filesystem.
I think I can fix this by renaming the file on lowercase.

[Caldor]

Is Freedos case-sensitive ?
I have a game settlers 1 working without issue with dos 6.22 but failed to launch on Freedos because it searched for a file in uppercase but it is on lowercase on my filesystem.
I think I can fix this by renaming the file on uppercase.

Good question... FreeDOS is not as compatible as DOS 6.22 or DOS 7.x, but not sure why or how. It does seem to support files having upper and lover cases, but so far I have not noticed it affecting regular DOS commands, so I would be surprised if it affected games.

[wark91]

Renaming the file (uppercase or lowercase) doesn't fix the issue ....
The error is "this applications needs the file sndstup.dat".

[Reed_Solomon]

Renaming the file (uppercase or lowercase) doesn't fix the issue ....
The error is "this applications needs the file sndstup.dat".

Sndstup.dat is probably is for sound setup of some sort. If it's there and it's not finding it that's peculiar.

[Caldor]

I have been working on a shareware VHD. This one should be DOS 6.22 compatible:
http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/Sharewa ... 0games.rar
To make sure it could be, it only has DOS games. I will make a second one with Windows games, so it can have longer filenames and such. Although not sure if that is a file system limitation? It has to be earlier than FAT16 to only support the files with 8 chars name and 3 chars type? I dont remember. I should probably look it up.

I have split it into some different folders, one called install because I am fairly certain they need to be installed to be playable. The games folder has games that should be launchable, but they might also require installation.

[Reed_Solomon]

I have been working on a shareware VHD. This one should be DOS 6.22 compatible:
http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/Sharewa ... 0games.rar
To make sure it could be, it only has DOS games. I will make a second one with Windows games, so it can have longer filenames and such. Although not sure if that is a file system limitation? It has to be earlier than FAT16 to only support the files with 8 chars name and 3 chars type? I dont remember. I should probably look it up.

I have split it into some different folders, one called install because I am fairly certain they need to be installed to be playable. The games folder has games that should be launchable, but they might also require installation.

Nice. I wonder if there's any technical reason the core only supports 2 hard drives. Most PCs supported up to 4 IDE drives in those days after all. Sure you can switch between them I suppose but if there wasn't much penalty for more drives it could be convenient.

[Caldor]

I think its just because it should be enough with 2... would be nice to have support for more though. It requires the core to support more settings and a bigger menu. I guess there could be an option like WinUAE has where you select how many drives you want to have active.

[wark91]

Renaming the file (uppercase or lowercase) doesn't fix the issue ....
The error is "this applications needs the file sndstup.dat".

Sndstup.dat is probably is for sound setup of some sort. If it's there and it's not finding it that's peculiar.

Yes it have the name of sound driver to use. I think i need to open an issue directly to Freedos.

[ericgus09]

Nice. I wonder if there's any technical reason the core only supports 2 hard drives. Most PCs supported up to 4 IDE drives in those days after all. Sure you can switch between them I suppose but if there wasn't much penalty for more drives it could be convenient.

I do recall someone saying the A0486 core used up a lot of the FPGAs resources.. so there may not be a whole lot left over .. or should I say what is left better used for alternative purposes.. just a guess I am not a developer working on/with mister cores.

[Caldor]

Nice. I wonder if there's any technical reason the core only supports 2 hard drives. Most PCs supported up to 4 IDE drives in those days after all. Sure you can switch between them I suppose but if there wasn't much penalty for more drives it could be convenient.

I do recall someone saying the A0486 core used up a lot of the FPGAs resources.. so there may not be a whole lot left over .. or should I say what is left better used for alternative purposes.. just a guess I am not a developer working on/with mister cores.

Yeah, but much of it was due to auto-generated code, converting some open-source code into whatever MiSTer needs as FPGA code, which they are working on optimizing now it sounds like. I think if it was not for the limitations of the FPGA size, it would probably be pretty simple to use the same code source to add FPU, MMX and more from that same code source.

[chimaera]

I know this may be a bit off topic but its closely related.

Has anyone successfully gotten sound to work in win311 under freedos 1.3 rc2?

I have installed Soundblaster 2.0 bundle pack drivers and run winsetup.exe just as i did in msdos622 but still no sound.

[Caldor]

I know this may be a bit off topic but its closely related.

Has anyone successfully gotten sound to work in win311 under freedos 1.3 rc2?

I have installed Soundblaster 2.0 bundle pack drivers and run winsetup.exe just as i did in msdos622 but still no sound.

Hmmm, could be interesting to try. It does work without sound? I found a video, but it did not show anything about sound, only that protected mode is a problem for FreeDOS and Windows 3.11.

I added some software to the FreeDOS image. There is an HX DOS Extender, which seems to help when it comes to running the games on the FreeDOS VHD. Use it by typing RUNWIN + the name of the file you want to run.

So I think Win311 is run by typing win? So something like Runwin win and that should help run Windows in protected mode... I think. Not sure if that might help with the audio. The video I sound did not have audio, so it was not clear if they had gotten sound working in 3.11 under FreeDOS