From owner-freebsd-emulation Mon Sep 1 19:28:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA08101 for emulation-outgoing; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:28:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA08095 for ; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (lot.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [203.20.121.21]) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA27048 for ; Tue, 2 Sep 1997 11:58:34 +0930 (CST) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA00764; Tue, 2 Sep 1997 11:53:34 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709020223.LAA00764@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Helmut F. Wirth" cc: Mike Smith , emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Dos Emulation In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 01 Sep 1997 22:25:01 +0200." <340B249D.167EB0E7@ping.at> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 11:53:33 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk just to let you all know: I am working on an emulation for EMS (expanded > memory as in LIM EMS 4.0) right now. The LIM EMS 3.0 subset is working > and tested, but the more complex LIM EMS 4.0 functions need a bit of > work yet. I will get it commited when it is ready (1-2 weeks). I was going to ask (politely) if you were working on this after you did the XMS stuff. I'm really glad to hear this! > A question: Does somebody have a test program which will test the LIM > EMS 4.0 functionality ? I have a test program (EMSTEST, From Borland C) > but it tests only the LIM EMS 3.0 subset. I could write a test program > myself, but I'd rather avoid that. Any hints, pointers ? Short of just digging up applications and using them, no. 8( > Future projects I am thinking about are: > Mouse support: This should be fairly easy in X11 mode and not too hard > in console mode. > Graphics support: There are fragments in the existing code which could > be used. The syscons driver supports switching to some simple VGA modes. > A "well behaving" DOS program (i.e. one using the BIOS and video memory > but not the card registers to do the graphics) should work this way. I would *really* like to see the "screen" interface abstraction improved, if you think that you'd be able to come up with something there. The latest PCEmu (ftp://gsoft.com.au/pub/pcemu) has a tolerable curses-mode screen interface; I'm quite certain that something like this could be improved on dramatically. This would lead to a set of video support that would be quite comprehensive. > I too have looked at the LINUX dosemu package. The code was written by > many authors, never got cleaned up and it shows. But I may try to port > it to FreeBSD. It can do much more than our doscmd. It will need a > rewrite in some parts, but I *think* this could be easier and less work > than write all the functionality for ourselves. With the kernel support > existing now in -current, most things of dosemu should work, except > their DPMI emulation. This will probably need some more kernel support. To be honest, I would rather see you learn from dosemu and incorporate the fruits of said learning in doscmd; dosemu is forever crippled by the GPL as well. Just my UCU worth. mike