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A Linux Guy Looks at FreeDOS
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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i was wondering if someone could offer some guidance as to getting the documentation necessary to perform the following:
i have a somewhat large library of C helper functions
(currently on windows NT/2000/XP) that i use commonly when
writing software. i have been cleaning and optimizing this set of functions for over 5 years now. i have all the actual syscalls isolated and i keep their use to a minimum, and i don’t make any use of the C runtime library. my question is how to find the equivalent functions in freedos, the functions are stuff like:
allocating memory.
writing a block of data to file on the hard disk.
getting a pointer to the display card memory.
i am currently writing a clone of the MagicCap OS using my
library of functions. if you are not familiar with MagicCap, it is an OS used for hand-held devices and it is truly a joy to use with all the smart ideas in it for productivity and ease of use.
most of the documentation i come across addresses running an existing DOS application on FreeDOS, but not writing a new application from scratch. any help would be highly appreciated.
i use the digital mars compiler by the way. do you that that is a good idea? i find it great.
thank you and again congratulations on the great work.
ok, some someone takes freedos, add WINE and WINEx and ports/uses Kde for the gui….what else do ya need? but with that setup i believe we could announce winux 95
You can find a pretty complete list of all the interrupt services (syscalls) available under Dos http://www.ctyme.com/intr/int.htm“>here this” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.ctyme.com/intr/int-21.htm”>this page though.
I take it that if you post links to the Ralph Brown Interupt list (a helper for any os btw as it deals with i/o ports aswell as interupts) that FreeDOS is 100% compatible with MS-DOS? But isnt it teadiously hard to allocate memory in DOS? I mean without hi mem and stuff like that.
What would be FreeDOS is not a DOS compatible available for free? Indeed allocating memory without a memory extender is difficult, but if you are ready to load EMM386 then things become simpler. Using functions 0x25C0/0x25C1/0x25C2 of interrupt 0x21 it is possible to allocate/free memory quite easily.
“What would be FreeDOS is not…”
should read “What would be FreeDOS if not…”
What was so special about the MagicCap OS? In the somewhat sparse information I’ve been able to find online, it seems like it was a pretty poor attempt at conveying as literal as possible a “desktop” and neighborhood metaphor, with applications as buildings along a street. (Hey kids, anyone want to IRC? Let’s go down to the in and out burger for some chit-chat!)
I’d be interested in what MagicCap provides over something like the Newton OS 2.1. It’s not hard to beat PalmOS or WinCE for a well designed, somewhat general purpose, operating environment for small computers with small screens. As a person working on such an environment based on the underlying ideas of the Newton (not just trying to copy the look), I’d be interesting to hear about what makes MagicCap work.
Does it have something with the Telescript language, or is there something I’m missing? Reply here or email me, if you get this.
> Veterans of the Linux/Unix/BSD crowd will be thrilled
> to learn that versions of “vi” and “emacs” are available.
Nothing wrong with the article but please give me one reason for a *nix veteran to use *DOS.
I know, I know…the FreeDos page itself says that this is not yet possible, but I was able to make it work by first installing FreeDos (the ripcord beta) and then sys the disk with a Caldera DR-Dos bootdisk! So it *is* possible…with a little work.
robson “Nothing wrong with the article but please give me one reason for a *nix veteran to use *DOS.”
1. tinker with it
2. to try something new
3. use as a back up os
that’s three. i’m sure that i could think of more but i really don’t want to put that much into it. the third reason might seem weird but i’ve been known to have a back up operating system just in case i got pissed off at the current one on my computer.