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Retro Machine - DOS VDM - OpenOffice

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Andrew Stephenson:
This topic fits well with a feeling I have had for some time. However, wording it in a way that makes perfect sense may be tricky.

It comes down to what I want/need to do with that computer in front of me. As I see it, Operators fall into two major classes (ignoring oddball cases, like Manufacturer):

* Developer -- someone who wants to tinker with innards -- make the m/c "better" (faster, bigger data capacity, more physically robust &c);

* User -- someone who wants to manipulate objects such as Texts, Spreadsheets, Emails, Artwork, Designs (for various types of things -- clerical, abstract or tangible), Music, Household Appliances &c.

These days, I tend to fall into the User class but can appreciate the effort it takes to be a useful Designer. Being a creature of habit, I still try to run WordStar and other 16-bit utils. So OS/2's emulators, currently for DOS and Win-3.1 -- not to mention OS/2 itself ;) -- are essential (but still a bit flaky in my AOS-5.1; can we expect an update or two soon(ish)?).

This leads me to wonder whether the best future for OS/2 would be as a place to run retro-software. To the emulators already mentioned, add new ones for (eg) Linux, old games, other OSes that used to host popular software. Think about it: 32 bits already provide massive resources. Since OS/2 began, there have been amazing general refinements in industry standards: I/O commonly relies on USB but could still work with archaic stuff like Centronics; storage devices can run up to (is it?) 2TB per partition; processing speeds are insanely fast;...

And OS/2 would not be stuck-in-the-mud. We could hope for emulators allowing it to be hosted under 64-bits (and whatever higher bit-count the Secret Masters Of Computing, the SMOCs) may decree. And those Developers could carry on, improving the breed.
 
Need I go on?

Dave Yeo:
The MDOS(WinOS2) subsystem in OS/2 is not an emulator, but actual PC-DOS 5 running in ring2. Not quite bare metal but closer then most user programs that run in ring3. You can actually load and run most DOS device drivers with some such as disk, mouse and keyboard getting trapped by the kernel and replaced by the OS/2 driver. So DOS programs can run on HPFS and JFS but you can't easily do something like supporting long file names.
The hardware itself has changed enough that DOS applications just don't run as well as they used to do.

Andrew Stephenson:

--- Quote from: Dave Yeo on August 31, 2024, 07:10:55 pm ---The MDOS(WinOS2) subsystem in OS/2 is not an emulator, but actual PC-DOS 5 running in ring2. Not quite bare metal but closer then most user programs that run in ring3. You can actually load and run most DOS device drivers with some such as disk, mouse and keyboard getting trapped by the kernel and replaced by the OS/2 driver. So DOS programs can run on HPFS and JFS but you can't easily do something like supporting long file names.
The hardware itself has changed enough that DOS applications just don't run as well as they used to do.

--- End quote ---
Crikey... Ta for the pointer, which could explain a lot. In WordStar, most functions work as usual, so with care I can do productive writing, but a function that opens extra files (eg: second editing window, spell-checker (but not thesaurus, oddly) & text import/export), the whole shebang freezes, requiring an OS/2 reboot. Trying to use the Oxford Compendium (dictionary + thesaurus + quotes) in Win-3.1 makes it witter about not being able to find one file (I forget which and my OS/2 m/c is turned off right now) and refuses to run. And Borland Quattro Pro crashes if I check the icon in Properties. Otherwise life is dandy. *sigh* Okay, it is time to Be Philosophical -- and Very Careful while dancing in the minefield.

BTW, I did consider setting up a disk partition as DR-DOS-7 and running WS there but am unsure about accessing I/O such as USB, or talking to disk files within my m/c's OS/2 Universe. But that can wait.

(And, yes, to those helpful souls who want to mention WordTsar, I am keeping an eye on that, thanks.)

JTA:
If one is considering multiboot solutions, then this could be a case where an AToF machine really shines for WordStar and other old non-OS/2 apps ...

The (old) special purpose DOS or WIN apps (WordStar, others) get their own VM running a more native OS that matches the app version, or a modern emulator that extends more features to the old DOS/WIN app. Plus, it's all windowed, alongside OS/2 running in its own VM(s), under one HostOS.

A VM running a more recent DOS 6.22 or DR-DOS 7 should be perfect, or even a Win VM running DosBox-X, to get access to more recent file/networking/printing features.

OS/2 offers a better dos than dos, and a better win than windows, but that was tied to specific OS timeframes of some decades ago. A VM solution should be able to do much better these days. AToF should help ...

Andrew Stephenson:

--- Quote from: JTA on September 01, 2024, 05:58:07 pm ---If one is considering multiboot solutions, then this could be a case where an AToF machine really shines for WordStar and other old non-OS/2 apps ... [...]

--- End quote ---
Thanks for the thoughts, though AToF is something I have yet to investigate.

The spate of bugs afflicting my DOS and Win-3.1, summarised earlier, started with AOS. The eCS-2 sessions worked beautifully, so maybe our SMOCs (Secret Masters Of Computing) tweaked something that needs to be un-tweaked. Or I could dig out a copy of eCS-2 (hmm, do I still have it?) and install that in its own disk partition, in the hope it can talk to modern-format files in the AOS-5.1 (&c) partitions -- or it can be HPFS-formatted and the AOS partitions could talk to it.

Like was remarked recently elsewhere (paraphrased), life gets complicated. My big hope is that our SMOCs can succeed with un-tweaking. Meanwhile, you'd laugh at the antics I've got up to: (a) write my MS (manuscript) on WS under AOS-5.1, (b) convert the MS to pure-ASCII in WS by replacing the limited set of formatting sequences with ASCII codes (eg "soft tab" --> "@T@"), (c) port this file to my Dell notebook on a USB stick and use Win-10's LibreOffice 7.5 to do spelling fixes, (d) port the new file back to WS and restore the formatting sequences, (e) use WS's "convert to RTF" feature to make a RTF version of the MS, (f) port the RTF back to LibreOffice and insert data on the typeface (because for some reason WS writes "default") and (g) send the RTF to a lucky editor (because the publishing industry still thinks RTF/DOCX is/are the cat's pyjamas of formats)... *mutters*

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