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WebSite Information => Article Discussions => Topic started by: craigm on 2010.10.09, 15:36:20

Title: Ports
Post by: craigm on 2010.10.09, 15:36:20
Its a very exciting time for eCS with everything going on such as a new version of Java, Flash, Openoffice, MySQL, Oden, and  GCC (and a lot more).

Just for fun...in a perfect world, what top three programs (new or updated) would like to see done next (if money was not an issue):

This is what I would love to see:

1. OpenGL - Games!
2. DOSBox - Dos Games!
3. Adobe Photoshop

To add some additional fun...what hardware drivers/ports would be on your two three?

Mine are:

1. USB 3.0
2. Bluetooth 3.0
3. Able to read my Cell phone / Nook SD Card when plugged in (USB wise)

Even though these items are not in eCS 2.0 I think everyone that has put time in developing eCS has done a fantastic job...I am enjoying eCS more now than ever!
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: cytan on 2010.10.09, 16:07:34
DOSBOX is already available for a few years now:

http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

cytan
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2010.10.09, 20:24:31
1) Odin Synched fully to WINE/ReactOS sources
2) OpenGL ES
3) Mono Framework
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Radek on 2010.10.09, 22:05:18
DosBox is awfully slow. Moreover, DosBox has big problems with colors in eCS and also with non-US keyboards (both in eCS and Debian). On the other hand, eCS has a perfect support for VM86, where the old DOS games run like hell - but without sound and with problems with installation on contemporary HDs. I would like to see a project branched from DosBox which would contain:

(1) A virtual sound driver which would pretend a Sound Blaster to a DOS session and which would pass the sound data to Uniaudio. Most of us use Uniaudio so that supporting only Uniaudio shlould not be too restrictive. A basic implementation of an older version of SB should be enough. DosBox can already do that.

(2) A virtual CD driver which would mount an ISO image and pretend a CD in a DOS session. There exist isofs.ifs by P. Ratcliffe but isofs.ifs mounts an ISO as a network drive - unusable for games which insist on their CDs. DosBox can already do that.

(3) A virtual hard disc which would pretend a HD of a suitable size for the old DOS apps. In fact, a "subst" command improved by an ability to lie about free space. DosBox can already do that.

(4) An UMB manager (a QEMM loadhi command) which would be able to put a TSR into UMB without need of linking from "conventional memory". Reserved areas at the end of conventional memory are problem sometimes. Example: TES Arena and PS/2 mouse. You get "not enough memory" error no matter how much memory you free. According to Betsehda, this is a bug in PS/2 mouse but it is a blunder or Arena because moving ABIOS high using QEMM solves the "bug" immediately. DosBox does not help here.
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: craigm on 2010.10.09, 23:00:51
cytan,

While you are correct that eCS has DOSbox...it is an older version, the newest version is .74 while eCS's version is .72...this might not sound like a lot but there have been a lot of fixes and things optimized.

.74 came out on May 12, 2010
.72 came out on August 26, 2007

Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Robert Deed on 2010.10.10, 07:23:58
Quote from: craigm on 2010.10.09, 15:36:20
Its a very exciting time for eCS with everything going on such as a new version of Java, Flash, Openoffice, MySQL, Oden, and  GCC (and a lot more).

Just for fun...in a perfect world, what top three programs (new or updated) would like to see done next (if money was not an issue):

This is what I would love to see:

1. OpenGL - Games!
2. DOSBox - Dos Games!
3. Adobe Photoshop

To add some additional fun...what hardware drivers/ports would be on your two three?

Mine are:

1. USB 3.0
2. Bluetooth 3.0
3. Able to read my Cell phone / Nook SD Card when plugged in (USB wise)

Even though these items are not in eCS 2.0 I think everyone that has put time in developing eCS has done a fantastic job...I am enjoying eCS more now than ever!

OpenGL is useless without hardware acceleration, since we barely have 2d acceleration on most common graphics adapters I doubt if we will ever see even half baked 3d.

USB 3.0 might be useful, assuming there ever are any USB 3.0 devices which give any benefit over running them in 2.0 :)

Cell phone / nook looks like it may happen as they upgrade USB components in the future.  There is little reason why these things cannot be supported at this time other then just some poor implementations (usually in the hardware, and not in OS/2.. but I guess writing drivers "to a standard" and "making them work" are two mutually exclusive things :)

Photoshop you can give up on, would be nice enough to get a recent gimp build which doesn't rely on some crappy window manager that actually works on our desktop with possibly the ability to run SOME photoshop plugins.
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Pete on 2010.10.10, 20:35:44
Hi craigm

I recently sent an email asking if there was going to be a DOSBox 0.74 for OS/2.

Here is the response:-

I have built it already. You find it here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/476476/dosbox/DOSBOX0.74.EXE.
I haven't released it, because it still misses SDL sound support.


So, there is a 0.74 build but currently without sound support available.

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: josch on 2010.10.11, 22:29:40
Hi.

Quote from: Pete on 2010.10.10, 20:35:44
I have built it already. You find it here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/476476/dosbox/DOSBOX0.74.EXE.
I haven't released it, because it still misses SDL sound support.

While I wrote that, I now realize that it was misleading.
I meant to say that the optional dependy SDL sound is missing. It is only needed when you want to play audio cds in dosbox.
The dosbox package uploaded has audio support and makes noises ;-).

Bye Jochen
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: craigm on 2010.10.12, 13:59:25
That is awesome we have DosBox .74.

To me, the optional dependy SDL sound that is missing for audio cds is minor so I am excited to try this out. Thanks for finding this and thank you to the programmer that wrote this!
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: josch on 2010.10.12, 14:47:16
Quote from: craigm on 2010.10.12, 13:59:25
Thanks for finding this and thank you to the programmer that wrote this!
Too much praise: I just ported that thing  ;)
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Sigurd on 2010.10.12, 15:06:48
Thanks for this as well, Jochen! I hope you read my presentation at Warpstock Europe 2010 including your port!

Great work!
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: josch on 2010.10.12, 15:10:13
I was there, but only on Friday. So, I was in the other room for the eCS 2.x presentation :(
Are there recordings?
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: ivan on 2010.10.12, 16:30:14
Thanks for the port Jochen, it makes it possible for me to use some of my old dos structural analysis programs again.

I do have one question.  Is there a way of setting the window size?  At the moment I need a magnifying glass to see much of the window which reduces its usefulness.

ivan
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: josch on 2010.10.12, 16:34:43
@Ivan
You should be able to switch to fullscreen mode by pressing ctrl-enter or setting it in a config file.

Bye Jochen
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: ivan on 2010.10.12, 17:18:55
Thanks Jochen, that will be interesting on a 28 inch monitor! 

I can see I will have to experiment with a config file.  Is there a preferred place to store the dosbox.conf or can it be with dosbox.exe?

ivan
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: josch on 2010.10.12, 17:33:25
Normal behaviour of Dosbox is to use the dosbox.conf in the same directory as dosbox.exe.
But you can change the config file with '-config'.


Bye Jochen

PS: There are information about Dosbox at http://dosbox.com/wiki/Main_Page
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: Pete on 2010.10.12, 18:24:23
Hi Ivan

Modify the dosbox.conf to suit the app you want to run then save the modified file as theapp.conf (change theapp to whatever name suits you). Then create a program object to start the app with the necessary Program Properties. This example runs Quake on my system:-

Path and file name: J:\PROGRAMS\DOSBOX\DOSBOX.EXE
Parameters: -fullscreen -conf quake.conf
Working directory: J:\PROGRAMS\DOSBOX


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: Ports
Post by: ivan on 2010.10.12, 19:11:36
Thanks again Jochen and Pete,

I've been to the dosbox wiki and saved the pages for later study - like 2 am when I have a little time to myself.

It would appear that I should be able to set the size of the screen shown with this version - the inability to do that made me stop using the old version and try some of the java structural analysis programs but I found they weren't as good as the old dos ones.  So now I have a little more learning to do - retirement, ha!

ivan
Title: Re: Ports
Post by: demetrioussharpe on 2011.01.04, 01:30:12
Hello, I'm Dee from GL/2. For all of the gamers who may have a bit of technical knowledge, I'd like to post a query. Which is more important to you personally, high precision rendering or sacrificing precision for render speed? To reply, please post your answer at:

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1940.0.html (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1940.0.html)