Mail Archives: djgpp/2010/05/14/11:45:15
Hi,
On May 11, 8:10=A0pm, Jim Michaels <jmich DOT DOT DOT AT yahoo DOT com> wrote:
>
> on, say, 64-bit windows 7, can you execute 32-bit CWSDPMI DOS apps
> compiled with DJGPP in a CMD.exe shell?
Not natively, no.
(the following is a summary of responses to various posts in this
thread)
> all versions of Windows since Vista have severe limitations on
> the amount of DPMI memory they will give DJGPP programs
DPMI limit still exists by default, but you can set the registry to
fix that since Vista SP1 on up. However, there are still some fairly
minor (?) bugs in NTVDM.
>> should I just stay with venerable old XP 32-bit?
> If you can, yes.
They are trying to phase out XP (only SP3 is supported now), and they
will actively dump 2K later this summer. If it serves your needs, by
all means use it, but as mentioned, you will have to struggle with
drivers. (However, some stuff does work better in XP.)
> Emulation products will run DJGPP images, but more slowly.
DOSBox 0.74 was just released. No, I don't think it's much faster, but
I'm not going to try compiling via DJGPP under it (again ... truly
horrible idea, sheesh). If it's not compiler related, you may
appreciate the gfx and sound emulation that DOSBox provides.
Otherwise, it's not ideal, esp. SFN only. You may also find some rare
bugs due to the "games only" policy, but hey, besides all that, it
rocks!
For compiling, I'd suggest either a native FreeDOS partition, DOSEMU
under Linux, or running under 32-bit NTVDM. You could also try
VirtualBox, which is fast, but it lacks some 16-bit and DOS support,
so it's not as robust as their support for other OSes.
> actually I was looking at a high end 4 or 6-core box since it was
> 2004 since I bought a computer (6 years). I was thinking of an
> intel processor. i7 980x w 9GB RAM or yorktown HP w 8GB RAM and
> then installing XP SP3 Retail or, if windows 7 retail would work,
> windows 7 retail.
Big time overkill unless you really really want to use all that RAM
(several high-RAM VMs, perhaps?). Most software still isn't multicore
aware, so that won't show much improvement (4 core vs 2 core). Doesn't
mean you should slum it, just saying, it might not be 10x faster like
you think!
> can I set up an emulation product like freedos which has drive/
> partition access to the rest of the system if I make another FAT32
> filesystem?
FreeDOS does support FAT32 natively, yes, if you're willing to dual
boot. However, Vista on up do not allow booting from FAT32, so you
have to use NTFS, which usually hogs the drive. (But it can still read
FAT32 fine.) Luckily, Vista on up can resize the NTFS for you.
However, you'll need to use something like EasyBCD to change the
bootup selection.
The problem is that most computers seem to have various omissions
regarding DOS, e.g. buggy BIOS extensions (F1 ... crash!) or annoying
power issues (e.g. fan runs full speed, loud, while XP or Linux
somehow know how to shut it up, not sure if FDAPM would help or not).
The most transparent way to access host files under emulation is
DOSEMU or DOSBox. VirtualBox can work too, allegedly, but you have to
use the weird MS NET share gobbledegook, which is all Greek to me.
> I did more research I and I heard some rumblings about windows 7's
> "Windows XP Mode". it turns out it's a Windows Virtual PC that
> emulates XP yet provides access to your devices.
Note that this is only "allowed" on business editions, not home
editions, so it's not really meant for home users (which I assume you
are). BTW, it also doubles your base HD and RAM requirements. Latest
news on that is that it no longer needs VT-X, which is good.
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