Mail Archives: opendos/1999/06/16/07:14:16
On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 Pavel V. Ozerski wrote:
[PC DOS HIMEM.SYS]
> I understand that HIMEM.SYS bug is very important but I would remember
> about an another problem.
Well, actually it appears to be a MS-DOS/PC DOS HIMEM.SYS problem,
not a DR-DOS problem. However, to ensure maximum file-by-file
compatibility, I too think it would be convenient to improve the
coexistance again.
[NTFSDOS]
> The answer of one from two authors of this TSR, Mark Russinovich, is
> "You failed to read the requirements: NTFSDOS Requires MS DOS 5 or
> higher".
Well, this answer does not sound very encouraging.
> My question: what are these differences? If DR-DOS does not understand
> some DOS API functions or interrupts, I think, there are no
> problems to write a small driver or TSR to make the interface
> between NTFSDOS and DR-DOS.
DR-DOS 7 emulation of MS-DOS 6 is very very close, even most of the
undocumented stuff is similar. I would expect the differences to be
in the usual range of differences between DOS versions, even between
different issues of MS-DOS itself.
I haven t used NTFSDOS myself, but I don t think there are any
fundamental differences that would make it impossible to adapt
NTFSDOS to run smooth on DR-DOS. From my experience debugging alot
of other drivers that didn t run on DR-DOS in the first place,
I would think that almost probably anything that prevents NTFSDOS
from running under DR-DOS could easily be seen as invalid assumptions
on the underlaying OS. Fixing these issues not only enabled the
software to run on DR-DOS, but also helped to make the software
cleaner. So it should always be a duty to programmers to test their
software on DR-DOS, not only to actually support DR-DOS, but also
to improve their software for MS-DOS.
Anyway, if NTFSDOS aborts with something like "Invalid DOS version"
or "Cannot run on DR DOS.", I would try for example:
SETVER NTFSDOS.EXE 6.128 /X
to emulate DOS 6.0, while disabling the DR-DOS BDOS version check
(under Novell DOS 7 and OpenDOS 7.01 try 6.255 instead.).
If, however, it worked for example with Novell DOS 7, but no longer
works with DR-DOS 7.02+ ("Cannot run on this issue of DR DOS"), you
could try something like:
SETVER NTFSDOS.EXE 6.114 /X
to cause DR-DOS 7.02+ to emulate DOS 6.0 and Novell DOS 7 (CPMVer=114=
72h=Novell DOS BDOS). This for example enables some HPFS drivers to
run on DR-DOS 7.02+. If these mascarade things do not help any
further, it s time to start debugging. I guess, having the sources
of his driver, Mark Russinovich could do it in a couple of hours.
If, however, I would be wrong, and there would be major differences,
I would for sure like to learn about them. I would really like to look
into this then...
Matthias
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Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
eMail: <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Web : http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
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