Search found 518 matches

by Bas
Thu Mar 28, 2024 8:01 am
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

That'll be "collateral" from the analysis part of the tool. Until then you could use GNU Mtools to do this.

by Bas
Wed Mar 27, 2024 5:33 pm
Forum: General Discussions
Topic: FPGA-based real GPU
Replies: 3
Views: 400

FPGA-based real GPU

Not that this will work with MiSTer, but some may find this interesting:

https://www.furygpu.com/

It's a complete GPU implementation that would equate a mid-90's graphics card.

by Bas
Tue Mar 26, 2024 4:42 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

Not to hijack this one, but the DOSContainer Bash version with the YAML's for bare MS-DOS could do what you're looking for. Edit the YAML, run script, and you have a clean DOS with some toggles like drivers and memory mgt and the like. Shoot me a PM if you are interested.

by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 3:47 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: Config.sys Memory Issue on Startup
Replies: 2
Views: 298

Re: Config.sys Memory Issue on Startup

Make a throwaway copy of your VHD and strip down the CONFIG.SYS. Start up from it and run MEMMAKER and follow the steps. That'll change your CONFIG.SYS for you, hence the throwaway VHD. Note the line that loads EMM386.EXE. Copy that down and into the VHD that has your menu system. That'll probably fix it in a reasonably optimized way.

by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:05 pm
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness
Replies: 3
Views: 408

Re: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness

..right.. PCEm does similar but subtly different things yet again. It's the FORMAT utility that puts the weird bytes there. No idea why though..

by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 12:39 pm
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness
Replies: 3
Views: 408

Re: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness

Ah.. fudge.. Just noticed. I tried the PCXT core to run PC-DOS but that wouldn't boot of the 360k floppy image. So I tried AO486, and that created a disk with the wrong geometry using 63 sectors per track. Those didn't exist yet when DOS 2.00 was around. Back to the drawing board (and PCEm) for some more testing.

by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 12:25 pm
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness
Replies: 3
Views: 408

Re: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness

When testing with a different size hard disk, I imagined to find these bytes in a slightly different place maybe or to have a few of them changed because of different locations/offsets and whatnot. But.. there's a completely different set of bytes located at a different distance away from the second FAT copy. This time the sequence does contain rec...
by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:33 am
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: IBM PC-DOS Weirdness
Replies: 3
Views: 408

IBM PC-DOS Weirdness

Hey all. IBM does something unexpected when formatting a drive from DOS 2.00. There's a whole bunch of bytes written just before the second copy of the FAT at hex offset 0x1000 from the partition start. I see no recognizable strings in there, it doesn't look like a directory block and it's not part of the FAT either. So given that MBR and VBR bootc...
by Bas
Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:20 am
Forum: General Discussions
Topic: Core Sizes?
Replies: 8
Views: 909

Re: Core Sizes?

I've never written a line of Verilog in my life, but compilation of cores really isn't that hard. It's just pushing a button and waiting.

by Bas
Sun Mar 24, 2024 6:04 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

Emubastard wrote: Sun Mar 24, 2024 5:52 pm

VHD's are generated manually by Windows 11 Disk Management utility so they are indeed real VHD's. Easier to work on when I have issues to fix, which there are many lol.

-Emubastard

Wouldn't be the first time MS don't follow their very own specs. Thanks for letting me know.

by Bas
Sun Mar 24, 2024 5:22 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

The parameter is, essentially, there even if not directly. The program takes a YAML file where everything including the disk size is defined. If you are short a few (dozen) megabytes, you change the number and it rebuilds a new clean and fully installed VHD. The command for that now: $doscontainer build mygame.yaml ..so it's fairly simple from a ga...
by Bas
Sun Mar 24, 2024 3:21 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

DOSContainer Rust just wrote its first file (IBMBIO.COM) to a VHD that was bootstrapped completely from scratch, zero external dependencies. Things still aren't ready for prime time and the code surrounding the writes is messy, but I'm very slowly getting there.

Image

by Bas
Sun Mar 24, 2024 10:29 am
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

What software does this collection use to generate the initial VHD file? I noticed, much to my relief, that the one I randomly picked (Colonization) is an actual VHD instead of a raw image with the wrong extension. Three cheers for that! :D :D :D I pulled it through DOSContainer and this is what my VHD implementation thought of it: Disk metadata ac...
by Bas
Sat Mar 23, 2024 12:56 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

DR-DOS is better at freeing conventional memory than MS ever was. That may help.

by Bas
Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:19 am
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

Are you going to handle the slew of games that have multiple sound configs at all? Like MT32, General MIDI, SB(Pro/16) in different combinations? I've had this in some cases and the BAT-menu at startup gets really long supporting all those permutations. For instance Sierra adventures using SCI. They support many graphics options (Hercules, CGA 4-co...
by Bas
Fri Mar 22, 2024 6:22 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

You can use the local Munt emulation on the MiSTer. It won't be perfect but it'll work for testing. That said, games have many crummy ways to store configs and many conflate audio choices with video hardware setup and controller settings etc. It's a Heck of a job and boils down to custom work for each game, and a little luck when games share an eng...
by Bas
Fri Mar 22, 2024 2:41 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

For DOSContainer I'm running into this exact same problem. The way I intend to solve this is by building multipe VHD's. It's a layered approach: Generate bootable VHD with bare-bones OS. Upload the payload (ie. the game itself) Upload specific game config according to YAML manifest Loop back to 1 as long as the manifest has configs remaining. The s...
by Bas
Fri Mar 22, 2024 6:30 am
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: eXo/Flynn Top 300 DOS Pack Updates (Updated to 2.0.2 MyMenu) and Support
Replies: 744
Views: 293634

Re: eXo/Flynn Top 300 DOS Pack Updates (Updated to 2.0.2 MyMenu) and Support

As the author of DOSContainer I'm flattered by the mention but the criticism of the top300 feels a bit harsh. There's a lot of groundwork in there. Also my script only takes care of generating a VHD. The packing of the game itself is still very manual toil.

by Bas
Thu Mar 21, 2024 8:14 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

https://www.area536.com/dosk8s/disks/blood.zip

Blood in a supposedly working setup. Haven't tested it extensively though.

by Bas
Thu Mar 21, 2024 7:45 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

Would it be possible to map controller inputs to keycodes so your pad acts like a faux keyboard?

by Bas
Thu Mar 21, 2024 3:30 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

If anyone finds it useful, DOSContainer uses ZIP files that contain the game + boot menu BAT file in a format that just extracts to C:\ if you already have that bootable. They're available from my FTP: ftp.area536.com/doscontainer/distfiles. They could save (some of) you some work. Also, I'd happily host/mirror the VHD's for 0MHz.

by Bas
Thu Mar 21, 2024 11:29 am
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: DOS Versions Wanted
Replies: 5
Views: 3220

Re: DOS Versions Wanted

Well.. those are the ones I already had, as stated in the starting post. There are plenty of gaps in there. For now I'm basing off IBM PC-DOS 2.00 (earlier ones had no official HDD support) and moving very slowly upward. IBM's is the most stable, documented pedigree of OEM-versions I can find from before MS started doing their own direct to custome...
by Bas
Wed Mar 20, 2024 12:53 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released
Replies: 123
Views: 9727

Re: 0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

Injecting a file into a VHD would be something of a holy grail. Personally I don't see how that would work as the outside of the system would need to be aware of the filesystem that lives on some partition inside the disk image. Breaking that wall in a way this is entirely compatible sounds like a challenge. Is there already work in progress to do ...
by Bas
Sat Mar 09, 2024 8:24 am
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

There's a whole paragraph from MS on how to determine sectors per cluster. But if you're PC-DOS 2.00 the number is just 8 no matter the drive. Funny one that, IBM.

Anyone interested in tracking my progress or suggesting improvements (those are welcome!!) can look here:

https://code.area536.com/DOSContainers/doscontainer

by Bas
Fri Mar 08, 2024 5:20 pm
Forum: Linux
Topic: MPV on MiSTer?
Replies: 15
Views: 6833

Re: MPV on MiSTer?

This thread is the first time I heard of MPV, but I've been twiddling bits on the Linux end of MiSTer for a while now. Cross-compiling is often easier to arrange, even emulating an armv7 machine using QEMU on an x86 PC, than it is to turn a functioning MiSTer into a developer workstation. The OS simply isn't made to support that and it shows.

by Bas
Thu Mar 07, 2024 12:50 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

Format C: as FAT12 now also works. IBM and MS made a lot of assumptions that they never actually put into prose. It's not easy getting a faithfully emulated XT to eat just any random variety of hard disk, even if it's no bigger than 32MB. Good thing is that the IBM 5160 technical manual comes with the full Assembler listings of both the HDD control...
by Bas
Wed Mar 06, 2024 6:13 pm
Forum: PC 486SX (ao486)
Topic: DOSContainer Alpha Release
Replies: 22
Views: 3564

Re: DOSContainer Alpha Release

The Rust version of DOSContainer is progressing at a paintstaking rate. The upside: it really is becoming 100% compatible (with IBM PC-DOS 2.00 at this point). The downside: progress is slow because I'm also still teaching myself Rust on the back of this project. Progress report: 100% identical MBR to what IBM generates in DOS 2.00 Allocation of pa...
by Bas
Tue Mar 05, 2024 7:41 pm
Forum: Other Computer / System Cores
Topic: Static IP and Groovy MiSTer/Cast Without DHCP/Router in Between
Replies: 10
Views: 1046

Re: Static IP and Groovy MiSTer/Cast Without DHCP/Router in Between

Indeed, do as zakk4223 said. You can NOT have a router configured on either side for these interfaces. Also, the X in the last octet's position cannot be there in any case ever. That'll always break.

by Bas
Tue Mar 05, 2024 7:04 pm
Forum: Other Computer / System Cores
Topic: Static IP and Groovy MiSTer/Cast Without DHCP/Router in Between
Replies: 10
Views: 1046

Re: Static IP and Groovy MiSTer/Cast Without DHCP/Router in Between

If you're connecting your PC directly to the MiSTer with nothing in between, it won't use the same network as your wireless. It'll be using its very own network that's limited only to the two parties present on the cable: your PC and your MiSTer. For this to work, you need to define a new subnet. To make this as simple as possible, assuming your ho...
by Bas
Mon Feb 26, 2024 1:14 pm
Forum: IBM PC, PCXT, Tandy 1000
Topic: DOS Versions Wanted
Replies: 5
Views: 3220

Re: DOS Versions Wanted

I have one or two French language DOS releases. Non-English versions are hard to find. For example, I have only 1 version of MS-DOS 2.11 for Commodore machines and that's in German. If you have more versions or can point me to them, please do. I can read French so integrating those versions won't be a problem. It's just not the highest priority for...