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This is not exactly what you asked for, but if it's a text-only application that you want to host on a Terminal Server like platform, I'd investigate something like running DOSEMU on Linux.

The users would log on to the server using SSH (dosemu -t works just fine in it), and would be able to use an ssh client like PuTTY to copy and paste data in and out of the system. As for authentication and file access for a large site, with some hacking you would probably be able to integrate your Linux server into your existing Active Directory environment, allowing users to log on using the same credentials as they use for their Windows login. With some more hacking, you might even be able to use smbfs to mount the file server and let them access their Windows home directories through DOSEMU (using lredir).

An alternative would be to pay somebody to extend DOSBOX to allow copy and paste from text applications, or do it yourself if you have the neccessary skills in house. (Yay, open source.) You could either mess with the character buffer, or if you only have one application you will ever care about, you could take the easy way out and just do pattern matching on the frame buffer, if you don't want to bother about learning how the character buffer is stored. A fast and effective algorithm could be:

0. Generate a hash table containing, as a key, the monochome pixel representation of every character in your application and its unicode equivalent.
1. Take a screenshot of the entire screen. (This functionality is already in DOSBOX I believe.)
2. Divide the screenshot into 80x25 regions (or whatever text size your application uses)
3. For every region:
3a. Monochromize the region. Easiest way to do this is to consider the top left pixel as black, and any other pixel as white. It might get a character or two the wrong way around, but it doesn't matter for the algorithm, the only thing that matters is that the monochromization is consistent.
3b. Pass over every pixel in the region generating a simple hash or a checksum.
3c. Look up the matching unicode value in the hash table. If it fails, throw an error or just pass over the character, depending on your taste.
3d. Dump the matching unicode value into an 80x25 character array
4. Create a bunch of strings (mash the strings in the 80x25 character array together with a newline, although you may want to remove excess whitespace or join lines together according to some algorithm).
5. Stick said string into your OS clipboard.

Heck, you could probably even create a screen scraping point and click version with some more trouble. The idea of a shiny 3D-accellerated Windows 7 UI frontend with a screen-scraping 16-bit DOS backend, communicating through keypresses and screen scraping pleases me in a perverse way (as long as I'm far enough from building that solution to not even be able to reach it with a 1-kilometer pole).

Part of the reason why their job is mind-numbingly complicated is because they need to support legasy software. A whole lot of 16-bit DOS apps written 15 years ago still run on current versions of Windows. These are not ports, or recompilations, but the same binaries. I doubt the same can be said of Linux or MacOS, especially with the latter so efficient at cutting off support of applications with major release.

I guess you've never heard of DOSEMU, a program that uses the Linux kernel call "vm86" to run 16-bit DOS programs in the vm86 mode of 386-compatible processors ? Most 16-bit DOS applications I've tried on it have worked just fine.

Or you could use DOSBox, which is a complete emulator (meaning it emulates the processor too, unlike DOSEMU). The odd DOS app that didn't work under DOSEMU works fine under DOSBox.

It's the support for Windows applications (via Wine) that is less than perfect under Linux, but it is improving. Then again, it could hardly be getting worse ;).

You left out dosemu (the earliest hardware virtualization, using the V86 mode of all 386-compatible processors - but also supporting 32-bit DPMI applications) and DOSBox (which is based on bochs). Also Cooperative Linux for running a Linux system under other OSes, such as Windows.

The Linux Dos emulator Dosemu, uses FreeDos. Dosemu is extremely easy to install and use, and once you do, you have access to all the old Dos music applications that have now been released for free.

These include Sequencer Gold Plus, and, if you don't like the tracker interface, the CMU Midi Toolkit, which allows score info to be entered in a text file.

A lot of these original Dos programs really haven't been beat, and when combined with Linux and a modern soundcard and midi/soundfont instruments -- you can have a pretty robust home music setup.

The DosBox project is alot more active than dosemu. A new version of dosbox was released on June 27th, 2006 (last week), on the other hand dosemu hasn't been updated since 2004-07-11. Dosemu has the advantage that it runs better on older systems, dosbox has the advantage that it is compatible with amd, ppc, intel cpus and several different operating systems.

They also say that support for running MSDOS applications will be going away in the next version of Windows.

Based on no evidence at all, I suggest that there may be at least as much DOS software still chugging away doing its job as there is VB software.

I wrote and currently support/customize/extend/whatever a custom DOS database that started out as a simple single-user program and has grown into a multi-user multi-location, internet-enabled thing that does everything up to and including email; stuff that I never envisioned when I started the project. And I'm sure that I'm far from alone.

Thank ghawd for dosemu on Linux; my program runs like nobody's business on my clients' Fedora Core 3 machines (and my own).

Cutting DOS support on Windows would/will push people in similar situations toward things like dosemu, and guess what: dosemu runs on Linux.

DOSEMU stands for DOS Emulation, and allows you to run DOS and many DOS programs, including many DPMI applications such as DOOM and Windows 3.1, under Linux.

DOSBox is a DOS-emulator that uses the SDL-library which makes DOSBox very easy to port to different platforms. DOSBox has already been ported to many different platforms, such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X...

Of course if the application only runs on one OS, and that OS has other problems that make it less than reliable or that demand time over and above the absolute minimum to get the system functional in the first place and back up application data ongoing, then that's another thing altogether.

My favourite application over the past 20+ years is one called filePro (16+) which started off as Profile on Radio Shack micros, notably the Model II (8" floppies and a Z80 with 64K RAM)

Over the intervening years I and my customers have migrated applications written with this system as well as data entered into them from TRS-dos to Xenix on RS model 16, to Xenix on Altos to Unix on Altos to Unix on x86 PC, to Linux on i686 and not had to re-enter anything or (with the exception of a couple of records in one customer's database that got missed in a record expansion) lost any records (or even worse, had to re-input them). One customer has records dating back to 1983 and still has access to them from his multi-location business now served by a Linux box - same data, same screen layouts, same back-end processing.

The point is that the application is fast, useful, keyboard oriented, easy to use and modify, works on everything from old hardware to the latest (including DEC Vax) and even runs on Windows of various flavors if you are truly perverse ;)

But the really great thing about it is that IT DOESN'T USE A GUI - it is text based.

I recall another (accounting) application many of my customers have used for years - that shortly after Windows 3.1 came out added a GUI version - and has pretty much dropped all pretext of being backwards compatible with the older text "shortcuts". It used to be that you could sit with a pile of receipts and bang them into the program without even looking at the screen - never taking your hands off the keyboard.

Now you have to take a hand away from the keyboard, grab the mouse and navigate to a button to store each and every transaction - getting only 10% or less productivity.

Now that DOS compatibility is pretty much gone from Window they can't even run the old code (not supported though it is); except - - hey - - is dosemu still around on Linux????

Have you tried any of the OSS DOS emulators on the 'net? Some of the first Google hits are DOSBox (looks really good and focused on gaming), DOSEMU (hmmm...is it still updated?) and the big boy FreeDOS (very active community).

I haven't tried any of these personally in quite a while so YMMV.

Have you tried dosemu and/or dosbox?

there's also something that was in the scene a bit earlier than dosbox, dosemu.

I never used it too much but it seems to have come a good way too. however, for dosbox you don't need a x86 machine.

Next they'll probably buy ownership of the license for dosemu which means they practically own MS-DOS which means they own the IP for Windows 9x which has a similar GUI as Windows NT based versions.... so technically they own Windows. Maybe they'll sue Microsoft and win this time.

I switch between DOSBox and DOSemu with a Win95 boot disk
These two projects should really merge since one has some things working and the other has other things working. DOSBox is a lot easier to set up and get running, but I've found DOSemu to be more 'flowing'.

Yet I see no mention of DOSEmu.

DOSEmu is wicked. It's great. It's not VMWare (no $$ required), it's not Windows (no $$ to MS), it's not BOCHS (so it runs decently). I've used it with many DOS games.

It comes with FreeDOS, but I was able to easily put the Win95 command.com version 7 in with some other tweaks to make an easy-to-use DOS enviroment I've used to play through many Sierra and Lucas Arts adventure games.

The support is a lot more complete than, say, Wine, because all it has to do is provide a virtualized x86, which is what the OS and hardware are built to provide anyways. Most of it is just a thin BIOS compatibility layer. It's no where near as complex as a whole DirectX translator :)

Try it out. It's quick and easy to install, and is fairly mature. It'll run a lot.

DOSEmu works with both FreeDOS and M$-DOS. I haven't seen much that it won't actually run...

I have seen FreeDos, and installed it. Wasn't that impressed to be honest.

Really?

Then I suspect you've not tried dosemu; I use it for my DOS development environment and couldn't be more pleased with its performance and utility.

Of course, that's just me and I suppose it depends on what you want to do with DOS and what your expectations are. But for text-based DOS application development, dosemu is the cat's pajamas.

If your dos apps cant run in modern Windows OS - or you want to ditch MS once and for all - look at VMWare. Or linux and dosemu. DOS based filesharing must have once been either netware or windows shares, right? Linux has both a netware emulator (mars-nwe), and of course Smaba.

DOSEMU can be run inside a (remote) X session - and implicitly from vnc - so if all (or at least the hardest to upgrade from) your running is those DOS apps, you can run them from a central server, and then run your 'modern' apps localy on the Windows desktops (or replace windows with Linux).

I know this may be off-topic to the story, but does anyone have quick tips on how to play these DOS-age games on modern day OS's and hardware?

Since this is slashdot, you really should be using Linux. :-)

Use DOSEmu and FreeDOS. We have some screenshots on the FreeDOS site of playing these great old DOS games using DOSEmu:

• DOOM
• Wolf3D
• Star Wars: Dark Forces

Or, if you have a Mac, you might use VirtualPC:

• Raptor, NESticle, Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D

If you were sane, you'd have archived all those floppies on a cd-rom. It's disquieting how many boxes fit on a single cd :)

BTW, there exist many free PC emalutors:

• Dosbox is by far the best. It's a true emulator, portable, has a built in DOS, and is trivial to setup (no config files, uses the file system instead of disk images). Only major problem is the lack of protected mode support (if you also want to play some more recent games :)
• DOSEMU is also pretty good, and it will run most games, but it's configuration file is a mess, and it requires Linux/i386 (they were working on a CPU emulator, so it might work on other platforms by now).
• Bochs is another true emulator, not targeted specifically to games as Dosbox is. As a result, it is slower and more cumbersome to setup, but it supports protected mode games. Bochs is your only hope if you want to play protected mode games on most non-intel platforms.
• MESS, the console and home computer counterpart of MAME, has an IBM PC and PC/XT emulator. They probably go for hardware emulation accuracy. I've never used it.
• Flopper is a tool that lets you run games that were distributed as bootable floppies. I have no such games, so I've never used it :)

But DOSEmu costs nothing. It works really well. I used it to continue a Genecyst game I was unable to play under Win9x and WinNT kernel OSes, as well as playing the original 2 Monkey Island games. :-D

[Plus there is the NetLSD Project.] That's BSD not Linux. There is a difference. It's BSD and Linux. YFI

It has everything to do with linux. After all he demands that it be called GNU/Linux. Perhaps you've forgotten. Only if the userland is GNU. It's not GNU/Linux if it uses the BSD userland (like NetLSD). YFI

Whoops, looks like Comrade Allah got zinged there! Go back to your fucking red raghead butt buddies queernuts. Hey, I'm a Christian and a libertarian, not a Muslim and a communist. YFI

Windows gets hacked more often than linux because more people use Windows. That's exactly right.

Cite, queernuts. Your zealotry is clouding your vision. Look up "opinion" and "fact" in any dictionary.

[If you had actually used Linux, you wouldn't have said that.] If you actually used linux, you would have said that. I am a Windows, er, MS-DOS 6.20 luser posting from Galeon on Red Hat 8.0 Linux, and I think it r0x0r. I am open-minded - a true anti-zealot. YFI. (Returning to the topic at hand) Besides, why should I put any cash in Billy Boy's pocket? He's got more than enough to survive on. I'm on a fixed income. I'd rather pay $29.95 for a "Linux for Complete Assholes" than $249.95 for a copy of dreXP. Besides, my TV tuner card refuses to work on Win98SE (which it was designed for) while it works flawlessly on Linux. I get much more bang for my buck running Linux than I ever could with Windows.

Besides, I only used Windows, really, to multitask DOS apps, or to run apps which were also out on DOS anyway. I can do that just fine with DOSEMU, and I can even play Losedoze Solitaire under Windows 3.00a's Real Mode if I don't want to run Wine.

Hey, also, you know, XMAME runs faster than MAME for Windows - on the same hardware.

Billy Boy has lost one customer. Too bad he's not gonna feel any strain on his pocketbook.

-uso.

Get Visual basic for dos and run it through dosemu :)

Prince of Persia runs great in DOSEMU.

Doesn't it work in Dosemu, with a DOS like FreeDOS or MS-DOS?

Just use dosemu.

d. Taylor Singletary, reality technician
experimental music

Now, put Linux on that thing with dosemu and you could play with your old VGA (320 x 200) 256 colors games !

Thanks! It just seems to me that the terms are not always used correctly. Using these definitions, AMD's x86-64 simulator is an emulator, and dosemu is not (so it should be called DINE :-).

Dosemu (DOS Emulater) might do what you want if you wish to run an old DOS BBS.

I've played around with running some DOS apps over SSH using Dosemu before and it worked fairly well.

Sure - try DOSEMU with FreeDOS ripcord.

If it doesn't work, try dosemu with DR-DOS - not open source, but at least $0.

They are both at their respective .org
FreeDOS
DOSEmu
There is a lot of info on the net too, just google it.

It's called dosemu.

Why would you want to run DOS programs under Wine, when you have a leaner emulator that does just the job you want? Windows is running these programs in a virtual (emulated) DOS window anyway.

Krishna

It's "emulation" of a virtual machine inside your own machine, not an emulation of DOS. Theoretically, you should be able to run anything that will run on your own machine on this without having to modify it. If you merely want DOS emulation, try Dosemu which has been around for ages and works wonderfully.

• KDE
  
• Open Sound System (I think)
  
• DOSEmu
  
  All pretty cool/useful stuff

I have recently setup a client with a Linux server running DOSEMU and one of the requirements was to access network shares from within the DOSEMU session using LREDIR or emufs.sys.

We had to deploy the system with MS-DOS 6.22 (in other words we could not deply the system using Free DOS) because FAQ 6.1 of the DOSEMU FAQ says "First make sure you aren't using DosC (the FreeDos kernel), because unfortunately this can't yet cope with the redirector stuff. " (I know it doesn't work - I tried anyway :) )

Anyway, my question is, when will FreeDOS work with redirection?

begin-quote

you wrote:

Perhaps the greatest technological feature that Windows possesses is that it can handle programs as old as the first DOS applications. Linux will never do that.

Hi there. Sorry to disappoint you, but check out the DOSEmu. It runs virtualy all old DOS applications in Linux, including many DPMI protected mode apps. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but NT doesn't do that. Besides, who wants to run old DOS applications if not for a nostalgic round of Commander Keen? If that is Windows' greatest feature, well...

http://www.dosemu.org

By the way, if you really want to find out what the value of Linux and Free Software is, I suggest you stick with it for a long time and with an open mind. Installing RedHat and tinkering with it for a couple weeks is not going to teach you anything other than how to configure RedHat. Try to do all of your development on it. I realize there are real world constraints, such as your employer demanding you continue to work with VisualActiveBasicXScript99Pro, but you really are missing the point of Free Software if you think it's about being Anti-Microsoft or "Hey I got an OS really cheap!" It's about giving real working developers like you and me complete empowerment to get the job done.

I mean, why do computers even exist? Do they exist in order to sell software? From Microsoft's point of view, perhaps. But most people think they exist to help people solve real-world problems. Free Software gives us more power to do that, assuming you invest the time to learn its ways. (And please don't assume Windows is completely intuitive and has no learning curve, just because you are personally quite used to it. I find my Linux system quite easy to use.)

I think Microsoft will always have a large market selling friendly shells to Dummies, but something as important as an operating system used by millions worldwide needs to be Open, and Free (libre, not gratis.) I think the point that most outsiders don't get, and maybe never will get (and that's okay) is illustrated by the fact that most hackers I know wouldn't run Windows NT or MS Office even if it were free (gratis.) A smaller subset wouldn't run it even it were Free (libre) because they feel that Unix is a time-tested, proven, reliable, and useful design philosophy.

Your article had good points, but I hope you stick with Linux for a while before making up your mind. Oh, one other thing; I don't know if you are simply trying to simplify things for morons (always a bad idea) but the X window system most certainly does *not* have a Start menu! X is a client/server protocol that specifies the framework for displaying graphical windows on screens. X is the foundation for the GUI, it is not the GUI. Most people run a window manager, which actually as the name implies, manages the windows on the screen and provides things like the "Start Menu" (which is certainly not common to all window managers.) The funny thing is, this arrangement gives you incredible power. You can switch window managers without restarting the X system! All of your client program remain running! Also, X allows you to (for instance) run a program on one computer while viewing its interface on another. It's actually quite useful in practice.

One last thing to be said, the default window manager that ships with RedHat is probably one of the crappiest availible, Fvwm95. There are many other better and more feature-rich ones, such as Enlightenment, Window Maker, and Ice. Some of them can lay on the GUI candy quite thick. And surely you are aware of the GNOME and KDE desktop projects.

Anyway as I'm rambling on here, I'll sign off.

respectfully yours,

Anonymous Coed (I sent the letter on under my real name.)

Do not waste your time or your money with the 'Kosmic Free Music Foundation.' Since the KLF became the KFMF, their goal has been to make money, plain and simple; this is despite their deceptive name. Accordingly, the quality of this organization has dropped steadily, since the people with the talent worth talking about have all quietly left. Kosmic's ranks have grown by leaps and bounds, but with substandard artists producing substandard music. Let me head the flames off at the pass here; I am not saying that these people should not have their music heard. I am saying that there is better stuff out there.

Where out there? Many places. The biggest module collection in the world,the Hornet Archive, is one of them. Where HA now? In the midst of a slow shutdown process that will leave us all lacking. Although much of the music on the Hornet Archive was also substandard, a little involvement and a little support would have engendered a new rating system, in the works at the time of the Archive's demise, into reenergizing the contributors and the staff, thus keeping the Archive alive and healthy.

The Hornet Archive never begged for support of any kind. They never cried for money or for bandwidth or even for kind letters. So they didn't get them.

Maelcum, on the other hand, who has done nothing for anybody except take and take, begs for yet more and more.

Hornet and Kosmic aren't the only places to get music on the web.

Scene.org (which is down at the moment) poses to take the place of the Hornet Archive, and more. Scene.org needs and deserves your support.

Of course, this is the web. Not everybody releases into a conglomerate such as these. Some other groups of interest are Analogue Music, Noise, Process Five, Five Musicians, and many more.

For those who care to contribute, Impulse Tracker is arguably the most popular module creation program in use to date. (Note that it is a DOS program which will -not- work under DOSEmu.)

Kevin Hutter
Team Tropicana