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Quite simply, keep all your text in a seperate file which can be compiled completely seperately from the rest of your project. The goes for Dialogs, Menus, and Labels. This primarily makes it easier to allow users to switch from one language to another.

This is called a "message catalog", by the way. It's the easiest way for almost any program to support internationalization ("I18N" = "I" + 18 letters + "N".)

On most commercial UNIX systems, the preferred library is catgets(). On Linux (GNU) systems, the preferred library is gettext(). In the FreeDOS Project we wrote an implementation of catgets(), called Cats, because it turns out to be quite easy to write. There's also another library for FreeDOS called MSGLIB that does the same thing.

What it all comes down to is containing all your strings that would be printed by the program in the "message catalog". The catgets() or gettext() is just a method to retrieve the string you want from the catalog that represents what the current language setting is (the LANG env variable under UNIX.) catgets() references each catalog by a number, and each string in the catalog by a "set" number and a "message" number, so you have three points of identification. gettext() is more complicated, and searches all open catalogs based on the untranslated string.

Since I've supported I18N using catgets() in my programs, it's been really easy to keep my Free software / open source programs up to date because volunteers from around the world will email me the message catalog for my programs, translated into their language. I just add the catalog to my distribution, and that's all I have to do to support the new language.

Of course, you also have to keep in mind the locale (monetary symbols, "." or "," as "decimal point", ...) and character set. :-)

Oh, and supporting double-byte character sets (Chinese, ...) is different.

-jh

Quite simply, keep all your text in a seperate file which can be compiled completely seperately from the rest of your project. The goes for Dialogs, Menus, and Labels. This primarily makes it easier to allow users to switch from one language to another.

This is called a "message catalog", by the way. It's the easiest way for almost any program to support internationalization ("I18N" = "I" + 18 letters + "N".)

On most commercial UNIX systems, the preferred library is catgets(). On Linux (GNU) systems, the preferred library is gettext(). In the FreeDOS Project we wrote an implementation of catgets(), called Cats, because it turns out to be quite easy to write. There's also another library for FreeDOS called MSGLIB that does the same thing.

What it all comes down to is containing all your strings that would be printed by the program in the "message catalog". The catgets() or gettext() is just a method to retrieve the string you want from the catalog that represents what the current language setting is (the LANG env variable under UNIX.) catgets() references each catalog by a number, and each string in the catalog by a "set" number and a "message" number, so you have three points of identification. gettext() is more complicated, and searches all open catalogs based on the untranslated string.

Since I've supported I18N using catgets() in my programs, it's been really easy to keep my Free software / open source programs up to date because volunteers from around the world will email me the message catalog for my programs, translated into their language. I just add the catalog to my distribution, and that's all I have to do to support the new language.

Of course, you also have to keep in mind the locale (monetary symbols, "." or "," as "decimal point", ...) and character set. :-)

Oh, and supporting double-byte character sets (Chinese, ...) is different.

-jh

It has been freed.

so you're saying i can go and buy ms dos6.22(or whatever was the latest) from ms and get support for it? or dr dos? freedos exists though.

To find them:

FreeDOS (GNU GPL, still under active development.)

DR-DOS (still "closed source", not sure about development future.)

It might be a good opportunity to mention FreeDOS as a viable, open-source, 16-bit alternative to "that other vendor's" DOS. FreeDOS is actively being developed and maintained and will run on a lowly 8086 like any DOS should.

Public support for FreeDOS would provide relief in the short term, but Linux is capable of doing it too.

Heck, Gigabyte has a Microsoft® Windows-only(TM) tool that updates the BIOS on their latest motherboards over the internet! (that's Google's html translation of Gigabyte's pfd file)

Some Linux developers have already been dabbling with such a "hardware update" (aka BIOS flasher) tool but perhaps there should be a concerted effort to build a development kit that the OEMs would find simple to tailor for their purposes. Opening direct hardware access under Microsoft® Windows(TM) over the internet sounds like the thing for gonzos to do, but at least under Linux it could be done relatively securely and by root only.

According to the message posted, the utility used to reflash the BIOS runs in DOS, not Windows, and will work in FreeDOS

If this were practical, then wine would also be practical. Wine has been trying for years to emulate (loosely speaking) the Win9X kernel, et cetera, via reverse engineering. They couldn't do it. They've made amazing strides, and done miracles, but their target was moving, and most of what they needed to know was cleverly hidden. MAybe once Win9X is dropped by MS, wine will eventually be able to catch up to it, and make a perfect-enough emulation.

Linux itself started this way, as a reverse-engineered version of Minix.

The Minix source was published, so reverse engineering was doable. There weren't any undocumented APIs. Look also at FreeDos, a libre implementation of MSDOS. Freedos had the advantage of a much simpler and stationary target. Windows 3.1 still won't run on it (that's ok, since they have other GUIs which will). Then there was DR Dos. They wrote a pretty good DOS replacement (simpler than making a new WIN NT), but MS managed to torpedo them.

The original question was:

I mean really, whats so taboo about starting with an open source kernel, binary compatible with the NT kernel, then a desktop manager and supporting apps, functionally compatible with Windows. Port all that wine nonsense over so you have compatible APIs to build from.

``Why don't we just write our own copy of Windows? It'll be, like, compatible and everything.''

I just don't think that's possible. If you can write something which runs the Reader Rabbit games without crashing (anymore than real Windows does), let me know.

Imagine how much more you could get out of a mobo like this if you replaced the ps/2 ports, the parallel port, and the serial port with, say, 6 usb and 2 firewire ports. Again, why not?

I use a Via Epia motherboard in my MAME cabinet. Between the need to hook up a keyboard encoder, and the fact that it's running FreeDOS, using USB would not be an option.

These would also make great platforms for car audio and home theater machines, where you're likely to want to run a small LCD or VFD display, most of which will need a serial port. There are still plenty of good reasons to keep the legacy ports, and if you need that many USB ports, you can get a USB hub.

No, actually we can't. Darn. And now it is free too... no MS tax, no "sell us your soul" EULAs, nothing.

How "supported" is "supported"? Can I change all the parameters that I can now? Does the OS get back the right sizes of drives when it asks about them? Are there issues with setting stuff like the RTC? What is broken? How about temperature sensors and other stuff on the I2C bus?

The answer to this is clear when you know that Linux almost completely ignores the bios after it boots. The emphatically includes hard drive configuration. To prove this to yourself, go into your bios and set all your hard drives, CDRoms etc. *except* your boot disk to "none". Boot Linux. Hey, it works just the same as it did before, amazing. The reason for this is, Linux is perfectly capable of ignoring the configuration information returned by the bios, because too often that information is just plain wrong. So Linux has been forced to discover that information for itself by directly querying buses, controllers etc, and basically, knowing about every hardware device in the world. Impressive achievement, when you think about it.

Linux now knows a lot of temperature sensors and the like, in spite of the reluctance of companies like Intel to release the technical specifications. I believe we're either at the point or close to it where Linux does a better job on the sensors than the bios does. Some other items are still sore points, such as processor speed configuration, which again has been kept as a deep dark secret by Intel and others. Another item in this category is power management, and then there is SMM - system management mode. All this is in various stages of reverse engineering. At some point, Intel will even get a clue and realize it's to their advantage to release these specs openly, instead of thinking they can exert some kind of control over the industry by keeping it secret. They can't, which has been proved time and again. All they can do is make things so that the code is not peer-reviewed, and therefore buggy and unreliable. (Don't tell me your power management isn't buggy, I won't believe you.) Another bad effect is that when your manufacturer goes under or EOLs the product you no longer get bios upgrades, too damm bad.

Because I'm willing to be that "we can boot BSD" is a long way from "this is a complete, end-user ready product that supports all the functionality of the hardware."

So? As soon as you get a new computer, the first thing you should do is make sure you can reflash the bios with the vendor's latest bios upgrade. If you don't do that, I can assure you that you will regret it a few years down the road, when you are forced to upgrade the bios for some reason, larger hard disks being a perennial example of such a reason. So, once you've done that, put aside a floppy disk with the bios upgrade image and a copy of FreeDos on it, and you are safe (unless the vendor's bios flasher messes up on you, in which case you needed to return that PC anyway). Go ahead and flash in LinuxBios and try it out. Either it works or it doesn't. If it doesn't work, just reload the Vendor's bios (which you already verified works correctly, right?) If it does work, you will have a clean, cool boot and endless source of upgrades. No longer will you have to worry about your bios ever going obsolete or bios bugs going unfixed forever. Never mind the fact it boots faster.

Some mentioned earlier on this thread jokingly about making a super fast computer based on old architecture.

Has anyone actually done that? Has anyone actually taken say, a Tandy Color Computer 3's hardware and boosted it up to something approaching our current standards? I'm not talking emulation on a x86 platform. I mean fully working with a processor with a native OS.

Those architecture are so simple, with kernels so small you could print the hex binary out on a couple of pages. Imaging how fast an accounting package would be on a 1 gHz, or even a 200 mHz.

I know this maybe off topic, but if someone could resurrect a 12-bit system to a more modern standard, why not other system. DOS is still viable in certain circumstances, why not these platforms.

Think about an 8-bit controller with a serial connection, flash memory, and a RCA video out jack that is based on a C64. There is a TON of documentation for programming on something like that. Linux guruâ(TM)s could use C/C++ and Windows users could use Commodore BASIC.

Oh well thatâ(TM)s just my ramblings.

How do you upgrade your BIOS ??

Ever thought about it ? I hit the problem about 14 months ago when I bought a bigger disk and my computer wouldn't recognise it. Asus web site offered me to download flash.exe and a data file. After scratching my head a little bit I downloaded freedos from their website, dd'ed it to a diskette, added the files from Asus, rebooted, flashed the new BIOS, and voila !!

There is an assumption out there that everybody does have a copy of DOS somewhere. And to be honest, I prefer this assumption, than hardware manufacturers starting to distribute MS-Windows utilities... you won't install MS-Windows on one diskette !!!

Yves.

If Microsoft really wants to deny new DOS-licenses, this could be a real problem

No it isn't. IBM publishes proprietary PC DOS 2000, DeviceLogics publishes proprietary DR-DOS, and the free software community publishes free FreeDOS, as numerous other users have mentioned.

In the tradition of all free software, we will soon see that freeDOS surpasses M$DOS in all ways. Bugs will be fixed, it will take up less space, it will run better. Thanks for the reminder about freeDOS, there's been worlds of improvement since I looked at it a year ago or so.

Face it: DOS is a very, very primitive OS. Even in 1981 when it was released, it was already outdated.

Do you judge Windows 2000 / XP today by how outdated Windows 1.0 was when it was released? After all, it didn't even have overlapping Windows! That's just holding a grudge, wouldn't you say?

A decade later, when it was still shipped on most PCs, it was even more outdated. multi-user, multitasking... As a die-hard Microsoft user you probably don't know, but those existed long before Windows - and also before DOS.

It would really depend on how you define "primitive", and how necessary those (often bloated) "advanced" features are. If the user doesn't really need more than what DOS offers, no multi-tasking, no bells and whistles, runs a large collection of existing software, then does it really matter how old it is? A battery-powered, 5 speed Model Uber-2000 screwdriver would still be passed over today by most people for a simple philips that fits neatly in a small toolbox.

DOS still has its fans today. See the FreeDOS project. If such a project can improve DOS (I've been under the understanding that it stands for Direct Operating System) to a 32-bit operating system that does many of the things that modern operating systems do today while still maintaining the simple and efficient elements of older DOSes, why should it ever "die"?

You gan still get DR-DOS for free (beer) here, besides there are Free (speech) and Open DOSes around too.

I want to note that in all these years no group has been able to completely replace dos.
- www.freedows.org doesn't even work anymore

Gee.. maybe if you spelled the URL right!

It's http://www.freedos.org/, and they appear to be doing just fine.

If you're really upset, there's always FreeDOS

Windows 98 and ME still boot off of DOS. In the case of 98 you can still boot it into pure DOS mode if you like, it is rather better hidden in ME but with some hacks it can also be done. So we have a couple of MS end-of-life dates to go before we can say its really dead.

But then there is FreeDOS, which looks to be alive and well, and being GPL'd free software, is unlikely to stop being so any time soon.

...but its legacy lives on.

freedos is free. it's about 3mb, with all the options installed, and runs on current hardware, and supports neat things like USB and (i think TCP/IP). then you don't need to port anything, and it runs on current hardware (or, at least my 5 year old amd k6-2 300, so probably anything that supports x86)

if all you're doing is running a console app in dos, and your infrastructure is built around this, it seems far simpler to just go the way of freedos

Doesn't sound like it would be too hard to port.

...hardware upgrades...

Upgrades for what? Tell me again what your problem is, and why exactly you need to invest in new hardware and/or new software?

...we should move to a Windows-like environment...

OK, this sounds like the same clueless assholes whole replaced the $250 dumb terminals at the local library with $1250 Windows PCs. (The PCs perform the exact same function as the dumb terminals: card catalog lookups. Pentium CPU, 32 meg RAM, Win95 -- and the only app they run is a terminal program to connect with the mainframe in the back room.)

Do you know about FreeDOS?

Do you know about Turbo Vision? It makes nifty DOS or Linux apps that look and act like Windows but run in text mode.

VDE by Eric Meyer is an amazingly fast and powerful, RAM resident editor written in Assembler. Take a look and see if it meets your needs. VDE would perform well on a 8086 class PC with minimal RAM

The main limitation of VDE is file size. Because it loads the entire file into a page of memory, VDE can only work with a file of up to 64MB in size. To get around this limitation VDE is designed to easily work with files split into smaller chunks.

You could run it over FreeDOSor UNIX.

FreeDOS. Seriously. It even has experimental FAT32 support. And its free. And the latest one is CD bootable. Pop the cd in, load Ultima V to your FAT32 HD (unless you're using NTFS) and play. I believe you can even customize the boot cd and make an Ultima V "live cd". Saving might be a problem there tho...

FreeDOS.

Where I work, stability and cost efficiency has nothing to do with our choice of OS. We need something that will run all those damned legacy apps we still have left over from the DOS 6.22 days. It's so much easier, it seems, to accomodate these old apps then to replace or upgrade them.
A lot of other big companies probably stay on Windows for the same reason.

So are you using FreeDOS?

an old Win9x or earlier parition

Better yet, FreeDOS. However, your point about sound cards that have abandoned the GUS and SB hardware interfaces still stands. The only reason why video cards still work is that the BIOS checks for a VGA compatible card during the self-test.

FreeDOS is released under the GPL, as you can see here.

As far as the 2K install went...since I don't have a spare EEPROM with the unbroken ATI Xpert 2000 code on it, (I have to send it up to Ottawa, CAN) I'm stuck.

Does ATI offer a downloadable DOS based utility to upgrade the card's BIOS? If so, install FreeDOS and run it.

Lets face it, they are not going to do this unless forced. The Linux market is too small to be significant - most of us who buy pre-built systems probably put up with donating some cash to Microsoft for software we do not use.

I would Use FREEDOS.
Why bothering with multitasking and multiusers. DOS , do it simple(tm).

What about using something like FreeDOS? Pretty solid as far as DOS goes, DOS lends it the obsolence angle, plus all the tools to set up a server would probably qualify as obscure. I would guess this would buy you a little more, considering it was never a commercial OS that had its flaws publicly "outed" and made well-known. It doesn't necessarily share any of the holes/flaws that the commercial DOSes do.

FreeDos

If you don't want to install a libre *nix, try FreeDos. It gives a dos prompt, it isn't M$, and it's libre. It works surprisingly well for beta software, too.

might even be possible to put FreeDOS and the Seal DOS GUI to use for such systems, although the software to interface with certain bits and pieces would need to be written for it, this would give you a free win9x a like system.

I think I have a good notion what that would look like. And I think some other people have had the same notion...

--Mike--

When I was out hiring for our last open position at work (it's filled now ... don't send me email) I had been hoping to find someone with experience on an OSS project. That actually would have been my ideal, as I believe this offers real-life experience in a way that lets you dip your toes into the water on your own time.

But alas, that didn't happen. Maybe next time I need to do hiring...

If you want a suggestion, I would recommend helping out the FreeDOS Project. The FreeDOS Documentation Project (FD-DOC) lists a few of these suggestions for helping out with FreeDOS:

- Take any of the open projects on the FreeDOS Software List.

- Contribute to FreeCOM (our command.com) or the FreeDOS kernel. It's not as hard as you would think, especially if you start small by applying some bug fixes.

- Apply some contributed patches to Freemacs (a GNU emacs clone for DOS). The patches are already there .. you just need to apply them. This should be fairly easy!

- Patch an existing program to use Cats or MSGLIB to support internationalization. It's not hard .. just read through the docs and you'll be fine.

There are other things, too, but if you are looking for suggestions these should get you on your way. I'm sure that any sane employer will look on this as valuable experience, as you will have demonstrated the ability to work with others on a project, and contribute to the code.

When I was out hiring for our last open position at work (it's filled now ... don't send me email) I had been hoping to find someone with experience on an OSS project. That actually would have been my ideal, as I believe this offers real-life experience in a way that lets you dip your toes into the water on your own time.

But alas, that didn't happen. Maybe next time I need to do hiring...

If you want a suggestion, I would recommend helping out the FreeDOS Project. The FreeDOS Documentation Project (FD-DOC) lists a few of these suggestions for helping out with FreeDOS:

- Take any of the open projects on the FreeDOS Software List.

- Contribute to FreeCOM (our command.com) or the FreeDOS kernel. It's not as hard as you would think, especially if you start small by applying some bug fixes.

- Apply some contributed patches to Freemacs (a GNU emacs clone for DOS). The patches are already there .. you just need to apply them. This should be fairly easy!

- Patch an existing program to use Cats or MSGLIB to support internationalization. It's not hard .. just read through the docs and you'll be fine.

There are other things, too, but if you are looking for suggestions these should get you on your way. I'm sure that any sane employer will look on this as valuable experience, as you will have demonstrated the ability to work with others on a project, and contribute to the code.

When I was out hiring for our last open position at work (it's filled now ... don't send me email) I had been hoping to find someone with experience on an OSS project. That actually would have been my ideal, as I believe this offers real-life experience in a way that lets you dip your toes into the water on your own time.

But alas, that didn't happen. Maybe next time I need to do hiring...

If you want a suggestion, I would recommend helping out the FreeDOS Project. The FreeDOS Documentation Project (FD-DOC) lists a few of these suggestions for helping out with FreeDOS:

- Take any of the open projects on the FreeDOS Software List.

- Contribute to FreeCOM (our command.com) or the FreeDOS kernel. It's not as hard as you would think, especially if you start small by applying some bug fixes.

- Apply some contributed patches to Freemacs (a GNU emacs clone for DOS). The patches are already there .. you just need to apply them. This should be fairly easy!

- Patch an existing program to use Cats or MSGLIB to support internationalization. It's not hard .. just read through the docs and you'll be fine.

There are other things, too, but if you are looking for suggestions these should get you on your way. I'm sure that any sane employer will look on this as valuable experience, as you will have demonstrated the ability to work with others on a project, and contribute to the code.

so we don't have to try to find a dusty old copy of DOS 5.0 or 3.2 to update the bios on a shiny new P4 motherboard.

But you don't. Just download FreeDOS and follow the instructions to make a boot disk. Download your motherboard's BIOS update program and new BIOS to the boot disk and you are good to go. We recently did exactly this to update a half a dozen ASUS based machines here.

go read the site and find out what free dos is good for. the two good links would be the aboutpage and the main page.

here's a hints: it's good for running dos software on a free version of dos.

yes, you could use linux to do all these things, but dos is so simple. =)

go read the site and find out what free dos is good for. the two good links would be the aboutpage and the main page.

here's a hints: it's good for running dos software on a free version of dos.

yes, you could use linux to do all these things, but dos is so simple. =)

• The FreeDOS Kernel

• Domain Registration and Renewal for $12 a year

FreeDOS Frequently Asked Questions

• General Information
• Using FreeDOS
• Installing FreeDOS
• The FreeDOS Kernel

FreeDOS Frequently Asked Questions

• General Information
• Using FreeDOS
• Installing FreeDOS
• The FreeDOS Kernel

FreeDOS Frequently Asked Questions

• General Information
• Using FreeDOS
• Installing FreeDOS
• The FreeDOS Kernel

FreeDOS Frequently Asked Questions

• General Information
• Using FreeDOS
• Installing FreeDOS
• The FreeDOS Kernel

FreeDOS Frequently Asked Questions

• General Information
• Using FreeDOS
• Installing FreeDOS
• The FreeDOS Kernel

Why not just use FreeDOS?