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Plex86 Runs DOS
Adam Bertil was one of a number of people who've written about the recent announcement from
www.plex86.org that Plex86 will now run DOS applications. Kevin Lawton apparently did the work and a screenshot is on Plex86 [?] .org.
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You're thinking of Shapeshifter (Which was very useful when i owned an Amiga.)
Basilisk II is by the same guy (Can't remember his name. Sorry...) who wrote Shapeshifter (And Frodo, the C64 emulator), but is far more advanced, and has a Motorola 68k emulator for use on non Motorola platforms.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
All I see are someone's machine running dos and a link to a software project. Zuh? Give us some meaningful links and helpful information next time you post an article, foo.
Written with abrasen and sadness,
Bongo
Lover of Luigi
I thought you all sad some problems with gif files for some reason or another???
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"Fools and bairns shouldna' see a thing half done"
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Microsoft's drivers work pretty well, although there's no software to go with them other than an SMB client. (They're on every NT4 CD in the clients directory. Rumor had it MS used to have a DOS telnet and FTP program, but I've looked and can't find it. )
Arachne was bought and renamed to something else by Caldera's DR-DOS side and more development was done. You might want to try it again - it seemed fairly stable to me, although slow. It sits on NetWare ODI drivers, IIRC.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
DOS (or what's left of it) will be removed in Whistler
Ya know, I've got this bridge in New York, and I'm having a hard time keeping up the maintenence. So I'll tell ya what, I'll sell it to ya for, oh, five hundred bucks. It's the one connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Steven E. Ehrbar
How soon until this gets added to the Mozilla project so I can run Word for DOS in my web browser that has been customized to have a Word 2000 GUI interface?
Speak truth to power.
Most new motherboards aren't cool enough to completely drop the ISA slots. If you're cool enough not to need the ISA slots and cool enough to have a motherboard that doesn't have ISA slots, chances are you're cool enough not to need a dial-up modem. My theory is that if you're going to seriously use and rely on your modem, you'd damn well better get a good one. If you need a modem, don't want to spend money on an external modem, and don't have any free ISA slots, at least get a real PCI modem. It's, what, $20 more than a WinModem? It's worth it, man.
As for modems being a waste of a serial port: my motherboard has two of them, and I've never needed more than two at any one time. They're there so you might as well make use of them. I have, however, run out of both PCI and ISA slots on several motherboards several times; I'd rather save them for something more important than a modem.
--
You're right, it doesn't point to "nothing useful". It points, in fact, to something very interesting and quite useful. What better way to reverse engineer software/drivers is there?
Moron. Go back to school. Learn to write proper English."A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
If you had really read the information, you would realise that plex86 and bochs ARE being combined and the guy that wrote bochs is now working on plex86.
here i whore
google.com:"burn all gifs" | gnu.org:"Why no GIFs" | programming-freedom.org:"GIF Controversy" | google:"league no gifs" | libPNG.org:"PNG Home Site"
here i bird
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Point taken, however you are talking about hardware and microcode emulator/optimizing software on the chip itself, I was talking about software.
Supporting realtime optimizations with optimized hardware is an eventual goal, however, if you look at the HP dynamo, a real world product, it's a piece of plain old software - optimizing (amongst other things) native code to run faster that directly natively.
--EMN
Wow, how terribly insightful. External modems are great, but they cost considerably more than their internal counterparts (for obvious reasons). And what if I were to tell you that external modems are a waste of a serial port?
There's no advantage of an ISA modem over a PCI modem, except that motherboards have a limited number of PCI slots and you may have more free ISA slots than PCI slots. Keep in mind that many newer motherboards have only one ISA slot, some have none at all, and the PC 2001 specification calls for no ISA slots or devices. This is a Good Thing(tm), as including an ISA bus increases system complexity and reduces efficiency for the whole motherboard.
Saying that a putting a modem on a PCI slot is a waste is a bit like saying running a file server on a K6-2 is a waste, since a 486 would do just fine. Except that you can't buy new 486s (and the motherboards, RAM, etc., although oddly enough AT cases and keyboards seem to still be available).
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'm sure there are enough people around here that have differing opinions about open source, but to head off discussion in that direction, it's merely an impression I have and I'm possibly wrong. I've never contributed a line of code - something I hope to change.
I think the whole concept of emulation/VM is something to be embraced and which could _really_ revolutionize the computing model. So as opposed to encapsulating already native code to sneakily let it think it's running as a base system, go ahead and really change it, emulate it - don't just "bracket" it.
Why? Currently, we're essentially writing compilers for a non-existing platform. The x86 platform as originally seen has long been "dead", what we're seeing now is chips that convert this "universal" language into their own microops and then execute them. The internal structure of a P3 / Athlon has a large section dedicated to this very task. But what if we could throw all that away, and make a chip that simply crunches numbers as good as current technology allows? We have the making of a darn fast chip. If I had to make a completely uninformed guess, we could well stuff two "Athlons" (if we can still call them that) on the same die if the whole x86 ISA is dropped.
In comes the virtual machine... we simply convert the bytecode into native code and run. Sort of like java does it - but better, as we have a chip that can run faster and possibly more efficiently.
Guess what? Sun is already doing just that with MAJC. The point is, Plex86 should not try to run code natively at all. It simply happens to have a bytecode that's identical to the native code. This gives us an architechture that is far longer-lived than something that can run legacy x86 systems on x86 systems. This might be portable to newer things as well.
Proof that this sort of thing is possible is incarnate in the Transmeta Crusoe chip. Of course, they chose to have a chip that is really power efficient, but imagine a a chip that is to speed what Crusoe is to power - Yummy.
I've heard objections that speed gains in the architecture might be outweighed by speed losses in the transformation. This is not true. The optimizations that a run-time VM can do are quite astounding - it can not only decide to unroll loops when necessary, but to expand a frequent multiplication by a memory adress into constant bitshifts, it could dynamically choose what to place into registers far more wisely that a traditional compiler can, look ahead and do IO access before the program needs to... I am no expert, but there's obvious potential here.
And here again, there are some innovative people at work, just look at HP's Dynamo - which takes native code and does real time optimizations (actually it does more than this, and is an interesting read. Transmeta wasn't the first. One of the interesting things is that actual optimized native code can still run faster under dynamo than simply natively. Obviously, this isn't the case for all programs, but its certainly not the case that Emulation/VM-ing is by definition slower than native execution. And realize, we're talking about an architecture (originally PA-RISC but porting activities are ongoing I believe) that wasn't even designed for this sort of activity. A CPU with this in mind could well do even better.
So my conclusion is that we shouldn't emulate VMware, we should, well emulate. Weird as it may sound, emulation is the future.
--EMN
There are so many complaints about the duplication of effort that goes on in the open source community but everyone is ready to get behind projects like this and that open source windows project.
Yes I see the benifits of "emulating" a complete machine (yes, i am speaking english.) I have used VMware, I've used Softwin. It has a use... but it's been done.
The entire point that I'm trying to make is that we need to move on.
I've simply been offering an opinion and I'm not alone... This paper about computing form a Yale professor.
I realise that most people in this community are passionate abou tnearly everything and this too. However we are holding ourselves back.
Personally, I think they've come pretty far in only a few months. BTW, this project grew out of the BOCHS project (which provides an Intel platform emulator under Unix), the difference is, Plex86 doesn't emulate an x86 CPU, it runs x86 code natively and traps privlidged instructions (and also pulls some other tricks to trap non-trapple privlidged instructions) so that it can run an alternate OS under Linux at near-native performance (about 80 - 90% of the native hardware). This is so you don't have to dual boot. Also, unlike Wine, Plex86 will allow you to boot any support OS under under it (just like VMWare).
Ah, at last. I'll be able to run att those DOS apps that I haven't been able to use since Win95.
If Microsoft themselves can't write a DOS emulatior, it's about time someone else did.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. -- Homer Simpson
lots of believe, but I'm a believer
I dunno about you, but my ISA SB32 is the most compatible thing on my motherboard. It works with everything. That's the reason for ISA.
The goal of plex86 is not to be able to run DOS. Dosemu works just fine, thank you. The eventual goal is to be able to run Windows (or any other x86 operating system) concurrently with Linux (or BeOS, or anything else it's ported to) in an Open Source fashion. Since when is emulation not a valid area for study?
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
Yep, I use VMWare under Win2k to run Linux quite a bit. (Yes, there are good reasons for this.) Linux performs just fine under VMWare.
But, then again, I've also been happy with the performance of Win2k running under VMWare for Linux. It's slower than native, but still usable.
Though I think that emulation technology is really interesting, I'm concerned that cool OSes like Be, Linux, or BSD will strive for compatibility rather than breaking new ground.
What does having a emulator application have to do with an OS's innovations? In fact, this kind of emulation allows us to move forward with new OS features (and new OSes) without totally losing all legacy code/data.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Amen to that, brother.
I have yet to see *any* emulator get either one right. I can get further in Ultima 7, though.
Second Reality probably does some nasty stuff with protected mode (if I know future crew) and also has some severe timing issues. It's incredibly slow on DosEMU, and of course sound doesn't work either.
Ultima VII does its own memory management, which was annoying even on native DOS; I had a special configuration that rebooted into Ultima VII even back then.
I'll probably install DOS again on my old P133, *just* so I can run all that stuff correctly again. If anyone finds an x86 emulator that runs these correctly on x86, let me know!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Things aren't that simple... emulation can actually be faster than native code do to real-time optimization possibilities. I already posted a message to this extent so I'll just quote it here, but think about the Crusoe, java (esp the improved JIT in jdk 1.3), and the like - emulation really is possible to do quickly.
I think the whole concept of emulation/VM is something to be embraced and which could _really_ revolutionize the computing model. So as opposed to encapsulating already native code to sneakily let it think it's running as a base system, go ahead and really change it, emulate it - don't just "bracket" it.
Why? Currently, we're essentially writing compilers for a non-existing platform. The x86 platform as originally seen has long been "dead", what we're seeing now is chips that convert this "universal" language into their own microops and then execute them. The internal structure of a P3 / Athlon has a large section dedicated to this very task. But what if we could throw all that away, and make a chip that simply crunches numbers as good as current technology allows? We have the making of a darn fast chip. If I had to make a completely uninformed guess, we could well stuff two "Athlons" (if we can still call them that) on the same die if the whole x86 ISA is dropped.
In comes the virtual machine... we simply convert the bytecode into native code and run. Sort of like java does it - but better, as we have a chip that can run faster and possibly more efficiently.
Guess what? Sun is already doing just that with MAJC. The point is, Plex86 should not try to run code natively at all. It simply happens to have a bytecode that's identical to the native code. This gives us an architechture that is far longer-lived than something that can run legacy x86 systems on x86 systems. This might be portable to newer things as well.
Proof that this sort of thing is possible is incarnate in the Transmeta Crusoe chip. Of course, they chose to have a chip that is really power efficient, but imagine a a chip that is to speed what Crusoe is to power - Yummy.
I've heard objections that speed gains in the architecture might be outweighed by speed losses in the transformation. This is not true. The optimizations that a run-time VM can do are quite astounding - it can not only decide to unroll loops when necessary, but to expand a frequent multiplication by a memory adress into constant bitshifts, it could dynamically choose what to place into registers far more wisely that a traditional compiler can, look ahead and do IO access before the program needs to... I am no expert, but there's obvious potential here.
And here again, there are some innovative people at work, just look at HP's Dynamo - which takes native code and does real time optimizations (actually it does more than this, and is an interesting read. Transmeta wasn't the first. One of the interesting things is that actual optimized native code can still run faster under dynamo than simply natively. Obviously, this isn't the case for all programs, but its certainly not the case that Emulation/VM-ing is by definition slower than native execution. And realize, we're talking about an architecture (originally PA-RISC but porting activities are ongoing I believe) that wasn't even designed for this sort of activity. A CPU with this in mind could well do even better.
So my conclusion is that we shouldn't emulate VMware, we should, well emulate. Weird as it may sound, emulation is the future.
--EMN
DOS screenshots... God, they're beautiful.
2000-08-02 14:28:18 Compromised Linux servers used in DOS attack (articles,news) (rejected)
Speak of the devil.....
Me, I'm still getting over how cool running MacOS 7.5.3 in Basilisk II is...
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
Please, try to be more civil. Explain, why is this person a fag? Perhaps if you used reasonable, well thought out arguments and explanations, we could resolve these differences, and get on with our lives. Now Mark A. Rhowe is going to walk around all day, wondering, "Am I a fag??"
"Watch these suckers jump when I get Administrator."
I've downloaded and compiled Bochs on my UP1100 EV67 600MHz Alpha. I tried installing Win98, but Bochs was only running in Real Mode. I think there was some compiler errors.
Now what would be cool is to run Bochs on an Alpha Linux system emulating an x86 running Windows running a VAX emulator (www.charon-vax.com) running VMS.
If Bochs gets fixed to run Win2000, then I'll try it!
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
I get the sense that the Mighty Commander Taco is otherwise a very intelligent individual. So, I'm sure there was a good reason for the lapse in judgement in the choice of his alma mater.
As with most lapses in judgement, perhaps there was a woman involved?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I'd be more impressed if they showed an actuall screen shot of running a real dos application even if it was only EDIT. Though scandisk would have been more funny.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Because DOS is simple. You don't have to emulate anything above 8086 to run it - no protected mode, no 32-bit registers. This is an obvious first target for any x86 emulator.
But will it run Duke3d? That'd be the best day of my life-running Duke3d at full speed on my linux box. I've got an old Pentium 120 that I use only for Duke...be nice to not have to boot it up, and instead use my regular box.
Colin Winters
Try Dosemu for that. Supposedly it can even boot Win3.1, and possibly Win95 (rev. a). There's still a crapload of software that works on Win3.1, like IE5.
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
It's not an emulator. It's a virtual machine. There is a big difference there which some people seem unable to grasp. I agree that some emulation is a waste of time. But not all, as some people like to run old game's etc. But since this isn't an emulator it's a moot point. Please get a clue before you flame other peoples work.
There is no need for ISA slots on a motherboard.
How many modems can you name that use PCI but aren't 'win'modems?
Er, it is there. Maybe you didn't click hard enough.
:wq
My Apple Mac runs DOS
Ahhh, yes, "wintel" emulation on the Mac. I remember using Win3.1 under Softwindows on an old gf's PPC Mac, way back in, ummm, early '95. She used it for a DOS-based C compiler she had to use for a programming class; I thought it was a hoot to play Solitaire, since the EMU was running slowly enough on that box that the bouncing card animation at the end of the game took several minutes.
Minesweeper was a problem, since the Mac only had a one-button mouse.:)
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
rather than sitting around talking and scolding everyone else just because they did what they wanted to do.
i really don't know much about the plex project, but you have no place to say 'we' need to move on unless you're actually doing something.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Now, was is it really necessary to call him an idiot? Now you may have discouraged him, putting your "try again" in a sarcastic light, and he may never troll again. You may have singlehandedly prevented slashdot from receiving some very fine trolls by discouraging this new troll.
Shame on you, sir.
"Watch these suckers jump when I get Administrator."
The screenshot looks identical to bochs. Is this the same project or did they fork from it? Also, how is it different from dosemu?
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Exult
There are a couple others too, like this one, for Windows/DirectX:
Guardian Engine,
and then there's a project to turn Ultima VII into an online game.
---
I am the dot in slashdot.org
Then there was better wildcards del Z*A to delete anything starting with an Z and ending with a A. Typing "copy" would get a prompt "from?" and then if you didn't give both source and destination you'd get the "to?" prompt.
And all the command switches were the same on each command, such as /REPLACE and /NOREPLACE for eacn and every command that it made sense for.
(the Good Old Days ... sigh)
And for what you get with VMWare, it's dirt cheap.
They did jack the price up lately though...
but $299 for VMWare is *not* 'costly' considering what they've done. Nobody else has a competing product; plex86 will be the first alternative, when it works.
VMWare works well.
Also.. plex86 was originally called 'FreeMWare', but changed it's name due to (regardless of what they say on the site) people angered at the obvious confusion with VMWare.
And how are you supposed to run multiple virtual copoies of Windows or Linux on a SunPCI card? You can't..... you can run *one* at a time.
One large reason for using VMWare in development is the ability to have images of multiple computer setups; to load them concurrently if you like; the ability to have VMWare ask you if you want to permanently write changes to the virtual disk since last startup (great for tech support! you can duplicate people's problems without thrashing a machine)
As for the SunPCI card.. never heard of a project to work under linux. I suppose that would be neat.. but why not just get another cheap PC?
Because if you can't make DOS work, you sure as hell aren't going to get win98 to work.
Plex86 is Bochs. Maybe they are taking the emulation code out when running it on an x86 processor, but it doesn't run any faster (still performs like a 386SX/12 when running on a PIII 600 with 512M RAM). To be fair, it is still under development, and it does look very promising as a replacement for VMWare. Now, if it ran in console mode as well as in X (with an option to have it all in one executable or two separate ones, and a nice GTK+ (NOT QT!) GUI on the X part) then it would really be good.
Did I totally miss something?
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
DOS is OK to like because it isn't popular. If DOS suddenly makes a comeback in the real world, expect a massive fallout of support from slashdot.
Works like a charm though but I'd rather just dual boot than pay that much for a virtual machine.
:wq
No, from http://www.plex86.org:
Will this run on my Mac?
This kind of technology allows you to concurrently run multiple operating systems written for the same processor. In the case of Plex86, you will be able to run multiple Intel x86 based operating systems on the same machine. Thus the answer is no. However, the virtualization concepts used by Plex86 can be extended to other platforms.
For running x86 operating systems and applications on non-x86 machines, check out Kevin Lawton's x86 PC emulator site www.bochs.com. He's currently adding dynamic translation, which will really speed up the emulation.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm wondering if anyone can comment on the performance of VMware (and the potential performance of plex86 one day). I used Bochs to run Windows 98, and the performance was awful. The specs on my machine are: AMD K6-2 450 MHz, 256 Mb RAM.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
The internal structure of a P3 / Athlon has a large section dedicated to this very task. But what if we could throw all that away, and make a chip that simply crunches numbers as good as current technology allows? We have the making of a darn fast chip.
That already exists. They call it an 'Alpha'.
Features!
I see little benefit in making a DOS emulator when I have yet to find a good TCP/IP suite for DOS. Is there such a thing? All the "Internet" apps I know of for DOS, Arachne (web browser) imparticular, are pretty much worthless as far as speed and reliability goes.
Not to mention that there is no TCP/IP drivers for DOS. I sure wish there was though.. (If you can prove me wrong, please reply with a link to some legitimate ones. I have packet drivers for my net card, but can't get TCP/IP to work without downloading specific programs that require me to continually fill in IP info)
When will Moto or Intel make virtualization easier? What are the current obstacles for doing this. The plex86 web page says that hardware simulation for the x86 VM is one obstacle, what are the others?
Are there any advantages to host-OS shared/emulated hardware VMs versus software-based hardware partitioning?
In other words, is it better to boot to a complex like Linux and run plex86 processes, with all processes sharing all the hardware at the same time, or is it better to boot to a simpler VM manager meta-OS and launch the VMs on partitioned hardware segments?
I like the latter personally for fault tolerance, but I also like the idea that an otherwise idle VM running DOS isn't owning an entire CPU and memory block, which doesn't seem possible under hardware partitioning unless you have a really sophisticated VM manager meta-OS or you boot into a complex OS to begin with, in which case you seem to lose the hardware paritioning ability.
You might also want to check out user mode linux: "a port of the Linux kernel to its own system call interface".
You don't give a flying fuck? Well, some of us are programmers and think that creating a virtual machine in software is an interesting subject in and of itself. Whether it has yet produced a useful product in this case is another subject entirely. I would be immensely proud of such an achievement if it were mine... The concept of programming is so much more interesting in an open source environment because you can watch things develop, rather than just using the end product, which often times finally appears years later. I want to see where this goes from here!
Runs great. My configuration: Windows NT 4.0, SP5, 256 MB RAM, Dual PII / 400 machine.
However - be sure to read the docs, and install the VMWare video driver within the virualized machines, otherwise preformance SUCKS!
Typically at any give time, I have the following running: 1 copy of Windows 98, 2 copies of Windows NT, and one copy SUSE Linux running KDE. NT and Linux sessions take about 1 - 2 % CPU utilization when they are not actually doing anything important but running idle. 98, on the other hand, takes about 18 - 25% utilization off of one of the processors (it may be a dual processor machine, but 98 only gets to play with one of them - VMWare can't do anything to help that unfortunately.
The one downside at the moment with VMWare - no support for 3D acceleration. I really want them to fix this - while I use VMWare for testing my games and such (DirectDraw only - no 3D in these games) I'd love to be able to move completely to Linux for my base OS, and boot up a VMWare session to play UT and things like that (plus it would help for testing on the game that I've been working on that DO utilize 3D hardware!) A minor (?) setback is that it also doesn't support MIDI ouput - no big deal to me really, but, it's important to a couple of older games.
My two favorite features: running NT and Linux on the same box, and just switching back and forth, without really noticing and preformance degredation (*MOST* of the time - there are some things you can do that really do slow things down!), and the 'Suspend / Restore' button on the various OS's. If you actually need that 2% CPU power restored back to your 'real' OS, or the memory back, just hit the 'suspend' button, and close VMWare. Later, open it again, and hit resume - I've got your "Instant On" right here!!!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Some people actually use their computers to get work done. As one small example: you'd be amazed how many control systems for industrial machinery are still run on DOS PC's. I run into them all the time.
Often their software was written by a long-since defunct company. Windows port? Hah! This stuff hasn't been rev'ed in atleast a decade. The company died, and the program sources went with it to it's grave. This is among the greatest arguments for open source software. If we had source to these control programs, then we could rewrite it for a Linux machine, or a Be machine or whatever-the-heck we wanted. We could update it to use more modern or more reliable computers. Instead, we're stuck hoping that that old 286 keeps chugging along.
Fortunately, for the most part, those 286 systems *do* keep chugging along. There are plenty of workhorse PC AT's sitting in cabinets, unceremoniously controlling production equipment -- pushing the GNP along. Eventually, they will die, and a replacement will have to be found. But as long as the old, dusty system still runs, why throw money at a replacement?
DOS was so universal for so long, and so much application software was written for it that it will be around for a very, very long time. Infact, DOS may even outlive the x86.
--Lenny
3Com makes both hardware and WinModem versions of the PCI USR Sportster. I have an old ISA Sportster, and it kicks ass. At least until I get DSL this month.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Great! Now I can use my Linux box to run a DOS emulator. Then I'll run Win 3.1 on that... And load up a mac emulator. So then I can play Nintendo games with my NES emulator that only runs on OS8. Finally...
DOS applications run very quickly... there's none of the GUI overhead in the way, just you, the code, and almost bare metal. Things run so quick it's amazing. These programs are now running on machines that are at least 1000 times faster than the minimum hardware they were meant to run on.
Those who don't learn the lessons of history, are doomed to repeat them. Those who throw out legacy applications, are doomed to rewrite them. I still don't know of anything as simple and quick as EDWIN for working with text files. (The macro features were always just enough to save hours of work)
--Mike--
If it doesn't now, it will eventually since it is based upon Bochs, which can already run 'difficult' games (ones that DOSemu can't), at least in mode 13h, I haven't tried higher resolutions. If this code from Bochs isn't there now it will surely be retrofitted at a later date.
My bad. When the article was posted, no Plex86 node had been created. However, in the hours since then, three people have written blurbs about it. Just goes to show one of the advantages of the distributed-encyclopedia model. ;)
For more information, click here.
Err, no... this is system virtualization. The x86 code runs on the actual processor using the (limited) CPU virtualization support in the x86, and plex86 is used to fill the gaps, trapping interrupts, access to ports, and lots of other stuff (since the x86 CPU virtualization stuff is crap, AFAIK). The key point is that it's not *emulating* anything in the traditional sense (ie, there's no CPU-level emulation going on here).
Yes, and an emulated machine is just like a real machine, only a little slower. So why would you *need* to buy a 486 to run DOS, if you can run it on your current machine? Not to mention the development potential it has. There would be nothing to stop you hacking away on the Linux kernel, or whatever else takes your fancy. If the machine crashes, you just start a new one. There are far more reasons to create a decent free virtual machine than there are reasons not to.
exactly how is that? it sounds like hyperbole to me.
your posts smack of a young person with very little knowledge, who has read a lot of web articles and formed a fairly ignorant opinion based on said articles, and is now espousing it in this open forum called
oh i'm sure you use unix, dos, etc. that's just dandy, but it's still plainly obvious to me you are just blowing smoke and don't know the first thing about any of this.
in response to your other post, virtual machine != emulating a machine. in the strictly syntactical, english language sense, the two terms are congruent, but from a comp sci standpoint, they are not the same thing at all. if you don't understand this, then i suggest going over to a book store and picking up some books on the subject and getting informed, because i don't have the space nor the patience to really get into it here.
as for the post i'm responding to right now, there really isn't much to say that isn't plainly obvious. your post is pure rhetoric. no OS is perfect, but right now, unix suits me best for what i want to do. unfortunatley, most people and most games use windows, etc. etc. etc. this has all been said a thousand times before.
the heart of this thread is your silly diatribe against emulation/virtual machines. the fact is, there will always be old games people want to play, and emulation is at least good for that. the uses of vmware and such go beyond that, though, they allow you to have multiple OSes (whatever those OSes may be, and rest assured if you actually do something with all this angst you have and write the best OS the world has ever seen, they will be racing to support it) going at once, and save you the trouble of restarting the hardware. if you don't see the benefits of this, then, once again, there is no substitute for more experience.
anyway, there you have it, a very long-winded way of saying you are wrong.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Point taken, however you are talking about hardware and microcode emulator/optimizing software on the chip itself, I was talking about software.
You can also find tools out there that take over the parallel and serial port drivers, and log data. The tools page at www.gphoto.org has the links.
Part of the beauty of this system is that you can run the guest os off of a disk image file. You can keep copies of the file. Run WinXX and try installing a program. Oops, it just messed up your VBRUNxx.DLL! Close the VM and copy from your "last known good" disk image. Also comes in damn handy for testing windows installation software for those of us who do cross platform development.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
While I'm sure you'll be able to do this with Plex86, I know you can do it with VMWare - that's how I did some Y2K here at the offices. Works pretty well.
As a side note - VMWare looses time slowly but surely. It's kind of annoying, to tell you the truth!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I still want an ISA slot for an internal modem. Most PCI modems are cheap winmodems anyhow.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Yes, that's a penguin. Just view in in a fixed-width font and move the top of his head over the rest of his body. BTW, the lameness filter apparently needs some work. That's the first bit of ASCII art I've been able to squeeze through.
sometimes i wish that all of these people that were trying to get windows to work under linux would work together on one project. There are countless projects of the same type in all aspects of open source. Wouldn't things be better if we had one project that got completed rather than 100 that will "someday" have the same functions?
-thinkpol
In fact, it's Windoze that most slashdotter's have come to loathe. Dos was actually pretty stable and a lot of us hung on to the bitter end until it became inevitable that Windoze would supplement dos. Windoze (pre 2000 anyway) was/is the most amazingly incompetent piece of software in the history of the known universe, considering its function.
:wq
Bochs. Kevin Lawton is the creator and maintainer of bochs, which, like Plex86 and VMWare is an Intel emulator. It also runs on Linux, Windows and I think Mac. Best of all, it was recently GPL'd (or LGPL'd maybe). That's why Kevin is working on Plex86 now. He's kind of merging the two projects together.
I've tried bochs and it's neat--but very very slow. I'm running Win95 in the emulator on my PII 350 (with 128MB) and it is so slow as to be totally unusable. It's also got some issues with devices (like it doesn't support network and the mouse is really flakey).
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
virtual machine == emulating a machine
*plonk*
:wq
If I can someday get through a week on a relatively complex job without having to boot Windoze because I need Doze-specific software, I will be pleased as punch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
- 3Com makes both hardware and WinModem versions of the PCI USR Sportster.
Though I'm not certain, it could appear that this fellow is right. 3Com, in the product guide for the analog modems section of their site, does have links to both a "PCI Faxmodem for Windows" and a "PCI Faxmodem". Having the two separate listings would imply that the non-Windows modem is indeed a hardware modem, but I can't seem to find confirmation of that.Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
I believe Plex86 has x86 emulation, so you can run x86 apps even if your box doesn't have an x86 CPU ... which I believe VMWare doesn't have ...
Wrong!, Plex86 will only feature x86 virtualisation, emulating an x86 on an x86 would be silly.
Howevever, the program Bochs (written by the plex86 author) has x86 emulation, but only parts of the bochs code will be used in plex86. In other words: if you want an x86 emulator, use Bochs. If you want virtualisation, use plex86 (when it gets usable) or buy VMware.
I have been following the Plex86/FreeMWare since it's inception. While I doubt it does much more than booting dos, it is impressive progress.
For those that invariably complain that you already have a dos emulator, the goal of the project is not to give you another dos emulator. It is to provide a free clone of VMWare. That is, to allow you to freely run any OS under (i386) linux. I don't doubt that it will be portable and will be ported, though. Booting DOS is the logical first step for its simplicity.
The point... When a project arrives at a milestone, don't complain because you think that it is not complete or because you don't understand what it's attempting. One of the problems(advantages!) with open source software is that people get to see the software in all of its stages of development. For those that are used to commercial software, you just get to see the final product, (usually) polished, and ready for the general public.
Plex86 is by no means finished. However, it has attained a significant milestone. And for that, they should be praised. I can tell you, the kind of work they are attempting is not easy!
There's only one problem with VMWare: it doesn't come on a self-contained PCI card with its own cpu and memory like the SUN windows on a PCI. Does anyone who uses Linux/Sparc know if there's any work going towards running the windowsPCI on Linux?
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
For an Operating Systems course I took, we modified the linux kernel, and tested our changes in VMWare running linux on a stable kernel. The cost of the VMWare liscenses was a bit prohibitive, but for anyone doing experimental work at the the kernel level, software such as this is endlessly useful. If a modification seriously damages things, one can simply kill the vmware/plex86 process, copy over a clean disk image, and immediately restart, rather than having to have a seperate whole system which has to be painstakingly rebuilt after each error.
To have a free version of this software could only help kernel development, making all of us linux users much happier
Well, now when I feel like emulating an x86 CPU on an X86 computer (yeah, rudundant but useful, kinda), now I can play my old DOS games. Woopee... (kinda)
Eh...
So, it'll run Windows 98 then, right? Just a DOS app, what's the problem?
Does anyone know if this DOS support extends to the int 10 mechanisms for setting up graphics? It would be interesting to be able to easily run my collection DOS games and demos under this.
...as if the script kiddies didn't already have enough Denial Of Service tools at their disposal.
M$: "We're #2!"
Nobody wrote a node for Plex86 on Everything2 yet, so the [?] link doesn't work. Maybe this story will let someone write one.
Just goes to show one of the downsides of the distributed-encyclopedia model Everything2 and other sites (h2g2, for one) use for content.
For more information, click here.
Well, since you asked!
No, there are at least four controller-based PCI modems. If you are curious, these modems are the Multitech MT5634ZPX-PCI, the Actiontec PCI56012 (IBM 33L4618 or GVC MD0223), the 3Com/USR 3CP5610, and the Zoom 2920 (Digitan DS550-558). The Well Communications FM-56PCI-TP (GVC MD0321) has Linux support, but I have not received a user confirmation yet.
Source: Winmodems are not modems
The Actiontec even includes 6 pages of Linux directions (basically how to point /dev/modem to the right port). The down side is that they don't seem to answer email. (1 data point)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
What is Basilisk II? Was that the Mac emulator that ran on the Amiga?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
No, there are several; that's just the only one I remember by name. Not something I've paid that much attention to, since I'm not in the market to buy one.
I'd say one or two hardware pci modems in existence justifies getting rid of all ISA slots everywhere. yup, perfectly reasonable.
No, but the increased efficiency from a simplified motherboard without the legacy ISA bus does.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I currently have VMWare up and running on my system. For those who don't know, VMWare stands for Virtual Machine Ware. From what I've gathered about Plex86, it does the same thing as VMWare, which is create a virtual machine that runs like a separate machine. It really is quite interesting software.
The difference I can see, however, is that VMWare is already developed and is already costly. For the student version (which is usually substantially cheaper) it costs $99. And for Joe Student, $99 is a whole lot. However, the technology is already advanced such that under my Linux box I have had Win98 running (for apps that just don't work under Wine). If you get the chance VMWare is avalable for a 30 day demo, which I highly recommend.
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Bad spellers of the world, untie!
I just got used to typing "del *.*;*" a lot to erase all the versions.
Then you deleted all the versions! Why didn't you just use "purge"?
Nevertheless, it did set me to pondering the use of the past tense at the beginning of the item. Assuming that A. Bertil has not done anything to remove or differentiate himself from the group which constitutes "the number of people who've written" (and it's hard to see how he could have), he is then presumably still a member of that group. In this case, therefore, perhaps the "was one" should be an "is one."
The problem is that this "is one" does not seem to jibe too well with the past tense of "who've." I think however that this usage might be acceptable if we consider that this post and the responses to it are a form of interactive communication which, despite its asynchronous characteristics, might be construed as a conversation taking place in some kind of "present" implicitly established between the participants.
Of course, like all other 'presents,' this one is a moving frame of temporal reference. Tempis fugit, etc. In a couple of hours A. Bertil will have vanished into /.'s past, the "was one" will become more appropriate, and this post will be even more OT than it already is.
fff
Modems are a waste of an expansion slot, especially a PCI slot. PCI slots are something like 135Mbps, right? The order goes external modems, ISA internals, PCI real modems, then that's it. PCI WinModems have no place.
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Gorkman
This is really starting to be annoying. We are completely holding ourselves back by emulating everything that we can get a hold of.
We aren't just creating new technologies - for instance, a processor that might be able emulate things faster than the original can run them - we're learning how to reproduce the set of rules that govern a given system without access to the rules that created that system. Perhaps you'd find that to be a useful skill when studying the physics of our world.
If I need to slowly run old DOS apps... I'l buy an old 486 for $30. If for some reason I want to run windows... I'll jsut buy a copy of windows.
You're perfectly welcome to do so; I'm guessing a few of those people creating the emulators have physical systems as well, for study (and fun). I would take an old C64 any day of the week if I could find and purchase one, but right now, that's not convenient. Should I not implement my cool new C64 idea because of that restriction - access to physical hardware?
Every step that we have taken forward lately is also a step back because we are refusing to let the legacy stuff be that... just a legacy. There is no need for ISA slots on a motherboard. We are so worried about vendors not recompiling software that we have kept the crappy x86 processors around WAY longer than they should have.
Absolutely; the farther back we step, the better we understand "legacy stuff", and so we make better informed decisions - this "stuff" must go, this "stuff" can still be supported, this "stuff" is still useful. Certainly, Intel may not have taken the best market path in processors - but we just started this computer age, it hasn't been a hundred years yet; I'm pretty sure someone is going to get right, and soon.
Just like the OpenWin project that was mentioned earlier, it's a waste of time and talent. There are so many areas of computing that could be impproved on but so many people just want to recode the same thigns over and over.
Because in the end, people will code on whatever makes them feel good. Let's say I want to improve this thing I call "Windows", and Microsoft hasn't provided me any method to do so - I can add extensions, sure, but I can't fix bugs in system DLLs. Argh, that's frustrating. Hey, maybe I can help one of these other Windows projects - I could replace my own someday, or maybe Microsoft will wise up and fix it. Cool.
Don't set restrictions on what people should program - that's reserved for the programmer alone. In a project, sure. In a job, sure. Coding is something that's done as randomly as poetry sometimes; I find out that I want to do something, pull up a window, and do it. Some people get their fun working on Windows debuggers. "What a total waste of time!", many would say. And yet they provide valuable tools to themselves and others, and make themselves as happy as
Dude, don't you realize that historically, these virtual machines will prove a godsend in later years as a way to run ancient code? I'm serious.
An interesting view on this is in Vernor Vinge's SCI-FI great, "A Deepness in the Sky". In the story, he actually postulates about a career called "programmer archeologist," a person who specializes in probing ancient archives of code for useful bits.
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
DOSEmu uses the host processor rather than providing x86 emulation, and so is pretty fast (GP2 is only slightly slower under DOSEmu than it was under plain DOS on the same machine). Are you thinking of Bochs?
In any case, Plex86 will again use the host processor rather than emulate it. Speed should be pretty good.
Please only use this while the real site is slashdotted, as I'm not responsible for the content; I just blatently copied it.
Also, if the plex86.org guys want this removed, just mail me and I'll pull it down.
Emulation is running one platform (DOS) under another (Linux), regardless of a common processor. There are plenty of emulators that will take advantage of the fact that you have the same processor. There are also plenty of emulators that do a JIT compile so that they arn't "emulating anything in the traditional sense"
System Virtualization is a subset of emulation. You are emuluting a system, you just have some other goals as well, such as running in a protected memory environment, and making sure someone can't wipe the 'real' hard disk, or interfere with other programs going on.
- My password is slashdot
Back in the day, when I was running Windows 3.1 on a 386SX with 2 megs of RAM, the bouncing card animation took several minutes always. I thought that was the way it was supposed to look.
Perhaps a new benchmark is in order?
The speed at which the bouncing card animation takes place when you win Solitaire??
Why is it that almost everyone wants to hack together some sort of support for DOS? What's so great about DOS after all? Sure, you can run old games but besides that?
DOS (or what's left of it) will be removed in Whistler, but I bet that ten years from now, Microsoft will add DOS again as a *new* "feature"
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It looks very much like DOSEmu. I haven't used it in a long time, but is this supposed to be faster? I remember that DOSEmu was the slowest thing I've ever run.
I can see that it also runs Linux, so it's already more advanced than DOSEmu, let's hope it runs faster. The site seems to claim that it will due to Dynamic Recompilation, a familiar concept to emulators.
I'd imagine that the programmers have made the code smart enough to know that when it's run on an x86 processor it doesn't have to emulate every cycle, that they can put it through the real chip! Good work, this looks like it may be useful.
Slashdotters hated all those MS OS's like MSDOS.
In the meantime, Plex86 is an x86 virualizer that allows you to run multiple OSen concurrently on a single machine. What this means to you and me is that you can boot Linux, then run a real-live licensed Windows98 under it, without emulation, at near-native speeds. That's the Big Goal, anyway.
One thing it can fer sher handle is booting Linux under Linux, which is a good thing when you want to see if that new kernel boots.
The sites being slashdotted pretty thoroughly right now...
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This is not my sandwich.
This is really starting to be annoying. We are completely holding ourselves back by emulating everything that we can get a hold of.
If I need to slowly run old DOS apps... I'l buy an old 486 for $30. If for some reason I want to run windows... I'll jsut buy a copy of windows.
Every step that we have taken forward lately is also a step back because we are refusing to let the legacy stuff be that... just a legacy. There is no need for ISA slots on a motherboard. We are so worried about vendors not recompiling software that we have kept the crappy x86 processors around WAY longer than they should have.
Just like the OpenWin project that was mentioned earlier, it's a waste of time and talent. There are so many areas of computing that could be impproved on but so many people just want to recode the same thigns over and over.
This technology is something the OS community should really keep an eye on. Simply being able to run winzzzz at the same time as linux/BSD/Be/whatever is interesting enough. But that's just the start of the possibilities here.
With Open Source Plex86, it will be really easy to build a custom reverse engineering tool. Want a parallel port scanner? Don't have the protocol? Log all the output to the printer port. Easier said than done under winzzzz - unless its running under Plex86, which is already intercepting the I/O. Simply re-write the I/O traps in Plex86 (OK, not so simply, but certainly do-able) and log the traffic for later analysis. Same goes for WinModems. Possibly even for graphics cards with PCI/AGP I/O.
This is really exiting, and these are just the start. Support this project, folks, it's worth it!
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Win4Lin can be found at http://www.trelos.com/
Its from the same people who wrote Merge for SCO.
Only tried the Eval version, but was very impressed. Ran Exchange/Office at normal speeds.
Since its bangs the hardware in realtime, its much faster than any virtual machine.
Cons:
1. No sound support
2. TCP Winsock.dll hack
3. No DirectX
4. No SMP support
5. Does compile in the kernel.
Pros:
1. Cut and paste between linux/win
2. Multiuser (each user just runs "win &"
3. Low memory requirement
4. Optimzed for Office apps
5. FAST!!!
-Brook Harty
aka IronWolve
load "linux",8,1
why don't you just use the "" tag?
any more than Wine is an emulator. Programs execute in a native x86 environment directly on the processor; the "emulator" simply provides access to a different OS's ABI.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
i mean the <tt> tag.
>BTW, features I want to see in an OS (I don't have enough experience to implement these myself):
> 1) CVS type filesystem for large drives. No worries about changing a file ever again.
Although not a shining example of a friendly UI, VMS would save old versions of changed files. It appended a semicolon and version number after the filename. I always considered it an annoyance because it just meant I'd use up my disk quota faster. I just got used to typing "del *.*;*" a lot to erase all the versions.
It'd really suck to have windows bluescreen and bring your line to a halt/activate your plant trip/activate the machinery in a non-standard way and kill someone.
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Microsoft QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System; no, really) is dead (Win2k; Whistler). Lineo and the free software community make two DOS operating systems now. IBM also makes its own PC DOS 2000.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Good. I was hoping there was going to be an application that would allow me to run my many, many, DOS-based applications from linux using equally as many times the ram as DOSEMU. But, at least it's fully functional.
Believe whatever you want to believe.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
My Apple Mac runs DOS
I've been interested in stuff like this since I first heard about The Freedows Project sometime in 1998. I just think this kind of stuff is fascinating. I used to wonder if it would be possible to simulate the entire hardware platform, instead of just the operating system. Then VMware came out and answered me.
Now we've got a free-software version. Go, GNU, Go!
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!