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DOS Emulator In and Out of App Store
gent01 writes "A company called Fast Intelligence got DOSBox running on iOS and dubbed it iDOS. It's been stuck in review for the app store for some time. Evidently the iDOS app was in the app store this morning, but it has already been taken down."
Bad command or file name.
But if you want to play Tiefighter, you really should use keyboard/joystick.
Aren't most iPhones still on AT&T? I'm not sure why you'd need to emulate no service.
Duh. By emulating DOS, you allow the user to run any DOS program they want. In other words, you make the device programmable. That's a no-no on the App store.
It was pc/ms-dos, not ProDOS -T
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Apple leans very far to the left.
It could have been based on FreeDOS.
It wasn't taken down at MS's request.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, seriously, how is this news now? Apple has published their review guidelines and something like this clearly doesn't pass the test so why is this news? Is it news because someone made a mistake and it managed to slip through because it sure as hell isn't news that it was pulled.
Oh. I see. It's news because it's another example of Apple's walled garden keeping apps out of the App Store.
Here's a secret people - that's not news either. We already know that Apple periodically does not allow apps into the App Store. The reasons for this happening are often very obvious because they've published their approval guidelines.
Seriously. Not news.
Despite 20 years of criticism, Apple still makes sure that nobody can run a batch file.
Nothing new there, for better or worse the appstore is ruled under dictatorship-like rules. Apple's rules.
The publishing of the emulator was obviously an unfortunate mistake from someone at apple, since they would be getting lots of request from other emulator writers who previously got their app rejected.
For example, the famous psx emulator writer tweeted the following just a couple hours ago: http://twitter.com/#!/zodttd/status/28814884233 followed by http://twitter.com/#!/zodttd/status/28817744190
Yeah, and the BIOS is IBM's property which is why you can only buy IBM-made PCs....
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I believe Apple's terms still specify you can't use code that is publicly source licensed, which this program is a derivative work of DOSBox. Additionally the company would have to release their own source to the app under the GPL to be in compliance with the GPL terms. So there you have it...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Dosbox is to MS Dos as VisualBoyAdvance is to people walking around handing out free Gameboys.
There's also a FreeDOS implementation which is an actual OS and not just an emulator, which also isn't Microsoft's property.
id Software and Activision have distributed Dosbox in the past without permission from Microsoft.
Kindly cease and desist your baseless claims.
MS-DOS is still Microsoft's property, Microsoft weren't the only Disk Operating System in town, just the most successful.
point less story. we all know to get are emus like dosbox nes snes etc we go to cydia. who doesn't have a jailbroken i device these days.
As "aDosBox".. http://androiddosbox.appspot.com/
-Lod
Why is this news? It isn't the first time it's happened.
Learn about Photography Basics.
And this is newsworthy.... how? DOS is still Microsoft's property, regardless of how thoroughly reverse engineered it has become. This is like dedicating an article to YouTube making a video unavailable because a record label said take it down.
MS/DOS is Microsoft's "property" (stolen property btw, but that's another story), DOSBox is not. But this is not what this is about: iDOS was taken away not because it would infringe on Microsoft, but probably because it would turn the non-jailbroken iPhone/iTab into a programmable device.
Apps that use interpreted code are not permitted in the app store. This is the same reason that no full browsers other than Safari are allowed on iPhones (Opera Mini has to use a server to interpret Javascript to get around this). iDOS's original approval was a mistake. It won't be admitted to the app store under the current policy.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
It's actually GPL3 code that can't be used in any apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad due to the anti-Tivoization clauses in GPL3 and the completely locked down nature of iOS and the app store.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
DOSBox is a reverse-engineered re-implementation of the PC BIOS (int13h et al) and DOS APIs (int21h et al) and the x86 CPU. There's no Microsoft, Digital Research, IBM or whatever code in there. At all.
And this is newsworthy.... how? DOS is still Microsoft's property, regardless of how thoroughly reverse engineered it has become. This is like dedicating an article to YouTube making a video unavailable because a record label said take it down.
Well, MS-DOS is Microsoft's property. DOS in general is, surprisingly enough, something that Microsoft doesn't have all that much control over other than through their own implementation. DOSBox is in the clear from that angle.
My guess is that it was rejected because DOSBox is a user-programmable platform like Flash, so it breaks the walled-garden paradigm that Apple works hard to maintain.
Allright we get it. Apple is a horrible company which strictly controls what happens in its app stores.
I wonder why people still waste a lot of time developing for it (stuff they know that will break the rules), or developing it at all.
I also wonder why people still buy apple products if they are so horrible.
The tone of this post (sarcastic, questioning, forceful?) is left up to your imagination.
DOS is still Microsoft's property, regardless of how thoroughly reverse engineered it has become.
The actual code for MS-DOS /may/ be property of Microsoft (caveat: Microsoft only /licenced/ DOS from Seattle Microcomputer Products; they did not buy all rights to the code), but that doesn't mean that DosBox /used/ the code. The competing DR-DOS has been released with a very liberal licence, and is used in many places that MSDOS might have been used. In any case, Microsoft has no rights to the "concept" of DOS; they only own /an implementation/ of that concept.
This is like dedicating an article to YouTube making a video unavailable because a record label said take it down.
Nonsense. Microsoft /can't/ tell Apple to take down Dosbox, 'cause Microsoft has no rights to Dosbox. Apple took the app down for their own reasons.
Apple is the only truly innovative tech company out there!!!
Does SJ release one puppet after another on all Apple related stories? I know /. has definitive apple slant, but lately, we have been flooded with zombie moron fanbois like above. At least earlier version were more rational while arguing in favor of apple.
Or perhaps this is sign of changing times - more and more dumb people are using apple products and we are just slowly seeing the effect here now?
It also lets you mount the root of the iOS filesystem inside it and poke around ("mount d /"). It's likely read-only (as I would expect / to be mounted read-only on the device itself), but you can still get in there and copy stuff to a location that you can get to it from another app (or maybe even iTunes). You probably can write to anywhere you want in the userland portion of the filesystem, but I haven't tried.
There needs to be a category for rejected iphone apps. Or at least stop posting all the same stories. App X got rejected because it emulates Y. Which right now I have a hard time believing these "developers" didn't already know they were going to get rejected, this is starting to just be a way of advertising for some app you otherwise would of never heard of. The iphone is not an open environment, and what's that? There's an alternative? ANDROID you say? If you all stop complaining about how closed the iphone is and start developing apps for Andriod, the Iphone would die a hurried death, but for some reason that doesn't happen. instead Apple is even trying to take it a step further and do the same thing on the desktop... Either abide by Uncle Steve's rules or take your code and go elsewhere, but stop acting like you didn't already understand what was going on when Uncle Steve took your ball away.
The words "Apple," "iPhone," and "iPod" do not appear in the summary or summary's title. Is Apple and the iPhone getting so dominant that we can just assume that "The App Store" is alway's Apple's?
No, I will not work for your startup
But where can I get a floppy drive for iphone?
DOS is useless without a floppy drive - 3.5 or 8 inch.
If I had DOS then I could have installed an old version of cygwin and then got my favourite GNU tools working! Jobs would have had a fit it I could have done that.
Not quite, but they'd have to make a convincing argument that the name Dosbox infringes on their trademark. Which I don't think they can do to the relevant legal standard otherwise they would've done so a long time ago.
It's unlikely most Apple employees today even know what an Apple II is (is that some kind of Mac?) much less DOS 3.2/3 or ProDOS/8. I hesitate to even think if they know the difference between 13 and 16 sector disks.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Any app I build in the future will be created on a droid powered device first. I have learned the hard way to shoot for the lowest performing platform first as it is nearly impossible to port the other direction.
Got Code?
And the $50,000 dollars they gave Seattle Computing Club for QDOS (which became MS-DOS) was what, a bribe? C'mon I know Microsoft has done some questionable practices, but that is not one of them.
Regards,
MBC1977,
Both sides when you get far enough are completely nuts, but try comparing Naziism with Soviet Communism.
You mean compare National Socialism with Marxist Socialism? In troubled times, the fearful and naive are always drawn to charismatic radicals.
Cool. So I can run DOS on my switches now? Oh, the other iOS. Meh.
The answer is "3", right?
( ducks )
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
If Microsoft has a convincing argument that the name "DosBox" is somehow derived from their property, then IBM has an even more convincing argument that the name "MS-DOS" is somehow derived from /their/ property ("DOS" was the name of IBM's first "Disk Operating System" for mainframe computers).
Easily solved: do your emulating in javascript!
I don't yet own an iPod touch 4 on which to test the JavaScript emulators that you linked. Do they operate anywhere near full speed (1.02 MHz for Apple II and C64 or 1.79 MHz for NES) in Safari on the device?
VLC is reported to be GPL2 (I don't see it on their website, so "reported") and the real problem is with the GPL3. If VLC is GPL2 then the app must have information about where to acquire a copy of the source code, which is not a problem. GPL3 requires that all signing keys or anything else needed to run modified versions of the code be distributed with the source, and Apple won't do that.
I also wonder why people still buy apple products if they are so horrible.
An iPod touch, which officially runs apps from the App Store, is a lot cheaper than an Android device that officially runs apps from Android Market. As of right now, one needs to buy a $500 phone to run Market apps, compared to an iPod touch 4 that costs half that. There are packages containing infringing copies of Google's applications that will get the Market working on devices that aren't phones, but Google has cease-and-desisted distribution of packages like these.
I got in just in time on my iPhone... Hope it will transfer to my iPad when I get home!
Several DOS emulators are available for Windows Mobile. Here's a thread about it on XDA. XDA Forums by the way is a great resource for both Windows Mobile and Android device hacking. (Especially HTC devices, but they support some other popular phones too.)
C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN, DOS, RUN!
OK, so Slashdot doen't like all caps, so I'll include another comment: it would be cool to have Win3.1 running on an iPhone too.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm the author of a very compact, complete and quite speedy 6809/FLEX emulator... I'd love to port that to the iP(o|a)d. Hadn't even tried because of the "no emulated code" policy Apple inflicts on developers. If they approve this DOS thing - eventually, I understand they're still rejecting on that basis right now - I'll hit that baby hard. What a trip it would be to go from my old SS-50 system, really quite a bit of hardware ca. 1970s, to having it in my pocket. Hoo. Double hoo. In the meantime, back to my usual level of discontent...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Indeed, you're right; my statement above was wrong.
you can't spell it without CIALIS either so at least we know that after the revolution we will all be aroused.
Not quite, but they'd have to make a convincing argument that the name Dosbox infringes on their trademark.
How do you figure that?
Before MS DOS came along I was using ProDOS, DOS 3.3, ProntoDOS, Apple SOS, TRS DOS and CP/M. I hear there were DOSes for the C64, Amiga and Atari, too. And after MS released their DOS I even used DR DOS (always one step ahead of MS in what they offered) and its future incarnations, Novell DOS and OpenDOS, as well as the currently-available FreeDOS.
So what makes you think Microsoft might have a trademark claim on the DOS acronym?
dos is generic like tissue. MS-DOS is a trademark like Kleenex. There was Apple DOS, Amiga DOS, Commodore DOS, Atari DOS, and many more not counting all of the ones on x86 architectures. I feel old.
Apparently the new MacBook Air borrows features from iOS and we can expect to see more iOS "features" in OSX as time goes by. I can't see any proprietary operating system provider to not be tempted by this level of consumer/vendor control and taxation. Steve's just be the first to realise that handcuffs are best slipped on gently over a period of time rather than ham fisted "Plays For Sure" edicts.
Why is today's Slashdot reading more and more like an RMS essay?
Fortunately Windows is too much of a sprawling shanty town to be readily ammenable to similar attempts for a while yet.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Seems the app allowed the user to mount and access the iOS root storage - looking like a massive security breach discovered within the first 3 hours of release (see macrumors.com forum).
Doesn't help that the "demo" games are big copyright violations (Ms. PacMan, Dig Dug - hardly "abandonware")
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
If your Iphone is jailbroken, you can get dospad for free. This is dosbox for the iphone/ipad
with a 100 billion dollar bill at the loss of your business.
That's the bottom line. No matter how skilled and well meaning you are, what you do with your iProduct affects how that product is perceived in the marketplace. Right now iProducts are known as being a comfortable padded room that locks from the outside; that appeals to a large consumer base.
Opening up the capability for people to run arbitrarily buggy/crashy/malicious code on them turns them into "things you have to be careful with" in a very real sense. Even if most users will never stray from the padded room, the ones that do will be quite vocal about it and that drains value from Apple's brand and in the long term costs Apple money.
Many people on this board feel understandably threatened because Apple is taking the industry in a less hackable direction. But I wonder how much of this is that the hacker community feels threatened by someone making computers and devices intuitive because that attacks the value of their expertise.
Car analogy: Years ago my mother was considering buying a Japanese car, my dad argued against it because "I don't know how to repair those Japanese things". My mother bought the car and it never needed repairs.
You can get songs and movies from anywhere and play them on any Apple product--don't make this sound like some sort of vast conspiracy.
30% is far cheaper than pretty much any other method of selling and distributing software. Developers love the App Store.
The App Store is full of free apps, Apple hosts those for free.
You can make advertising-supported free apps and there's no obligation to use Apple as the advertising gateway.
Anyone is free to make HTML5 apps.
Obviously Apple is in this to make money, but they know that doing so at the expense of the user experience is poor long-term thinking.
well if steve jobs were to kick the bucket, i wonder if apple's board would allow their customers to pressure them into being more open?
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
RE: The App Store
Walter Sobchak: Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
Its not the years, its the mileage
perhaps they'll ban Conway's "Game of Life" next...
You can still download this by adding the authors' cydia repo: http://www.litchie.net/cydia
[tinfoilhat]
The REAL reason Apple removed this from the App Store? You can use it to install Windows 3.1 or even... Windows95!
Who needs Windows 7 Phone when you can rock Windows 3.1 on your iPhone?!
[/tinfoilhat]
Seriously, though, this is fantastic. There's a lot of fantastic old DOS games, it's great to add to your emulator collection. Add OpenPandora's iControlPad for proper, physical gaming controls, and Zodttd's excellent emulator collection, and you can turn an iPhone into an amazing gaming machine.
Of course, I could just be a freak who enjoys using ridiculously expensive modern hardware to play old games.
Meh.
Stolen how? They paid for QDOS if I remember correctly. Bugger all, based on the cashcow that MSDOS became, but paid nonetheless. Or do you mean the concepts were stolen from CP/M?
With Nokia N900, you can install dosbox by typing "apt-get install dosbox" on the terminal.
Demo here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i_a26a08Zs
You can even run windows 3.11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pX4h-Q2Nc
... tyranny of the techies?
So many comments rant about "freedom" to do whatever with your device, but what about the freedom for other people to willingly enter Apple's walled-garden? Why must our devices be subjected to YOUR idea of how it should be used?
Yes, you are free to run whatever on the iWhatever you bought, go ahead and install iDos on your jailbroken iPhone. You can do that legally and Apple will not stop you.
Now, respect our freedom to willingly enter into Apple's walled-garden and let us stay there undisturbed, and stop trying to shove these apps into the AppStore, which is an integral part of the walled-garden.
All those rants about First Sale Doctrine are pure BS. Nobody is stopping you from jailbreaking your iPhone and installing iDos or whatever you like. What Apple is stopping is for these apps to intrude into the walled-garden of other peoples' iPhones through the AppStore.
Go open your own AppStore for jailbroken iPhones if you like, Apple is under no obligation to put iDos on their AppStore, and as an iPhone owner I have no interest in running iDos (or whatever apps that YOU think I should run) either.
[tinfoilhat] The REAL reason Apple removed this from the App Store? You can use it to install Windows 3.1 or even... Windows95!
Who needs Windows 7 Phone when you can rock Windows 3.1 on your iPhone?! [/tinfoilhat]
I know that, unlike lots of other people here with daft theories, you're joking, but the real reason may be a big disappointment for Apple bashers.
I read on one of the Apple rumor websites that the version in the app store came with some abandonware. In particular: Ms Packman. If that is true, it is no wonder that Apple pulled this faster than you can say 'lawsuit'. It may also mean that the App will reappear in somewhat reduced form.
Where do you see a $15/mo plan? AT&T's website lists $35/mo as the cheapest data plan for a ridiculously low amount of 200 MB (that is equivalent to 80 *bytes* per second). If you pay $60/mo, you can upgrade to a mere 5 GB (2 KB/sec). The cheapest voice plan is $40/mo, so no matter what discount on data those might offer, you're still starting at $40/mo base cost.
Luke-Jr
It is actually a full PC hw. emulator with support for variety of old components and peripherals.
BIOS, video BIOS and DOS is what differentiates it to any other emulator, since it requires no "ROM-s" to load most of DOS applications.
It's also a good design decision, since thanks to DOS emulation Dosbox can mount local operating system as a normal "FAT" DOS drive.
An excellent and in fact innovating piece of software (the approach to DOS emulation is unique), running almost everything thrown on it.
Whoever modded my post as a troll needs to read RMS's "The Right to Read". :-p
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
hte = High Temperature Electronics
yup, makes sense
You DUMB BASTARDS! Mwhawhawha! (Mom)
Ill be honest and say that the only DOS program I am really dying to run on my iPad is Ultima7. Anyone find an Exult port out there let me know.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
than Apple does...I assume you are sitting on $100 billion because of that, right?
That's true enough, but I'm not sure that the rest follows. The way it seems to me, is that with a small percentage interested, the largest market possible will see the most interest. I don't see jailbreakers as likely old salts, either; I'm definitely one of the latter, and I have absolutely no interest in the former. Definitive sample of one, y'know. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm not really interested in the Blackberry. Apple's flaws aside (and they have plenty), the iPad audience is a far more interesting target for me, both because I'm one of those (I take my iPad everywhere as it is stuffed with software of considerable use to me, particularly in the areas of astrophotography and auroral activity), because of the display size, and because the app store has demonstrated that as a sales tool, it's easily top of the heap.
If Android makes any inroads on pad devices - IOW large displays - I might take a look at that. While it is amusing to have a tiny terminal display, it isn't particularly practical. In fact, if your eyes are as old and cranky as mine, it isn't practical at all.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It also wasn't the only OS to run MS-DOS programs either. FreeOS, 4DOS, many more.
Free Martian Whores!
MS/DOS is Microsoft's "property" (stolen property btw, but that's another story)
The "stolen property" was covered in another response to your comment, but a copyright does not confer ownership. It confers a limited time monopoly; it's property, but it's no more Microsoft's property than a tenant's house is his. It's OUR property; it belongs to everybody. Microsoft merely has a monopoly on its publication.
Free Martian Whores!
Not just generic, but descriptive. DOS stood for Disk Operating System, and disk operating systems were around far longer than MS-DOS.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes, it does. As usual, Slashdot misses the important part of the story, and misinformed nerd rage follows, getting worked up over false assumptions based on an incomplete picture. See:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=11307946&postcount=134
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=11308180&postcount=144
Thanks for posting your expectations about something you know nothing about though.
Right back at ya.
I have used Apple HW exclusively for 20 years. I now decide which HW we purchase for 40 odd users. I looked carefully at iPhone but only decided to purchase the 40 odd iPhones to replace our old non smartphones after I was sure Apple would continue to ignore jailbreakers and allow free iTunes accounts. Free iTunes accounts mean users can download/install and use apps without Apple having your credit card details. At first I could see no reason for the iPad, but I now see it has a huge market and the new MacBook air which although it is Flash Crippled is fantastic in speed, size and weight. Also Apple wants you to be able to do your common tasks as easily as possible, in fact without even thinking. 2 weeks ago I believed Apple were just trying to maximise profits by becoming more and more proprietory but you know what? The jury is still out, Mac OS X is still open and I continue to enjoy using largely virus free reliable HW.