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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.
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.
As "aDosBox".. http://androiddosbox.appspot.com/
-Lod
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.
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.
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.
Steve Jobs
And maybe your Aunt Myrtle, but that's only because she can't figure out how to get past the Slide to Unlock thing.
And for that, we thank them...
Some of us who weren't raised upon and thoroughly steeped in an overcomplicated GUI find that batch files, and scripting in general, very useful indeed.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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!?
Despite 20 years of criticism, Apple still makes sure that nobody can run a batch file.
Why run a batch file when you can run a proper shell script?
Why run a batch file when you can run a proper shell script?
Because they're the same thing. For example, Windows Command Prompt is what UNIX users would call a "shell", and its scripts are text files with names ending in .bat.
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,
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."
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.)
You are you referring to the other camp as MS? I assume you know that MS has 2008 core that has no default GUI and is 100% managable and configurable from remote scripting or through local powershell scripts as is the entire line of 2008 server products. Just last week, I built a 5 node HyperV cluster using 2008 Data Center core with cluster shared volumes (new clustering feature in 2008 for use with HyperV), six physical network cards teamed in various ways using HP NIC teaming and a dual port Emulex FC HBA using EMC Powerpath for multipathing, all through the command line. I'm more comfortable with Linux server installations so the MS powershell lingo wasn't easy for me at first but it wasn't that hard to figure out either, by the 3rd node, I had the scripts down pat and the 4th and 5th node were done with only having to substitute machine specific values. With some tweaks and a little more practive, I could probably script the entire thing from booting up the from the install DVD through HP's iLo to the server being in the correct OU in the domain and added as a node to the HyperV cluster ready to run virtual machines.
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.
SOME of the Third Party solutions:
As well there's IronAHK, a DOT NET version of AHK.
Then there's the first party (Windows solutions):
While DOS/CMD.exe itself is somewhat limited to hooking into the system, all one would have to do is compile something like AHK's DLLCALL() or RegisterCallBack() for line command usage.
As well most of the useful GNU line command tools have been compiled for windows CMD.exe distributed as UnxUtils, or GetGnuWin32, UnWind and SFU (Services for Unix).
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.
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.
Does that mean all societies (being inherently social) are left? Does that mean anarchy is right?
Did Jesus live a socialist or capitalist life? Why is religion generally considered right?
that's why Steve create Apple-Script and all sort of applications have exposed hooks so that users can script things that just ain't gonna happen in the other camp.
Steve created Apple-Script? Yeah, right. I'd like to know how many lines Steve contributed to OSX, actually. I suspect not very many.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Much like Falange ceased being a truly fascist party, despite officially claiming to be one, soon after Franco took over; so did NSDAP cease to be a socialist party, despite officially claiming to be one, soon after Hitler took over. Remember that the "socialist ... workers'" part in the party name was there before Hitler even joined, and that once he had the reigns, he quickly purged all the old guard that didn't side with him - including Strasser brothers, who specifically blamed him for betraying the socialist ideals of the party once it came to power (specifically, not nationalizing the industry).
Soviets, for all their flaws, at least did stick to economic policies which rightly earn them the "socialist" label.
Yeah. And I was hoping to be able to play some of the really old DOS games on my phone.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Because they're the same thing. For example, Windows Command Prompt is what UNIX users would call a "shell", and its scripts are text files with names ending in .bat.
Either you have never written both Windows Batch files and Unix shell scripts, or you're being sarcastic, or you are using a very loose meaning of the word "same". Yeah sure, they both have something to do with the command line.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
The second line overwrites the first line. It should append, no?
cat
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"
> that's why Steve create Apple-Script
Let's see... when did AppleScript appear? Oh yeah, 1993.
Where was The Steve in 1993? Oh yeah, at NeXT!
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
Comparing the DOS prompt to a Unix shell is like comparing a toddler's big-wheels to a top end performance motorcycle.
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.
Not entirely related to this posting but I would like to know why you have made this conclusion? I have ported an iOS application to Android and found it to be easier. In a way, it almost makes perfect sense that if you build an app on a locked down platform (foo) it should be much easier to port to a more open platform (bar) since you are "practically" guaranteed that bar will have all of the functionality of foo and then some....no?
Windows 3.11, record.exe
Tomorrow is another day...
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
In a way, it almost makes perfect sense that if you build an app on a locked down platform (foo) it should be much easier to port to a more open platform (bar) since you are "practically" guaranteed that bar will have all of the functionality of foo and then some....no?
You seem to believe that a locked down platform must necessarily have fewer features than an open platform. I don't see any reason why that should be true. I'm not a developer, so I don't know how iOS and Android compare, but I would bet iOS has quite a few features that Android doesn't offer. Whether or not these are more useful to the average developer than the features I'm sure Android has that iOS doesn't offer, I can't say...
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
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.
Where was The Steve in 1993? Oh yeah, at NeXT!
Didn't you get the memo? Apple stole all their major innovations from NeXT.
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
[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.
Big f'cking deal, the Amiga had a simular system called AREXX, created in 1987 and included into the OS in 1990, AppleScript came to be in 1993.
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
I'd say more like an F1 car. Incredibly powerful but most people wouldn't have a clue how to drive it.
Early versions of Windows were a lot like early Fords - crap but popular. Now Windows 7 is like a modern Ford, after decades of refinement and being overtaken by other manufacturers they finally come out with something that is actually pretty good... Just as everyone is moving to flying cars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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"
echo #!/bin/bash > batchfile
$ echo #!/usr/bin/env bash > batchfile
or ideally
$ echo #!/bin/sh > batchfile
Lets try to keep the GNUisms to a minimum, shall we?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
hte = High Temperature Electronics
yup, makes sense
He was at NeXT when AppleScript came out, so that's a moot point, but on the point of development of OS X, you don't *just* need coders to create a large project and have it be successful. Sure, you need them, but you also need people with other skills too - sometimes these might also be coders, sometimes not. Just because he didn't (as far as we know) contribute any literal keystrokes of code into OS X does not mean his contribution is trivial to the process.
DOOM!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
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...
... Just as everyone is moving to electric cars.
There, fixed.
Sigs are for losers
You a bash basher?
Unix shell scripts are the same as DOS batch files in the same sense that the dBase language is the same as the Nomad language. The commands are different and they're used by different types of computers, but they work pretty much the same. Just because DOS uses DIR to list files and Unix uses LS to list files doesn't make them different, any more than a Peruvian calling his wife "puta gorda" is any different than an American calling his wife a "fat cunt".
Free Martian Whores!
Hmmm... I see you have no experience with early Fords. I happen to own a 1929 Ford model A Sedan and it is a wonderful car. It is extremely reliable and easy to work on.
than Apple does...I assume you are sitting on $100 billion because of that, right?
Yeah - double plus on this comment. I've owned a 62 Ford Falcon, a 67 Mustang and a 69 T-Bird. All great, reliable cars. I could do most of the repairs and maintenance myself, cost of operation was low. Biggest downside was that they were not nearly as safe a modern car and their emissions controls were worse (but my Falcon wagon got the same mileage as a Subaru Forester).
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.
To be fair I think the US models were not so bad, but the UK ones were almost universally rubbish.
They used to be called "Dagenham Dustbins" (I suppose you would say "trash-can".) They leaked in the rain, couldn't cope with the new high-speed motorways of the 50s and were generally unreliable. About the only good thing was that the parts were plentiful and cheap.
The newer ones are much better. I considered getting one, particularly because of the front window de-mister. In the end I got a Mitsubishi (can't beat Japanese cars for comfort and quality IMHO) but I wish it had that feature. Seems to be some sort of patent issue or something.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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!
As I recall, Steve was hanging out with a Blue dog around 1993 looking for clues.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Unix shell scripts have language structures like conditionals (if), loops (for), it has those little things called functions and variables (and assigning output of program call to variable), piping output/input, etc. etc.
In short, shell scripts can be used even to create full applications, in example bashburner (naturally they depend on calling other applications).
DOS batch files have... well, labels, "if errorlevel" and goto - in short, they can be used to run program and echo output based on errorlevel (or jump to another point in batch).
In short - a unix shell script can be used to do the same as DOS batch files but not the other way around. Simple as that - if you want to argue, I recreated (it seems I'm not the only one) TREE command available at least under MS DOS 6.0 as bash script (without calling external commands at that, mind you). You replicate that in DOS batch file and you have proved your claim that batch files are indeed same as shell scripts :p
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.