Dosbox Serial Port Settings

DOSBox
Developer(s)Peter 'Qbix' Veenstra, Sjoerd 'Harekiet' van der Berg, Tommy 'fanskapet' Frössman, Ulf 'Finster' Wohlers
Initial releaseJuly 22, 2002; 17 years ago[1][2]
Stable release0.74-3 (June 26, 2019; 3 months ago[3])[±]
Preview releaseSVN r4267 (October 3, 2019; 6 days ago[4][5][6])[±]
Written inC++[7]
Operating systemWindows, macOS, Linux, Android, Chrome OS (Gentoo Linux), AROS, AmigaOS 4, Amiga, BeOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, MorphOS, OS/2, RISC OS, Solaris 10, Wii(Homebrew Channel required)
Available inEnglish (but supports alternate keyboard layouts)
TypeVirtual machine, emulator
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewww.dosbox.com
  1. Dosbox Serial Port Settings
  2. Dosbox Serial Port Configuration
  3. Best Settings For Dosbox
  4. Dosbox Serial Port Settings In Windows Xp

USB/serial converters with dosbox. Which matched the settings on the com port from the old Mac and the settings in the timeclock software. I assumed since I set. DOSBox is capable of timing-compatible implementation of the serial ports, which can enable older hardware and software dependent on serial port timing to work; however, some USB devices that are supported by the host OS can act as a replacement for older serial port devices when using the emulator. OS emulation. Arduino MEGA 2560 and Due. Both the MEGA 2560 and Due have 4 serial ports in total. One that connects through a USB port chip to the USB device port on the board and three extra serial ports that connect to pins on one of the pin headers of the board.

DOSBox is an emulatorprogram which emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running a DOS operating system. Many IBM PC compatible graphics and sound cards are also emulated. This means that original DOS programs (including PC games) are provided with an environment in which they can run correctly, even though the modern computers have dropped support for that old environment.

  • 2Features
  • 3Ports
  • 4Usage

History[edit]

DOSBox is free software written primarily in C++ and distributed under the GNU General Public License. DOSBox has been downloaded over 34 million times since its release on SourceForge in 2002.[8]

A number of usability enhancements have been added to DOSBox beyond emulating DOS. The added features include virtual hard drives, peer-to-peer networking, screen capture and screencasting from the emulated screen.

More than 9 years have passed between 2010's 0.74 and the 2019's latest version 0.74-3, 'a security release' made in absence of version 0.75, which 'should have been released by now, but some bugs took a lot longer than expected'.[9] But throughout these years development has been ongoing in the SVN version.[vague] Forks such as DOSBox SVN Daum and DOSBox SVN-lfn provide additional features, which include support for save states and long filenames (LFN), while others such as DosBox-X add emulation for Japanese systems like the NEC PC-98 and increase compatibility with various Demoscene productions.[10]

A number of vintage DOS games have been commercially re-released to run on modern operating systems by encapsulating them inside DOSBox.[citation needed]

Features[edit]

DOSBox is a command-line program, configured either by a set of command-line arguments or by editing a plain text configuration file. For ease of use, several graphical front-ends have been developed by the user community.[11]

A popular feature of DOSBox is its ability to capture screenshots and record gameplay footage. The video is compressed using the losslessZip Motion Block Video codec.[12] In its uncompressed state the footage is almost an exact replica of the actual program. The video recording feature was added in version 0.65. In earlier versions, one had to rely on custom modifications and a third-party screen recorder to record video, but the quality and emulator performance was generally very poor.[13]

The DOSBox project has a policy of not adding features that aren't used by DOS games if they take significant effort to implement, are likely to be a source of bugs or portability problems, and/or impact performance. Perhaps the most common hardware feature of DOS-era PCs that the official version of DOSBox doesn't emulate is the parallel port that was used to connect printers. As an alternative, the PrintScreen function of modern OSs can be used to capture the output of DOSBox. For similar reasons, no support for long filenames and Ctrl-Break is added into official versions, though support for them is available in some unofficial enhanced SVN builds.

Hardware emulation[edit]

DOSBox is a full CPU emulator, capable of running DOS programs that require the CPU to be in real mode or protected mode.[14] Other similar programs, such as DOSEMU or VDMs for Windows and OS/2, provide compatibility layers and rely on virtualization capabilities of the 386 family processors. Since DOSBox can emulate its CPU by interpretation, the environment it emulates is completely independent of the host CPU.[14] On systems which provide the i386instruction set, however, DOSBox can use dynamic instruction translation to accelerate execution several times faster than interpretive CPU emulation.[citation needed] The emulated CPU speed of DOSBox is also manually adjustable by the user to accommodate the speed of the systems for which DOS programs were originally written.[15]

Once it was installed, however, it immediately stopped responding after starting up. Free mp3 music downloads sites.

DOSBox can emulate a wide range of graphics and sound hardware. Graphics emulation includes text mode, Hercules, CGA (including some composite modes and the 160x100x16 tweaked modes), Tandy, EGA, VGA (including Mode X and other tweaks), VESA, and full S3 Trio 64 emulation.[14] Sound hardware that can be emulated includes the PC speaker (played back through the host's standard sound output, not its physical internal PC speaker), AdLib, Gravis Ultrasound, Tandy, Creative Music System/GameBlaster, Sound Blaster 1.x/2.0/Pro/16, and Disney Sound Source. MIDI output through an emulated MPU-401 interface is available if the host is equipped with a physical MIDI-Out connector or a suitable software MIDI synthesizer. (MT-32/CM-32L emulation is included in unofficial enhanced builds,[10] but not in the official source code repository due to need for copyrighted ROM images.) Storage is handled by mapping (either through the configuration file or through a command within the emulator) a drive letter in the emulator to a directory, image file, floppy disk drive, or CDROM drive on the host. A permanently mapped Z: drive stores DOSBox commands and startup scripts.

Emulation of Voodoo cards is in development as of October 2010.[16][needs update] This should give not only support for games that use the Glide API, but also provide Direct3D support to Win9x guests.

DOSBox, unlike many other emulators, can simulate peer-to-peer or Internet/Intranet networking. This includes modem simulation over TCP/IP, allowing for DOS modem games to be played over modern LANs or the Internet, and IPX network tunneling, which allows for old IPX DOS multiplayer games to be played as UDP/IP over modern LANs or the Internet. Win32 and Linux specific builds support direct serial port access. Some third-party patches also allow DOSBox to emulate an NE2000-class network interface card as a passthrough to the host computer's own network card, essentially allowing full internet connectivity (for example, using Windows 3.1 and Trumpet Winsock) and web browsing using programs such as Netscape Navigator, although this is more of a curiosity than a useful feature.

DOSBox is capable of timing-compatible implementation of the serial ports, which can enable older hardware and software dependent on serial port timing to work; however, some USB devices that are supported by the host OS can act as a replacement for older serial port devices when using the emulator.

OS emulation[edit]

DOSBox provides a high level emulation of the DOS and BIOS interrupts, and contains its own internal DOS-like shell. This means that it can be used without owning a license to any real DOS operating system. Most commands that are typically used in installer batch files are supported, but many of the more advanced commands of later DOS versions (e.g. post-Windows 98 DOS shells) are not. In addition to its internal shell, it also supports running image files of games and software originally intended to start without any operating system. The DOS emulation enables DOSBox to mount folders of the host OS as virtual drives.

Dosbox Serial Port Settings

It can also boot disk images with real DOS environments (e.g. MS-DOS, PC DOS, DR-DOS or FreeDOS) as well as other operating systems. Since DOSBox is not optimized for this mode of operation, booting any real OS inside DOSBox entails the loss of the use of directory-based virtual hard drives and some other enhancements that aren't directly compatible with the way real operating systems access hardware. For the kinds of hardware (such as disk drive controllers and computer mice) that are almost always accessed by DOS-based games through DOS and/or through the BIOS and/or through a software driver, rather than through direct access to hardware registers, DOSBox generally provides no hardware-level emulation. This means that the direct use of copy-protected physical media or of floppy disks in non-standard formats is generally not possible from DOSBox.

Commands[edit]

The following list of commands is supported by DOSBox.[17]

  • BOOT
  • CONFIG
  • IMGMOUNT
  • MIXER
  • RESCAN

DOSBox has no MOVE command. The REN command can be used to move files.[18]

Ports[edit]

DOSBox uses the SDL library and has been ported to many operating systems. A port for Microsoft Xbox (called DosXbox) was released in 2004. Using the HX DOS Extender, it can even run in DOS.[19] The source code has also been forked to provide compatibility on a number of non-x86 PC computer platforms, including the Palm OS, PlayStation Portable, Android, iOS,[20]Symbian, Maemo, BlackBerry PlayBook, Wii(Require Homebrew Channel with Homebrew Browser installed), and the GP2X, on various computing architectures including PowerPC, SPARC, MIPS and ARM. DOSBox is included in the software repositories of many Linux distributions such as Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu. There is also a port to Google Native Client called NaClBox,[21][22] a port to Java applets called jDosbox,[23] and a port of jDosBox to GWT (using the Canvas element) called jsDOSBox.[24]

There is a port of DOSBox that can run in a modern browser called Em-DOSBox. It uses Emscripten to compile its C/C++ source code to JavaScript or WebAssembly, and Emscripten's port of SDL 2 so graphics, input, and sound work in a browser.

DOSBox and the Wine compatibility layer[edit]

Starting with version 1.3.12, the developers of the Winecompatibility layer have begun the process of integrating DOSBox into Wine to facilitate running DOS programs that are not supported natively by the Wine Virtual DOS machine (winevdm).[25]

Usage[edit]

Commercial deployment[edit]

id Software has used DOSBox to re-release vintage games such as Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen on Valve's Steam. In the process, it was reported they violated the program's license, the GNU GPL; the breach, which was reported as an oversight, was promptly resolved.[26][27]Activision Blizzard has also used it to re-release Sierra Entertainment's DOS games. LucasArts used it to re-release Star Wars: Dark Forces for modern machines on Steam. 2K Games producer Jason Bergman stated the company used DOSBox for Steam re-releases of certain parts of the X-Com series.[28]GOG.com uses DOSBox for some of their DOS releases.[29]Bethesda Softworks recommends DOSBox and provides a link to the DOSBox website on the downloads page for The Elder Scrolls: Arena and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.[30][31] Bethesda also included DOSBox with both games in The Elder Scrolls Anthology release. 3D Realms also recommends DOSBox and, like Bethesda Softworks, provides a link to the DOSBox website on their downloads page.[32]

Electronic Arts uses DOSBox for some of their classic games on their Origin client like Wing Commander III, Crusader: No Remorse, and SimCity 2000.

dBase LLC utilizes DOSBox in their dbDOS product since 2012.

Non-commercial notable uses[edit]

Dosbox Serial Port Settings

Since 23 December 2014, the Internet Archive hosts thousands of PC games that can be played in a browser, using the Em-DOSBox port.[33][34][35] The collection is provided for 'scholarship and research purposes only'.[36]

See also[edit]

Similar software

  • Rpix86 - A DOS emulator for the Raspberry Pi.
  • vDOS [37] - A DOS emulator designed for the running the more 'serious' DOS apps (not games) on 64-bit NT systems (effectively a replacement for NTVDM on modern systems).

Misc.

Dosbox Serial Port Configuration

References[edit]

  1. ^'Project of the Month, May 2009'. SourceForge. Archived from the original on November 17, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  2. ^'Project of the Month, January 2013'. SourceForge. Retrieved January 17, 2013.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/files/dosbox/0.74-3/ SourceForge Binaries Available (Release Version)
  4. ^'SVN changelog (DOSBox Home web)'.
  5. ^'DOSBox Wiki - SVN Builds Info'. Dosbox.com.
  6. ^'EmuCR Compiled Binaries - DOSBox official & unofficial builds'.
  7. ^'p/dosbox/code-0 - Revision 4006: /dosbox/trunk'. Sourceforge. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  8. ^'Download Statistics'. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  9. ^'DOSBox 0.74-3 has been released!'. 'DOSBox'. June 26, 2019. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
  10. ^ ab'SVN Builds'. DOSBox. December 1, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  11. ^'DOSBox Frontends'. DOSBox. December 15, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  12. ^'DosBox Capture Codec'. March 9, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  13. ^bakkelun (March 7, 2008). 'Recording video from DosBox'. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  14. ^ abcQbix (April 30, 2008). 'Interview with Qbix' (Interview). Interviewed by Classic Dos Games. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  15. ^Hoffman, Chris (October 5, 2015). 'How To Use DOSBox To Run DOS Games and Old Apps'. How-To Geek. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  16. ^http://kingofgng.com/eng/2010/10/20/3dfx-voodoo-graphic-cards-emulation-coming-to-dosbox/
  17. ^https://www.dosbox.com/DOSBoxManual.html
  18. ^Commands - DOSBoxWiki
  19. ^japheth (July 25, 2013). 'HX DOS Extender'. Archived from the original on October 13, 2014. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  20. ^FAST Intelligence. 'DOSpad, DOSBox for iOS'. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  21. ^NaClBox. 'NaClBox homepage'. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  22. ^Endagdet (May 12, 2011). 'NaClBox brings DOS-based gaming to Chrome along with sweet, sweet nostalgia'. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  23. ^danoon2 and co. 'jDosBox homepage'.
  24. ^Kevin O'Dwyer. 'jsDOSBox homepage'.
  25. ^'Wine 1.3.12 Brings Initial DOSBox Integration'. January 21, 2011. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
  26. ^'Are id Software and Valve Thieves?'. Softpedia. August 6, 2007. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  27. ^Purchese, Rob (August 7, 2007). 'id sorts GPL Steam issue'. Eurogamer. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  28. ^Bergman, Jason (September 4, 2008). 'Comments-morning discussion'. Shacknews. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  29. ^'Our Thanks'. GOG.com. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  30. ^'The Elder Scrolls Official Site - The Elder Scrolls: Arena'. Bethesda Softworks. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  31. ^'The Elder Scrolls Official Site - The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall'. Bethesda Softworks. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  32. ^'3D Realms Site: Master Download Page'. 3D Realms. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  33. ^Ohlheiser, Abby (January 5, 2015). 'You can now play nearly 2,400 MS-DOS video games in your browser'. Washington Post. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  34. ^Each New Boot a Miracle by Jason Scott (December 23, 2014)
  35. ^collection:softwarelibrary_msdos in the Internet Archive (2014-12-29)
  36. ^'Internet Archive's Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Copyright Policy'. archive.org. December 31, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2015. Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost to you and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.
  37. ^'vDos'.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to DOSBox.
  • 'Official DOSBox forum'. Very Old Games On New Systems (VOGONS).
  • 'Interview with Qbix (a developer of DOSBox)'. Classic DOS Games. April 30, 2008.
  • 'DOSBox 0.73, interview with the developers'. King of Ghouls and Ghosts (GNG). June 10, 2009.
  • 'DOSBox SVN variants that do support printing'. Unofficial variants downloader.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DOSBox&oldid=918981466'
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  1. Diamond
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    How to replace old DOS PC w/ something newer w/DOS and serial port?

    I have 2 machines that run applications on old 386/486 PC with DOS 6. One is a CMM the other is a pinstamper. The PCs run the software and operate proprietary control boxes through a serial port.
    These PCs are getting old and when they fail I don't want to chase down old machines like them and try to get/keep them running. I understand trying to use a windows machine is is a problem because Windows gets between the software and the serial port unless you use a windows application, so you have to run straight DOS. Can I buy relatively new workstations with serial ports and install DOS on them and run this old software and run the controls successfully? Or is there another better solution?
  2. Diamond
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    Mud
    Newegg.com - ASRock AD2550R/U3S3 Mini ITX Server Motherboard DDR3 1066
    Newegg.com - ASRock EP2C602-2T/D16 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 DDR3 1600/1333/1066
    But yeah, they are getting tougher and tougher to find.
    You should be able to install DOS on them, but you may also have to disable a whole bunch of things in the BIOS just so DOS doesn't get too confused with various interrupts from the wrong sources.
    You will need some method of making the boot device! None of these boards sport a floppy controller ( from what I can see ), and you may have to figure out how to SYS the OS onto your new drive.
    I know the MB may be able to boot from a USB device, but not sure if it can make it visible to DOS.
  3. Titanium
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    I don't know much about what motherboards will be compatible with Freedos, but I do know that Freedos will run old programs and has drivers for some newer hardware - IDE drives for example. If I were in your shoes, I would give Freedos a try on a flea market machine.
    FreeDOS The FreeDOS Project
  4. Titanium
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    Originally Posted by Mud
    I have 2 machines that run applications on old 386/486 PC with DOS 6. One is a CMM the other is a pinstamper. The PCs run the software and operate proprietary control boxes through a serial port.
    These PCs are getting old and when they fail I don't want to chase down old machines like them and try to get/keep them running.
    I've had good luck with the all-in-one Shuttle X50V2. It has an industry standard PC-BIOS, so it will run DOS or FREEDOS and it comes with two serial and one parallel port.
    Shuttle XPC PC Made Modern
    And its got a VGA mounting bracket for its built in touchscreen ;-)
    Of course if you run your legacy DOS applications within a Virtual Machine (passing through the serial port to the virtual DOS instance), then you gain networking.
    Edit: > How To Install DOS 6.22 Under VirtualBox
    Last edited by jCandlish; 11-20-2013 at 03:27 AM. Reason: added link
  5. Cast Iron
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    Could you buy a newer computer with a serial port and run a DOS emulator? I'm not a computer guy but I believe they are out there so the gamers can play their legacy DOS games. I don't have any idea if it would work with your software though.
  6. Hot Rolled
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    I don't know about the DOS requirement, but Dell sells some smaller form factor desktops that you can get with serial ports for an extra 5$ I think on the build price. I don't remember what they cost but they are fairly cheap, I've used them for a few years at one place, and we even have a few on the shelf in the box as backups.
  7. Aluminum
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    Windows run in DOS. It is the underlying OS in all Windows OS's. Windows is the user friendly face of DOS. You just need to bring up the DOS command prompt.
    From the start menu >accessories>command prompt and a DOS window opens. You can navigate and use all of the old DOS commands, and run any DOS program you like. But be careful. The failsafe protections of Windows is not available in the DOS window.
    Or you can type CMD in the windows search window and the DOS window will open.
  8. Titanium
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    Originally Posted by ciladog
    Windows run in DOS. It is the underlying OS in all Windows OS's.
    Not quite.
    DOS is 16-bit, Windows since '95 and NT is 32-bit. So no, DOS is not the underlying OS for Windows.
    DOS is somewhat emulated in Windows though, but the device drivers are broken.
  9. Aluminum
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    FreeDOS The FreeDOS Project
    Just install FreeDOS on any regular computer. Smile and be done.
  10. Aluminum
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    Originally Posted by <jbc>
    Not quite.
    DOS is 16-bit, Windows since '95 and NT is 32-bit. So no, DOS is not the underlying OS for Windows.
    DOS is somewhat emulated in Windows though, but the device drivers are broken.
    I'm going to agree to disagree with you. If you think that the system is still a 16 or 32 bit system of the 1970-1980 era I think you are incorrect. DOS only stands for 'disk operating system' which was one step above machine language when it came to I/O. As machines got more sophisticated so did the DOS OS. I could be wrong but you still need an underlying I/O and interrupt system for windows to communicate with the processor.
  11. Diamond
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    If you don't want to replace the legacy 386/486 machines with other legacy machines I think your only choice will be an emulator such as DOSBox, etc. Trying to run real time DOS on more modern machines than a Pentium (also a legacy machine) would be a real PITA even if you could get it to sorta/kinda work.
    The newer machines will kill you with issues such as too high processor speeds, chipset issues, etc. Modern processors are 32 bit and higher. Serial ports are not a big deal, you can either find a serial card that works with the modern PC's bus or use a good USB serial adapter.
    Companies that have a large installed base of DOS-based industrial controls have the same problem. Usually it is a matter of experimenting with different emulators and serial port cards or adapters to see what works best with the old software and equipment.
    You are smart to start looking into this before the old stuff fails. By the way, a major contributor to electronic hardware failure is overheating caused by a buildup of dust.
  12. Titanium
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    Originally Posted by ciladog
    Then you would still be wrong.
    you still need an underlying I/O and interrupt system for windows to communicate with the processor.
    That is what the BIOS (basic input/output system) is and does. DOS, as regards the OP's original question refers to MS-DOS. One of many DOSes. MS-DOS is just some 16-bit glue that lets you load programs that can call the BIOS. Windows has its own API. That used to be called WIN32.
    Originally Posted by Scottl
    If you don't want to replace the legacy 386/486 machines with other legacy machines I think your only choice will be an emulator such as DOSBox, etc.
    That would be a bad idea. Emulators and particularly DOSBox are not performant enough.
    Trying to run real time DOS on more modern machines than a Pentium (also a legacy machine) would be a real PITA even if you could get it to sorta/kinda work.
    The reason that I gave a recommendation in this thread, and in that recommendation said 'I've had good luck with..' is that I actually have this exact hardware working. I've done this. I'm not guessing. I know.
    It just works. Fanless cooling and all.
    And if the DOS application expects realtime performance you can get that too, by running the the virtualization process with real-time priority on any decent base OS.
  13. Diamond
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    Originally Posted by <jbc>
    I
    Of course if you run your legacy DOS applications within a Virtual Machine (passing through the serial port to the virtual DOS instance), then you gain networking.
    Edit: > How To Install DOS 6.22 Under VirtualBox

    JBC
    You've said that you have experience with this setup.
    Question:
    Does VirtualBox allow DOS the same direct access to the BIOS as if it was a plain vanilla DOS machine and completely bypassing the underlying API-s?
    Here is my problem:
    I have 2 Brother EDM-s, and the communication software is proprietary to Brother.
    One is a DOS based MS-BASIC program, the other is Windows based ( from Win95 era )
    If I run the DOS program to talk to the EDM right after boot, I have no problem.
    If however I use any other application that accesses the serial port first ( either the Windows based Brother comm or any other serial program ) the serial port becomes
    completely invisible to the DOS application.
    The only way I can use it again is if I reboot the PC.
    This was not the case under Win95, they coexisted fine.
    With Win98 and now XP, I need to reboot.
    The machine has it's own on-board serial UART that is fully under the BIOS's control, so no device drivers are needed.
    It is becoming a serious PITA, as I'd very much like to - in the near future - get all the shop PC-s to the same OS, perhaps even the 64bit on all.
    As it is, I have a Win98, WinXP and couple of Win7 machines, all 32 bit.
    Very much would like to get all of them to Win7-64, but due to the above, that is not possible.
    Perhaps Mud would run into the same issue with VirtualBox, so I hope this wasn't an irrelevant tangent..
  14. Titanium
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    Originally Posted by SeymourDumore
    Does VirtualBox allow DOS the same direct access to the BIOS as if it was a plain vanilla DOS machine and completely bypassing the underlying API-s?
    VirtualBox has its own BIOS that may or may not be the same as Brother's BIOS. The baseline is the IBM PC-BIOS that Compaq reverse engineered so long ago. Brother may have added stuff beyond the orginal baseline spec. (Do the EDM's run on Brother PCs)? Virtualbox can run on an EFI system, so it is certainly trapping and wrapping BIOS calls.
    But yea, it bypasses the native OS's underlying APIs.
    I do know that it (native access to the serial ports) is working for me, and that it is running very close to the metal. VirtualBox takes advantage of Intel's built-in virtualization architecture and only traps out to emulation as a last resort.
    But remember, all modern operating systems only use the BIOS for booting, after which they each use their own device driver model. They must, as the traditional BIOS is neither multitasking or re-entrant. And for this reason all Virtualization software must supply their own BIOS (and ACPI) layer. VMWare has Phoenix BIOS for example.
    VirtualBox is a free download, and it couldn't be easier to give it a try for your specific EDM application.
  15. Diamond
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    Originally Posted by <jbc>
    VirtualBox has its own BIOS that may or may not be the same as Brother's BIOS.
    I think you misunderstood my Brother reference.
    It is a simple communication software running on a ( back then ) DOS PC.
    It is the software that's unique and proprietary, not the box it's running in.
    Sounds like you've answered the question tough, and if it does bypass all of the Win API-s, then it just might work.
    Thank You
  16. Diamond
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    Originally Posted by SeymourDumore

    Perhaps Mud would run into the same issue with VirtualBox, so I hope this wasn't an irrelevant tangent..
    Very germane, I'm trying to do the same thing, access the serial port directly from DOS and in real time. The more info the better. I'm no PC guru, so I need someone who knows more than me to help ask the relevant questions.
    the serial port becomes
    completely invisible to the DOS application.
    The only way I can use it again is if I reboot the PC.
    This was not the case under Win95, they coexisted fine.
    With Win98 and now XP, I need to reboot.
    I've seen that too, seems like the later OSs wouldn't let go of the port without rebooting once it had changed the parameters.
    Thanks JBC, this is very helpful. If I understand correctly, I put VirtualBox on any old XP or W7 machine and install 6.22 inside VirtualBox and it will run like a simple MS-DOS 386 PC as far as the serial port is concerned? Will it work the same with PCI card serial ports as with motherboard serial ports? For some reason I seem to lose serial ports first as the machines age. That would solve all my problems, I could network easily and buy cheap hardware to replace anything that dies in the shop.
  17. Titanium
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    Originally Posted by Mud
    If I understand correctly, I put VirtualBox on any old XP or W7 machine and install 6.22 inside VirtualBox and it will run like a simple MS-DOS 386 PC as far as the serial port is concerned? Will it work the same with PCI card serial ports as with motherboard serial ports?
    That's about it. For hard real-time you may need Linux as the host system, but otherwise it should just work.
    DOS isn't real-time anyway, it just has less going on than Windows.
  18. Aluminum
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    Originally Posted by <jbc>
    Then you would still be wrong.
    That is what the BIOS (basic input/output system) is and does. DOS, as regards the OP's original question refers to MS-DOS. One of many DOSes. MS-DOS is just some 16-bit glue that lets you load programs that can call the BIOS. Windows has its own API. That used to be called WIN32.
    Once an OS is loaded I don't think the BIOS have much to do. The way I understand it is the BIOS do a sequence of things before loading the OS like
    Checking for custom settings
    Loading the interrupt handlers and device drivers for the most basic of I/O
    Power management
    Manage and register the RAM
    Perform the power-on self-test (POST)
    Determining which devices are bootable and then finally initiating the boot sequence to load the OS which then takes over the I/O with drivers that are loaded into memory.
  19. Hot Rolled
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    Dont worry about the old 486. Do the following:
    1) clean power supply
    2) check cables
    3) replace floppy by SD card emulator
    4) replace HDD and make backups
    I've never seen a motherboard or CPU fail. Usually its HDD or power supply
    And I got some machines running on CP/M !
  20. Diamond
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    Both of these have the CMOS batteries soldered to the board. What do you do when they die?
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Dosbox serial port settings on linux

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Dosbox Serial Port Settings In Windows Xp

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