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EDR-DOS
FreeDOS
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HX-DOS Extender - compatibility and wish lists
DOS
1. About
See HX-DOS for product description.
2. Software compatibility list
2.1 Works well console
Compilers
See also Development, DevelAsm and DevelCpp .
- TCC (Tiny C compiler)
- By Fabrice Bellard (author of QEMU btw.) & Grischka , GNU LGPL
- Versions 0.9.23 from 2005-Jun-17, 0.9.24 from 2008-Apr-01 (!!), 0.9.25 (untested)
- The smallest and simplest somewhat useful C language compiler, designed as GCC compatible (mostly C99 compliant, no C++), but some bugs left and inefficient code generation
- Originating from Linux, Win32 port, no native DOS version, but works well with HX (no self-compiling of the Win32 port ?)
- Lack: relies on MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: DOS386
- Project page: bellard.org/tcc
- FASM (Flat assembler)
- 1.67, 1.69
- BSD-license, open source
- FASM.EXE (Win32 console version) works, FASMW.EXE (Win32 GUI based IDE) doesn’t
- HX not very useful here, there are good DOS versions of FASM also ;-)
- Tester: DOS386
- SolASM
- Assembler, free for personal use
- Version 0.15.01
- Tester: Japheth
- DISTORM
- Disassembler, syntax acceptably similar to NASM/YASM/FASM
- Project page: ragestorm.net/distorm
- By Gil Dabah / Arkon , BSD license (1.xx, no longer available) or GPL3 (3.xx), written in C
- Versions 1.7.22, 1.7.23, 1.7.29, 1.7.30 (last from 1.xx line), 3.xx untested
- No true DOS version yet (add to YASM ?)
- Old (22 and 23) versions are perfect, new (30) require MSVC80.DLL , work mostly, but “it’s bad” and [CTL]-[C] causes crash
- Tester: DOS386, Rugxulo
- Objconv
- By Agner Fog , GNU GPL 3, done in C++
- Can convert objects (also PE) and disassemble them (very smart disassembly)
- Japheth provides also a standalone DOS binary
- Tester: DOS386, Japheth
Graphics
See also GraphMediaTech for more info.
- NCONVERT (console)
- Image converter, closed source freeware, related to XNVIEW
- DOS (“MS-DOS”) version exists but is obsolete from 2002 (uses DOS4/GW), hey since 4.90 DOS is supported again, latest is 5.60 ;-)
- Old tested Win32 version: NCONVERT v4.90 © 1991–2008 Pierre-E Gougelet (?????????????) Version for Windows NT/9x/2000/Xp/Vista
- Since 5.30 (?) Aspack executable packer not used anymore, caused trouble in the past
- “Add text” feature doesn’t work because it relies on Win32 font API, HX’s font support is far insufficient, in DOS version it’s disabled as well
- 5.75 works with ignoring following missing imports: GetEnhMetaFileA BeginPath FillPath StrokePath GetCharABCWidthsFloatA EndPath SetBoundsRect
- 5.91 works, including “webp.dll”
- Tester: DOS386
- gif2apng apng2gif apngasm apngdis apngopt
- APNG tools by MaxSt
- Tester: DOS386
- PNGOUT
- PNG optimizer (strong compression), image converter (to PNG only)
- By Ken Silverman , closed source freeware
- Slow, memory hog
- Various 2006 to 2011 versions tested, all do work
- UPX’ed, not easily decompressible, needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386
- OPTIPNG
- One more PNG optimizer, open source, ZLIB/BSD license
- © 2011 by Cosmin Truta
- Versions 0.5.5 to 0.6.5 (but barely any progress recently)
- Bug: under HX can’t save image back into same file, -out needed to specify a different filename if input is already PNG - filename problem like “blah.png.bak” , get UI21DEB for more info and fix
- Tester: DOS386
Audio & Video
See also GraphMediaTech and Video for more info.
- SoX (console)
- Command line utility that can convert audio data of various uncompressed and “raw” formats to other formats.
- It can also apply various acoustic effects to sound files
- Compression&decompression is not implemented, MP3 and OGG VORBIS sort of “supported” only with external libraries
- Free and open source
- But needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Alternatively, there is a DOS port compiled using DGJPP 2.04 (some bad hacks)
- Tester: DOS386, Flox (?)
- Project page: http://sox.sourceforge.net/
- TAK
- Promising lossless audio compressor, algorithm superior to FLAC and WAVPACK
- By Tom / Thomas Becker, freeware, not (yet) open source
- Written in Delphi
- Versions 1.0 to 1.1.2 (2.0 is out - untested)
- Older versions of TAK used to raise “Missing imports”, but ignoring helped, since 1.0.4 fixed on TAK’s side (useless stuff removed form executables)
- Problem: very poor performance in “some” cases (I/O buffering/caching issue)
- Tester: DOS386
- FLAC
- Lossless audio compressor
- By Josh Coalson, GNU GPL (codec/library also BSD)
- Versions: 1.2.0 from 2007–07–25, 1.1.4 from 2007–02–13 and 1.1.2 (this version also has a DOS port compiled by Blair using DGJPP, but obsolete)
- needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: DOS386
- Project pages: http://flac.sourceforge.net/ , http://sourceforge.net/projects/flac/
- WAVPACK
- Lossless (also “hybrid”) audio compressor
- By Conifer Software / David Bryant / Roberto Jose de Amorim, open source, BSD-license
- Versions 4.2 and 4.41 (4.60 is out)
- Separate executables for compression & decompression, both tested
- There are also some DOS versions (4.31 compiled by MPXPLAY using WATCOM, available here)
- Tester: DOS386
- Project page: http://www.wavpack.com/
- Vorbis “OGG” audio codec: OGGENC, OGGDEC
- Lossy audio compressor, Vorbis algorithm replacing MP3
- Open source (“raw” codec has BSD-like license), unpatented
- VENC.EXE “aoTuV Beta 5.7 - OggVorbis Encoder © 2003–2009 Aoyumi”
- Obsolete: OGGENC2.EXE OggEnc v2.85 (libvorbis 1.2.0 [20080316 SVN]) © 2005 (!!! - should be 2008, compiled 2008/03/16) by Michael Smith & John Edwards
- Obsolete: OGGDEC.EXE OggDec v1.9.4 (libvorbis 1.2.0 [20080316 SVN]) Compiled on: Mar 16 2008 © 2008 by John Edwards
- Also binaries from 2010
- needs MSVCRT.DLL
- both compressor & decompressor were tested, also some older / other versions do work
- Tester: DOS386
- AUDIOCV
- cmdline audio editor incl. OGG VOBIS codec
- open source
- V. 1.22
- needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: DOS386, MPXPLAY
- FFMPEG
- Commandline video transcoder compiled from FFMPEG video library
- Has the “Seek-origin-$0001′0000-BUG”, also affects all derivatives except MPLAYER, HX from 2.16 or newer is required
- Needs also AVICAP32.DLL + AVIFIL32.DLL (see below)
- Can encode various proprietary video formats
- Can encode Theora also but buggy - better use FFMPEG2THEORA
- Many Page Fault bugs specific to various input video data, many got fixed, some still left
- New versions, new problems (more AVI***, file I/O issues ???)
- There are DGJPP ports from 2008, but no longer updated
- Tester: DOS386, Japheth
- FFMPEG2THEORA
- Commandline video transcoder, from any codec and format supported by FFMPEG (incl. MPG, MOV, FLV, WMV3 (!!!)) to OGG Theora ( .OGV , free, open source and unpatented codec)
- By j / j^ / Jan Gerber, GNU GPL 3, versions 0.17 to 0.28, newer is better, some versions (0.28 and some old) need AVICAP32.DLL (see below)
- Very easy to use
- Also some minimal video editing
- Bugs: input from frames collection implemented but still doesn’t work in 0.26 (finds the frames, but output is garbage, not specific to DOS & HX), scaling bug (fixed ??? retest needed), progress shows garbage on some files - but output OK, on some input files outputs garbage (fixed ???)
- Based on FFMPEG library and LibTheora, its own “C” source size is cca 240 KiB in 12 files (was just 80 KiB in 3 files in 0.17)
- 2.5 MiB EXE size, UPX’ed (badly: un-UPX to 8 MiB, then you can PESTUB it, or re-UPX down to 2.3 MiB, but then better no PESTUB - it would prevent easy decompression)
- Use MPLAYER (Note: old versions have poor support) or DUGL Player (better) to play OGG Theora files in DOS, MPXPLAY can play the sound from those
- Needs HX 2.16 to get around “spurious-seek-BUG”
- Tester: DOS386
- Project page: http://www.v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/index.html
- FFMPEG2DIRAC
- Fork of FFMPEG2THEORA, encodes to Dirac or Theora
- Runs, but trouble needing further investigation, no way to play the result in DOS
- Obsolete 0.1 works, 0.2 doesn’t, reason unknown, file I/O issues ???
- MENCODER
- Related to MPLAYER product (GUI), see below
- Allows encoding and transcoding/converting of movies (no Theora output)
- Has bugs resulting in a Page Fault on some input data, NOT HX specific, exactly same occurs on non-DOS systems as well :-D (some now fixed, some not)
- Needs HX 2.16 to get around “spurious-seek-BUG”
- Needs retest + details
- Tester: DOS386
Compressors
See Compress for more info on some of them.
- KZIP
- Compressor compatible with PKZIP 2.x but stronger compression
- By Ken Silverman , closed source freeware
- Slow, memory hog
- Various 2006 to 2009 versions tested, all do work
- needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386
- 7-ZIP
- Archiver by Igor Pavlov , very good compression & strong encryption, GNU LGPL (LZMA algo + SDK public domain)
- Many versions 4.17…4.65: 7za.exe , 7z.exe + DLL’s or 1 DLL , also 9.20 and newer beta
- Other versions probably also
- Problem: updating of archives doesn’t work, reason are temporary filenames like “BLAH.ZIP.tmp”, use DOSLFN or UI21DEB, read docs of UI21DEB for deeper analysis of this problem
- Versions 9.xx support filesystem images, “direct” disk support doesn’t work (known limitation of 7-ZIP + bug in HX ?)
- Alternatively, some versions do have DOS ports, based on “p7zip”, compiled with DGJPP 2.04 & “pthreads” library, also there is 7ZDECWAT minimal 7-ZIP extraction utility compiled by Rugxulo
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386, Rugxulo, other people
- Project page: http://www.7-zip.org/
- UHARC
- Interesting compressor, can beat 7-ZIP on some files
- Sort of “semi-public” project, no official download, seems to be free for personal use but closed source
- Sort of “hidden” behind “WinUHA” thing (“Windows” GUI with no compress code, uses UHARC)
- DOS version exists, sort of “up-to-date”, but crippled in dictionary size because of limitations of PMODE extender used (never heard of DOS/32A ?)
- Project page: none, some info here: wikipedia.org/wiki/Uharc < - dead
- V. 0.6b
- Tester: DOS386
- PPMD-J
- By Dmitri Shkarin
- Free and open source, from 2006-Feb-16
- Simple compressor, PPMD-J algorithm
- Tester: DOS386
- PAQ
- By Matt Mahoney and contributors, written in C++ , GNU GPL
- Very hard core compressor, very slow, memory hoggy (depends from version and settings, cca 50 MiB … 2 GiB)
- Some 8.xx and 9.xx versions tested, do work
- Tester: DOS386
- UDA
- By Dwing
- Free and open source, 0.301, 2006 Dec 19
- Experimental PAQ8I based compressor, very slow
- Only 40 KiB source (C++, inlined MMX’ing ASM)
- Needs 180MiB RAM
- Tester: DOS386
- MCOMP (console)
- High performance (← should be, but …) experimental/demo compressor by Malcolm Taylor
- Passing craappy WinRK self extractor needed to access this prog
- Uses the “GetFileSizeEx” call in KERNEL32.DLL, crashes in WinME/98 on this problem :-D , in DOS it works with HX 2.11 and above !!!
- Tester: DOS386
- INNOUNP
- Unpacker for InnoSetup installers
- Project pages: http://innounp.sourceforge.net/ , http://sourceforge.net/projects/innounp/
- Copyright © 2004–2011 QuickeneR, GNU GPL
- Allows to extract files without executing it (very good for DOS)
- Console utility
- Tested old version 0.19 2007–02–23 OK, latest 0.36 2011–06–01 - new trouble ???
- DOSLFN might be required (or something else)
- Tester: DOS386
Misc
- GNU Octave
- Murasame 07.01 program for drawing block diagram or flow chart work
- ODT2TXT
- LYNX (Windows port)
- XPDF
- Version 3.03
- PDFTOPPM.EXE doesn’t work because it relies on Win32 font API, HX’s font support is far insufficient, in DGJPP binary package this one is missing as well
- Other binaries OK
- Compiled with MSVC 8/2005, no MSVC*.DLL needed
- There is a DGJPP port of version 3.02
- See also DocumentFormatsViewers
- Tester: DOS386
- PDFDRAW (from MUPDF)
- Version 0.9 and older “MuPDF 0.8.165 � now with XPS (2011–04–29)”
- PDFDRAW.EXE works (can output text (buggy ?) or PNG/PPMD pictures of complete pages)
- MUPDF.EXE doesn’t work (GUI, see below)
- See also DocumentFormatsViewers
- Tester: DOS386
- PDF2HTML
- UUDeview 0.5.20
- Binary encoder/decoder that supports Base64, BinHex (decoding only), Uuencoding, Xx, yEnc
- Open src freeware
- Project page: http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/
- 01/03/2004
- Needs MSVCRT.DLL
- Tester: Milla
- HDEDIT
- HD editor by Japheth
- Has native DOS and WinXP versions
- Since HX 2.13a, also the XP one works in DOS (just testing physical disk access emulation)
- Some trouble left ???
- Tester: DOS386
- AS.EXE GNU assembler
- 2.13.90 AS (MinGW)
- 2.15.94
- ASW.EXE 2.9.5 AS (Free Pascal)
- BCC32.EXE
- 4.0 Borland C++ compiler
- 5.5.1 C++ compiler of C++ Builder Command Line Tools (free).
- BRC32.EXE
- 5.02 Borland resource compiler
- 5.40
- BZIP2.EXE 1.0.1 pack utility from MSYS 1.0.10 [1]
- CABARC.EXE 1.00 Microsoft Cabinet Tool
- CL.EXE
- 8.00 MS VC 1.0, 16-bit C compiler
- 8.00c MS VC 1.5, 16-bit C compiler
- 8.00.3190a MS VC 1.5, 32-bit C compiler
- 9.10 MS VC 2.0
- 20 MS VC 4.2
- 11.00 MS VC 5
- 12.00 MS VC 6
- 13.00 MS Visual Studio.NET 2002
- 13.10 MS Visual C++ Toolkit 2003, a FREE compiler [1]
- CVTRES.EXE
- DAO.EXE 4.0B Golden Hawk CD Disc At Once write tool [5]
- DCC32.EXE 15.0 Borland Delphi 7 compiler
- DUMPBIN.EXE
- DUMPLX.EXE 2.1 LE/LX file dumper
- DUMPPE.EXE 2.1 PE file dumper
- EXTRACT.EXE 5.1.2600
- FBC.EXE 0.13b, 0.16b FreeBasic compiler [1] (obsolete, check for 0.18)
- FPC.EXE 1.0.10, 2.0.4 Free Pascal compiler [1]
- FTE.EXE 0.49 Editor
- FTP.EXE 1.3.2 FTP client from MSYS 1.0.10 [1][3][4]
- GCC.EXE 3.3.1 GNU C++ compiler, MinGW [1]
- GZIP.EXE 1.2.4 pack utility from MSYS 1.0.10 [1]
- H2INC.EXE 7.0 MS tool
- HEXITW.EXE 1.57 HexIt (Win32)
- ILINK32.EXE 5.0 linker of C++ Builder Command Line Tools
- LD.EXE 2.13.90 LD, MinGW [1]
- LDW.EXE 2.9.5 LD, Free Pascal
- LIB.EXE 3.4 MS OMF 16-bit librarian
- LIB.EXE
- LINK.EXE 5.60 MS 16-bit OMF linker
- LINK.EXE
- 5.12 MS 32-bit COFF linker [2]
- 7.00
- 7.10
- LZASM.EXE 0.47 Assembler
- ML.EXE
- 6.14 MS MASM
- 6.15
- 7.00
- 8.00
- NASMW.EXE 0.98.38 Netwide Assembler
- NMAKE.EXE
- OPEN WATCOM 1.2–1.4 all binaries in directory BINNT except WD.EXE
- PSCP.EXE 0.58 SCP client [4]
- PSFTP.EXE 0.58 SFTP client [4]
- RAR.EXE
- RC.EXE
- 5.0 MS resource compiler
- 5.1
- REEBASE.EXE MS tool (one “E” only !!!!)
- SC.EXE 8.38 Digital Mars C++ compiler
- TAR.EXE
- 1.12 GNU tar
- 1.13.19 GNU tar from MSYS 1.0.10 [1]
- TASM32.EXE 5.0 Borland’s TASM
- TDUMP.EXE 5.0 Borland tool
- TELNET.EXE 1.3.2 Telnet client from MSYS 1.0.10 [1][3][4]
- TLIB.EXE 4.5 Borland tool
- TLINK32.EXE 2.0 Borland linker
- UNRAR.EXE 3.2
- UNTGZ32.EXE 0.95
- UNZIP.EXE
- UPX.EXE 2.0 packer for executables
- VIM.EXE 5.8.9 editor from MSYS 1.0.10 [1]
- WS.EXE 1.22 Wordster. WordStar-like editor by P. Houle
- XC.EXE 2.51 XDS Modula-2 compiler
- XCOPY32.EXE Windows 98 file copy program [1]
- XLINK.EXE 2.6 XDS linker
- ZIP.EXE
- Info-ZIP
- V. 2.31
- Open source
- Tester: Japheth
- MC.EXE
- Kinesics Text Editor
- Project page: http://www.kinesics.com/editor/
- Text editor, “console” based, compact and nice, has all “core” editing features
- Free and open source, done in C++
- Very convenient & intuitive control (Hint: use right mouse button or <F1>)
- Version “Build 030″ from 2005
- DOS version exists, but is obsolete (16-bit, memory problems)
- Requires HX 2.10 (older versions have a bug in the clipboard implementation, and another thread/stack related bug, unusable)
- Tester: DOS386, Japheth
- GT2 0.35
- GT2 is a file detection utility that detects various file types according to their content (binary signature)
- Supports executables MZ/NE/PE/LE - HUGE amount of linkers, EXE-packers (no ASPACK) etc. (does NOT know: PESTUB, FASM), archives (no 7-ZIP (!!!), no KGB), images, video (no OGG/OGV), … etc.
- Supplies much info on PE (export, import, …) but buggy, better use Japheth ’s PE (see below) for such cases
- Project page: http://philip.helger.com/gt/index.php
- Closed src freeware
- 09/06/2006
- Works, marginal annoyances: requires ENTER to be pressed before each screen of information, drive/path must end with “\” (earlier versions don’t have this problem however)
- Needs MSVCP71.DLL & MSVCR71.DLL (available at project page)
- There are some obsolete DOS versions and VERY obsolete sources (TP/DOS) available
- Tester: Milla, DOS386
- PE 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.16, 1.17
- Feature rich PE and COFF (32-bit and 64-bit) file analyzer, also disassembly (but only “dumb” stream approach applied to code sections, better use Objconv )
- By Japheth , open source (MASM → JWASM) except disassembler DLL, Public Domain
- Provides similar info as GT2, but only on PE and COFF files, more correct results
- Works also on DGJPP files, but “/STUBSIZE” can be needed
- Pre-linked with HX stub, old versions had strange $40 bytes of garbage above it
- Bugs: not rejecting broken/non-COFF files - displays garbage (incl. beep “characters” ) to the infinity (possibly fixed, needs retest), crashing on imports of some PE files (fixed in 1.17)
- Disassembling support is optional and provided by a DLL
- Also a DOS standalone version exists including DKRNL32 and DPMILD32 as well as HDPMI32, optional DLL for disassembly still applies
- PEMAP
- PE file analyzer
- Open source freeware, © 1998 by B. Luevelsmeyer , done in C (WATCOM)
- Problem in HX: missing import VerLanguageNameA, ignoring helps
- Tester: DOS386
- EDUMP
- Edump - Executable files dumper 1.62
- Supports NE, LE/LX, PE, PE64, ELF, ELF64
- © 2008 by SEN Kemerovo AKA Eugeny Suslikov hiew.ru
- License: “somewhat free” but no source code, and redistribution prohibited
- Tester: DOS386
- CLAMWIN
- FAR file manager
- Text mode Win32 file manager with FTP feature
- Can be used as FTP client - it is the only one interactive FTP client working in DOS
- Originally written by Eugen Roshall (author of RAR)
- Payware (1.7) or BSD open source freeware (2.0 only ???)
- Needs HX 2.16
- Tester: Laaca
2.2 Works well GUI
- Sophit
- Crappy Space Invaders
- Globe
- Scientific program GLOBE for display stars and earth movement
- DOS version used to exist but had been dropped
- http://www.advsys.net/ken/
- Tester: iw2evk Iw2evk Roberto
- GrafX2
- Painting program
- Uses SDL.DLL
- Latest DOS version from 1999 exists, open source, but very buggy, mirros dead
- Some versions do work well, some don’t: missing import GlobalMemoryStatusEx in KERNEL32.DLL (seems trivial to fix, no longer used ?)
- Tester: DOS386, iw2evk Iw2evk Roberto
- KPIC
- Simple image viewer for Win32 by Ken Silverman
- PNG, GIF, JPG
- Uses low-level GUI API only
- http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm
- Tester: DOS386, Roberto iw2evk (trouble ?)
- Boyca.exe
- V. 0.28
- BoyCott Advance/SDL, a GameBoy Advance emulator [3]
- Tester: Japheth
- HERETIC 2
- game by Raven Software [1][3][7]
- Tester: Japheth
- BLOBWARS.EXE 1.02
- SDL game by Parallel Realities [3]
- Tester: Japheth
- QUAKE 2
- game by Id Software [3]
- Tester: Japheth
- Anti-grain geometry
- Powerful graphics and geometry library for Delphi and Freepascal. Has very beautiful demos!
- Tester: Laaca
- VisualBoy Advance (SDL version)
- Excellent GB/GBC/GBA emulator
- SDL version works smoothly with HX (start with -F)
- Tester: Wengier
- Crayon
- URL: kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon
- Interesting “uncategorizable” game (5 MiB archive size)
- Uses SDL
- Annoyances: needs MSVCP60.DLL and DOSLFN (extracts to many files with long names)
- Tester: Laaca, DOS386
- Puzzle “15 squares”
- By ssp written in FASM, 10 KiB executable
- HX 2.12 or newer needed
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386
- OpenTyrian (classic aka no-mod)
- A SDL and C port of the original Turbo Pascal source code from the DOS game tyrian v2.1 (a space shoot-em-up)
- URL: http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/
- Doesn’t suffer from the runtime 200 error like the original
- Tested working under HX 2.16
- NOTE: using a “hqxx” scaler may result in slowdowns, use “scalexx” instead
- Unsure if joysticks work, quite positive on the sound
- Tester: NickC
- ScummVM
- ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files.
- URL: http://www.scummvm.org/(approve sites)
- Tested working (??? old versions only) under HX 2.16 with “Beneath a Steel Sky”
- NOTE: You NEED the game data files to run them, scummvm only replaces the old executable.
- Start with “dpmild32.exe -g scummvm.exe -f”
- DOSLFN not required, but recommended (without it scummvm will load up it’s internal theme. Doesn’t seem to affect performance.)
- Tester: NickC, ???
- QB64 output
- QB64 is a Win32 GUI 32-bit (toy) compiler (both host and target, despite the name)
- Tries to be 100% QuickBasic compatible and Win64 compatible
- Executables brewed by it (GUI, use SDL) do work with HX (after DLL filename fix), compiler itself not tested
2.3 Works partially console
- MediaInfo (console)
- Reports info about media (images, audio, video) and some other files
- GNU GPL 3, done in C++
- Didn’t work with HX: loads, displays ©, but if anything non-empty supplied in the commandline, it crashes, it can’t even display the help nor complain about “MEDIAINFO.DLL not found”, reason: CommandLineToArgvW in SHELL32.DLL was dummy only, fixed in HX 2.17
- VirtualPASCAL
- VP.EXE 2.1.279 Virtual Pascal IDE, except debugger
- VPC.EXE 2.1.279 Virtual Pascal command line compiler
- Closed source freeware
- Serious problem: tends to open unreasonably many files at same time
- Tester: Japheth, AH
- PELLES-C, POASM, POLINK
- Closed source freeware: http://www.smorgasbordet.com/pellesc/
- Latest version is 6.50rc4 from 2011-Apr-17 (untested)
- POASM.EXE 5.0b2 - works now, but obsolete in favor of JWASM
- POCC.EXE 2.90 Pelles C compiler
- POLIB.EXE 2.90 Pelles library manager
- POLINK.EXE 2.90 Pelles linker, but 5.0xx doesn’t work anymore ? retest needed
- POMAKE.EXE 2.90 Pelles make
- PORC.EXE 2.90 Pelles resource compiler
- Available only inside an installer, need 7/Vista/XP to extract it first
- 5.0xx versions need at least HX 2.16
- Tester: Japheth
- ConvertZ (console) 1.5
- Character set converter for Chinese & English texts
- Problems: works for English texts, but partially for Chinese ones
- Tester: Wengier, DOS386
- CVS client
- Version 1.11.22, Win32 console
- GNU GPL v. 1 (!)
- Only offline mode, connecting to server does not work (fixed in HX 2.16 ???)
- Project page: http://cvs.nongnu.org/
- Tester: Udo
2.4 Works partially GUI
- Flight simulator
- MPlayer (console or GUI)
- See Mplayer for product description and project pages
- Media player (unrelated to M$’s player), originates from Linux
- Has also a DGJPP port with VESA and VIDIX support making usage via HX no longer that unique
- Free & Open Source, GNU GPL, with most codecs based on FFmpeg
- Some release versions: 1.0RC1 from 2006–10–22 (itself very buggy), 1.0RC2 (better, but GUI output “-vo gl” doesn’t work on HX anymore)
- Several “unofficial” SVN versions like “ Mar 06, 2007 ”, “ MPlayer Sherpya-SVN-r22472–4.1.2 © 2000–2007 MPlayer Team ” did work on HX incl. “-vo gl” GUI output but slow
- Last tested version: “ MPlayer Sherpya-SVN-r31878–4.2.5 © 2000–2010 MPlayer Team ” (enabled “-vo sdl”, works again and well)
- Win32 version compiled with MinGW (good or not, see project page …)
- Starts as console app (!)
- Needs a GUI (OpenGL, “vidix”, “matrix”, SDL, VESA) to output video
- VESA output is deactivated in Windows version, SDL got enabled in r30075 2009–12–20 and works well, historical support of “-vo gl” (slow) in 2007
- Decomposing video into frames and saving them as PNG or JPG, as well as “-vo yuv4mpeg” works and always worked well (no HX GUI needed)
- Requires HX 2.17 or above, historical experimental support of “-vo gl”since HXRTD 2.11-pre
- Related project: MENCODER (console, see above)
- Tester: Laaca, DOS386, Japheth, Sherpya, Iw2evk Roberto, other people
- Aspectrum.exe 0.1.8 Another Spectrum emulator (uses Allegro 4.1)
- Atari800.exe 2.0.2 Atari 800 emulator
- QEMU 0.8.1 (very buggy), 0.8.2, 0.9.0 (preferred), 0.9.1 (retest needed)
- Emulator, supporting full emulation, has also an optional “accelerator”
- Open source, by Fabrice Bellard
- Uses SDL.DLL & FMOD.DLL
- Originates from LINUX (beta), Win32 version is alpha, GUI of HX-DOS also, unreliable but might work if you invest some effort and have luck
- Needs some DLL’s: MVSCRT.DLL, GLU32.DLL, CRTDLL.DLL, OPENGL32.DLL
- Better NOT to use -full-screen
- Keyboard bug fixed by Japheth and included (only ???) in binaries by bttr (retest needed)
- Some older versions reported to work also, but even more problems
- 0.9.0 requires at least HX 2.11, 0.9.1 at least HX 2.13
- Versions 0.9.0 and newer do not work on WinME/98, but do on HX :-D
- All versions need “-g” switch
- Tester: Japheth, Udo, DOS386, Wengier, other people
- “Shockwave Realtime Fire Demo”
- Cca 90 sec of nice graph effects & sound, 640×480 mode, written in FreeBASIC
- Minor problem if mouse driver active: cursor not hidden, and the sound …
- Tester: DOS386
- BOCHS
- Emulator, FULL emulation ONLY, more mature than QEMU, but very slow
- Versions 2.2.6 (very buggy, avoid), 2.3 (better, but still has “EIP=0″-bug), 2.3.6 (CPU seems fixed), 2.3.7 (1.1 times faster, more rigid about raw image sizes), 2.4 (introduces one useless missing import), 2.4.1, 2.4.2, 2.4.5
- Open source, GNU LGPL, done in C++
- Emulates the full PC with various hardware components, CPU emulation includes 64-bit support (added long time ago and long time before before 16-bit and 32-bit emulation was mature), uses 2 BIOS files (more are optional), always use the BIOS included in the package, other versions usually don’t work and can cause “spectacular” problems, I/O devices include a “high-end” IDE/ATA controller (?) but XDMA doesn’t work (?)
- Since HX 2.8, BOCHS is supported (but affected by the “mouse bug” ), better use 2.16 or later
- The “official” binary of the “Windows” version doesn’t use SDL, however SDL is supported in the source, so recompiling with SDL enabled is theoretically possible
- Uses NSIS installer, has to be installed in “Windows” first or use 7-ZIP (full DLL version) with DOSLFN to extract, or without DOSLFN and deal with duplicates …
- Problem: mouse driver can hang on init (CTMOUSE both with an without /O but also LogiTech driver, only if XDMA is involved ???)
- Has to be configured using console mode dialogs (behaviour changed in 2.4)
- Make sure that the image files are not read-only - this causes trouble !
- To start it, following commandline is needed: “DPMILD32 -g B -f XX.BO -q”
- Supposing: “B.EXE” is the BOCHS executable, “XX.BO” is the BOCHS config file
- “-g” is the “force-GUI” switch for DPMILD32 (same thing as with QEMU and many others)
- “-f” “file” : specifies the config file for BOCHS
- “-q” “quick start” : Makes BOCHS immediately run the GUI and start emulation/booting, instead of console based dialogs (in DOS, there is no space for both (2 “Windows”) at same time)
- There are serious lacks in the GUI, emulated screen can overflow host screen size (preferably right), colors can be wrong, button bar is inexistent (it is on the bottom instead of top of screen and is empty) - but the emulation runs :-)
- DOSLFN is NOT required for running if you correcly rename affected files (most notably the BIOS’es)
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386
- Distortum Priority survive
- URL: distortum.mysteria.cz
- Realtime strategy a little bit similar to Starcraft but with nicer graphics
- problem - mouse cursor sometimes doesn’t react to movements or reacts wrong - fixed in HX 2.16 ???
- problem - doesn’t work without sound: “Unable to set sound” ??
- Tester: Laaca, DOS386
- Dogfight
- URL: http://dogfight.kuto.de
- 2D side scrolling game where fight small planes from World War I. Similar to old classics Sopwitch
- problem - mouse cursor sometimes doesn’t react to movements or reacts wrong (doesn’t hurt much because mouse is used only in menu)
- Tester: Laaca
- Little big adventure 2
- Beautiful adventure game by Adeline, commercial, abandonware, no legal download
- Has/had also a native DOS version (sound: ISA SB only ?)
- running Windows version under DOS will become interesting when will be released version of HX with AC97 sound driver
- problem - distorted sound (maybe specific to my system / “emulation” driver)
- Tester: Laaca
- MDK
- 3D third-person shooting game by Shiny entertainment
- has also a native DOS version
- more problems - weird problems with color mapping in main engine, extremely buggy mouse reactions (better don’t touch mouse at all - fixed in HX 2.12) and no sound (?)
- Tester: Laaca
- Postal
- 2D action game by Running with scissors - very bloody and very controversal
- problem - weird colors but acceptable
- sound and controls work
- Tester: Laaca
2.5 Notes on lists above
- [1]: requires LFN support
- [2]: these apps may require a lot of file handles
- [3]: needs HX GUI.
- [4]: requires a packet driver to be installed.
- [5]: needs a DOS ASPI driver and WNASPI32.DLL from Windows 9x.
- [6]: requires OPENGL32.DLL (+GLU32.DLL) from Windows 9x.
- [7]: environment variable DPMILDR=16 must be set.
3. Wishlist
3.1 Wishlist realistic
- GNASH
- Project pages:
- Player for SWF files (sort of movie, invented by “Macromedia”) originates from Linux
- Beta version now, old Win32 executable compiled with M$VC++ 8.0 from desperately obsolete 0.7.1 did work (very badly, in both DOS and Win32), newer version compiled from 0.8.2 with MinGW works well, but not in DOS: missing imports, exceptions, even newer 0.8.9 just black screen in DOS ?!?!?
- Free & Open Source
- Starts as console app (!)
- Uses SDL to output graphics (this is good)
- Old version needed many DLL’s: also some “special” ones: MSVCR80.DLL, MSVCP80.DLL, 0.8.2 only MSVCRT.DLL
- Loads like a charm, outputs manual to the text screen
- HX 2.16 (?) or newer needed
- Problems: old version was very slow, broken scenes, new doesn’t work
- Tester: Japheth, DOS386
- Ghostscript for Win32 (all versions)
- PDF viewer, converter, creator.
- Can convert pdf in others kinds of file, but not display directly image (to be patch..)
- Seem 3 missing imports in user32.dll
- A modified version for HX exists, but it’s older and uses a modified Binary and DLL (not usable for new versions)
- Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/files/
- Tester: Iw2evk Roberto
- MUPDF (package and executable)
- Dillo-Win32
- Browser
- There is also a DOS port
- Missing imports, silent exit
- Tester: DOS386
- OWB - Origyn Web Browser (“gyn” is not a typo …)
- GRAFICAL WEB BROWSER based on SDL libraries
- Project page: http://www.sand-labs.org/owb/wiki/OwbWin32 (no binaries, just source code ???)
- Win32 experimental binary: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15843/Appli_vista.rar < - dead
- Needs MSVCR80.DLL, MSVCP80.DLL, WLDAP32.DLL, SHLWAPI.DLL (see below)
- IT WORKS !!!! (with some flaws)
- Some JS support (but see below), good PNG support
- Faults:
- No documentation (Hint: [F1] to [F4] keys do have some effect)
- No way to type in an address (type it into Google)
- Text cursor not visible
- Mouse arrow off (hit top left corner to “fix”)
- Page not reloaded after submitting text (but the text is sent, just check it)
- No download, no upload
- Depends from MSVC??? files
- Needs HX 2.17 from 2010–02 or later
- Tester: Iw2evk Roberto, Japheth, DOS386
- PDFTK (console)
- PDF document manipulator
- Does not run (nothing displayed)
- Tester: ???
- PLINK (console)
- A command-line interface of PuTTY
- Supports SSH/SSH-2, open-source
- Displays an error message if launched
- IRFANVIEW (graphic-console)
- gui/command line viewer and converter
- http://irfanview.tuwien.ac.at/iview432.zip(approve sites)
- seem to start, but nothing appear on screen
- no missing imports displayed
- tester : iw2evk Roberto
- Some more freeware games
3.2 Wishlist maybe realistic
- NOTEPAD++ (GUI)
- Very good text editor, no 64 KiB limit, supports many prog. languages
- Portable, open source, but no DOS version
- AUDACITY (GUI)
- Very good audio editor
- Uses VxWidgets
- Portable, open source, but no DOS version
- Total Commander (payware) + Free Commander (freeware) (both GUI)
- The possibly best file managers (ignoring the facts that TCMD is commercial, FCMD has bugs left and both have no DOS version)
- Aircrack Ng
- Circad for win 98 - XP
3.3 Wishlist utopical (?)
- Mozilla Firefox (GUI)
- Gaia
- Project page: http://gaia.serezhkin.com/
- Tries to rebuild Google-Earth as free and open source software
- Originates from Linux, Windows version delayed
- Problem: Original Google-Earth comes with very high system requirements (CPU, main RAM, graph processor, graph RAM, acceleration, …), this clone probably will more or less share them, also networking required
- Open Office (GUI)
- Adobe Photoshop and all clones/competitors of it (GUI)
- Professional graphical programms
- Commercial, closed source, excessive protection from cracking
- NSIS installer (GUI)
- Free equivalent of InstallShield
- Probably difficult due to Registry settings, reliance on Windows-specific parameters (such as Win32 path, and so on…)
- Win32 GUI Self-extractors and installers
- WinRAR, WinZIP, 7-ZIP GUI SFX, WinImage, NSIS
- Allow to uncompress files without the need to have the appropriate unpacker, or “brute-force” through all if not known which one was used
- Probably difficult to support due to high level GUI API
- Does not work with HX 2.9 / 2.10 / probably 2.16, missing GUI API features
- PCI32
- Win32 (NT only) version of “PCI” tool listing PCI devices
- Problem: uses a Ring0 “driver” to access the I/O ports
- Some latest games (GUI)
- With excessive system requirements (like >=1 GiB RAM, DVD, newest graf card with >=256 MiB RAM and latest acceleration technology, …)
3.4 Import wishlist
This list contains missing so-called “imports” in HX-DOS for running some programs. By default, if any import is missing, DPMILD32 refuses to execute the program, cries instead and lists all affected imports. Setting a variable ( ”DPMILDR=128″ , note the name is DPMILDR , not DPMILD32 ) can suppress this and in some cases allow to run the program nevertheless (success rate is low, there are exceptions, or program starts but a silent exit occurs as soon as you try to do anything useful in it :-( ). Imports found as “missing” can be added here (even if workaroundable with DPMILDR), and can be removed when implemented into HX.
- FillConsoleOutputCharacterW , ScrollConsoleScreenBufferW , WriteConsoleOutputW (required by some “nice but useless” demos, dummy is good enough, done ?)
- MetaFile / Path junk: DeleteEnhMetaFile, CreateEnhMetaFileA, StrokePath, FillPath, EndPath, BeginPath, GetEnhMetaFileHeader, SetWinMetaFileBits, GetEnhMetaFileA, CloseEnhMetaFile, PlayEnhMetaFile : all in DGDI32.DLL, required by NCONVERT for WMF/EMF support, see above, some still lacking in HX 2.16, seem useless (dummy “support” enough).
- GetCharABCWidthsFloatA also for NCONVERT, lacks in HX 2.16
- GetFileSizeEx (required by MCOMP, more console packers probably will follow soon): implemented and functional since HX 2.11, but 31 bits / 2GB only. Remaining low priority wish: full FAT+ support, translation of 38 API bits to FAT+ INT $21/$7142 - “Enhanced DR-DOS 7.01.08+ - “Long LSEEK” - SET CURRENT 64-bit FILE POSITION” ;-)
- CreateUpDownControl in COMCTL32.DLL (dummy should be enough): needed by MPLAYER 1.0rc1, lacked in HX 2.10, done ?
- TrackPopupMenu in USER32.DLL (ignoring results in crash, dummy implementation should be enough, done (?) )
- SafeArray junk: SafeArrayPutElement, SafeArrayGetElement, SafeArrayRedim: in OLEAUT32.DLL, dummy should be enough (done in HX 2.16 ???)
- GlobalMemoryStatusEx in KERNEL32.DLL (seems trivial to do, OTOH no longer used in GrafX2, still lacks in HX 2.16)
- MapDialogRect in USER32.DLL, required for BOCHS 2.4 and newer
- GetNumberFormatW , GetNumberFormatExW , GetCurrencyFormatW , GetCurrencyFormatExW (/en-us/library/dd318083(VS.85).aspx) in DKRNL32.DLL (very minimal support probably sufficient)
- CommandLineToArgvW (/en-us/library/bb776391(VS.85).aspx) in SHELL32.DLL is dummy only, some apps need it working, done!
- CreateItemMoniker and GetRunningObjectTable in OLE32.DLL, required by MPLAYER (useless, ignoring helps, dummy enough, done in 2.17 ?)
- TryEnterCriticalSection (/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms686857(v=vs.85).aspx) (just duplicate EnterCriticalSection ???)
- GetHandleInformation (/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724329(v=VS.85).aspx) (trivial, just return ZERO ???)
- CreateWindowEx (already implemented, but MUPDF not amused)
4. Latest version: 2.16 / 2.17pre
Release date: 2009–11–16 / update 2011–08
Project page and download: http://www.japheth.de
5. External files
DR-DOS
DOS
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