Bochs (x86 emulator) on VGA Zaurus? Anyone? Options

[TonyOlsen]

DosBox

Yeah, I saw those tarballs. I downloaded all 3, but they weren't IPK and I didn't know what to do with them... and I also didn't know if I was only supposed to use the "xscale" one or all 3... I tried executing the 3 files in terminal, but that didn't work.

Qemu

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the file and will try to install it. ...but the tarball didn't contain any IPK files. I'm going through the Readme file and will try to get it working from the Terminal. I'll post my results.

I'm going to try to get both of them working... and whichever one works first wins.

[DrWowe]

Is there an SDL or Qtopia version of Dosbox?

[DrWowe]

On another note, why is "DOS games" the only thing that matters? With a decent emulator, and a copy of the HP200LX rom, you could all relive your glory days!

[zbones]

I'm also looking for the Qemu Zaurus IPK... both of the applications I want to run (WarCraft II and an old Ascii-based reader program)

I think you can forget about warcraft 2 on a Zaurus.

Hell, it's good but not that good

I struggles to run scramble and donkey kong using the mame emulator .

Warcraft 2 could be possible, but you would need to obtain the source and expect to re-write most of the code to be "zaurus friendly".

If you want to emulate it then expect to get a frame every hour, if it runs at all.

You may have better luck with an Atari st or Amiga emulator running something like populous, which was the forerunner to the other 3d games like warcraft and command and conquer.

What does your ascii based reader program read? there may already be a custom zaurus app to suit your requirements.
Peter

[TonyOlsen]

Try as I may, the qemu-i386 (378 KB) does not work on the Zaurus. When I go into the directory where this is located, I type

CODE

qemu-i386

and I get:

CODE

bash: qemu-i386: command not found

I also tried the free-dos images

CODE

qemu-i386 c.img

(c.img is in the same directory)
..but resulted in the same "command not found" result.

I suspect this file wasn't compiled for the Zaurus but for another platform. The "i386" in the name, to me, says that it is a 386 emulator (since qemu can be used to emulate many platforms and not just 386's.)

Any thoughts?

Has anyone actually gotten DosBox or Qemu working on their Zaurus? :?

[TonyOlsen]

The DOS reader if for obsolete Folio/Infobase NFO ebook files (incompatible with the new NFO readers from Folio)... It is 100% ASCII based. I'm sure an x86 emulator can run it.

I used to run just it fine on my 200LX (8 MHz), so I'm sure it will be much faster on my 386 emulator on my 400 MHz Zaurus! Qemu says that it is about 1/4th or 1/10th the speed of the actual machine, which means it will run like a 40 MHz 386 or 100 MHz 386. That's slow... but not that bad!

DosBox lists WarCraft II as "playable", but not "fully supported"... which means that most stuff works but something may not. ...I used to play WarCraft II on an old 386 and it was a little slow, but it worked... and it was fun!

[TonyOlsen]

Oh... WarCraft II isn't 3d... it's 2d. WarCraft III is 3d, but I'm not interested in that one...

[TonyOlsen]

Anyone want to try recompiling FreeCraft (now known as Stratagus) for the Zaurus?

http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/wargus/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/stratagus/
http://www.happypenguin.org/show?FreeCraft
http://www.bebits.com/app/2994
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/freecraft <-- Already compiled for ARM?
http://stratagus.sourceforge.net/screenshots.shtml
etc..

Also:

http://sourceforge.net/search/ (search for "stratagus")

This is the open-source version of "War Craft II". Anyone else drooling over the idea of having War Craft II (rated the best computer games for a number of years) on their Zaurus?

[padishah_emperor]

I want to run Elite (anyone else here in the UK remember that on the BBC A/B?) via DOS (CGA).

[TonyOlsen]

I moved the WarCraft 2 thread to its own thread:

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...iewtopic&t=3883

Please post future WarCraft comments to that thread instead of this one...

[ngok]

I found a SDL version of Bochs for zaurus here
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tzer-jen/zbochs/
it looks good but there is just the souce code,will anyone try it?

[Stubear]

Try as I may, the qemu-i386 (378 KB) does not work on the Zaurus.  When I go into the directory where this is located, I type

CODE

qemu-i386

and I get:

CODE

bash: qemu-i386: command not found

Linux is NOT DOS. Unlike DOS, Linux doesn't let you run commands just anywhere by default, if you want to run a fiel that is not in your PATH then you need to append a ./ to the filename to run it.

So you should be using

CODE

./qemu-i386

Stu

P.S. If you really want to run commands from your current PWD then add . to your PATH

[TonyOlsen]

The http://zaurus.zapto.org/zazz/qemu/ link I was given contains 3 files. 2 tarballs and 1 readme.

One tarball ( qemu-0.5.3-armhost-i386user.tar.gz ) isn't recognized by my Windows WinZip program. WinZip says that file is empty or corrupt.

The other file ( qemu-i386-static.gz ) DOES contain something, but WinZip asks me for the extension. I assume it has no extension, and so it creates a 994 KB qemu-i386-static file. This is the file I've been trying to get working.

I placed qemu-i386-static, and 3 of the 4 "FreeDos" images, on my CF card and put it in the Zaurus. I open terminal and type:

CODE

bash-2.05$ cd /mnt/cf

bash-2.05$ ./qemu-i386-static a.img

Error loading a.img

I can display the Qemu help and it has options for Path, Size, Help, ActivateLog, PageSize, and it says it needs a "program"... but nothing regarding a boot image. I'm thinking I misunderstood the function Qemu. I'm now thinking it is only for running individual Linux i386 commands and in fact can't do anything "DOS" at all...

Please let me know if I'm wrong here..

[sepsep]

Keep in mind that you will probably not get performance better than
286 / slow 386 on a Zaurus, with Dosbox.  Qemu may do better - when/if  it can run full machine emulation.

if performane like xt still okay for me.
im just to want using back my hplx pim post/lx function only. :wink:

[raduga]

The http://zaurus.zapto.org/zazz/qemu/  
 I'm thinking I misunderstood the function Qemu.  I'm now thinking it is only for running individual Linux i386 commands and in fact can't do anything "DOS" at all...

Please let me know if I'm wrong here..

Unfortunately, it looks like you're right here.

Qemu can operate in two modes:

* System emulation
* User emulation

User emulation allows it to run Linux binaries compiled for the target architecture- in this case, i386 linux binaries that normally wouldnt run
on your ARM linux.

System emulation is a bit trickier, and actually simulates an entire target computer- allowing you to run a full Operating System or whatever you like. System emulation is not available for the ARM port of Qemu just yet; looks like it may require considerable extra code (maybe not so much work, but it's beyond me) There are hints that System Emulation is being ported to ARM, but it's not here just yet.

Dosbox and Bochs support full system emulation on ARM already, though.
So, Qemu will not, today, run any DOS software. Bochs may, if you're lucky. Dosbox surely will.