OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => General Support and Discussion => Zaurus General Forums => Archived Forums => Software => Topic started by: Miami_Bob on December 22, 2005, 05:23:52 am
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I have been playing with dosbox v0.6.3, compiled by Chyang & packaged by Meanie as "dosbox_0.6.3_arm.ipk". It runs very well, though perhaps a wee bit slowly, on my C860 with stock Sharp ROM. No X needed. There are a couple of useful tricks that I have managed to stumble upon so far.
When the emulator is launched and the task bar area begins to flash & flicker, instead of pressing "Cancel" as Chyang has suggested, until the display finally decides to give up & clear, just pressing "Home" once should cause the display to correct itself without further delay.
The inability of DOSbox to see the keycodes for ":" is a major difficulty to using DOS.
spartan suggested placing the following lines in the [Autoexec] section of the dosbox.conf file:
mount c /mnt/card
c:\
which mounts your own working C: drive & changes to it. Great idea but it still leaves you stranded there. I prefer:
pause
REM Lets you read the opening screen if you want to do so.
mount c /home/zaurus/Documents/DOSbox-C
REM mounts the C: drive.
path=c:\;z:\
REM makes executables on the C: & Z: drives acessable from any location.
C:
REM changes to the C: drive. The "\" will keep this from working, BTW.
type quit.txt
REM displays a short test file reminding me how to get out without crashing the C860
The system doesn't seem to care that the Zaurus displays the yen instead of the slash, BTW.
quit.text
"To exit back to Qtopia without crashing, press the SHIFT + <LEFT JAPANESE KEY> + CANCEL combination.
Using EXIT to terminate the command shell and you will have to take the battery out."
Thanks go to Chyang for having "updated libsdl, added shift+ctrl+cancel to brute exit sdl apps"
Finally, I have 2 very simple batch files located on the virtual C: drive:
GOTO-C.BAT
C:
and
GOTO-Z.BAT
Z:
Trivial, but the only way that I have found so far, in combination with the path settings, to switch between drives. When I finally mount more drives, I'll just add more batch files (till someone finds a way to fix the keymapping).
Be aware that, if you are using KeyHelper, you will loose the key repeat once you start DOSbox AND it will stay gone when you exit back to Qtopia. I use QPE-SHUTDOWN v1.5 to restart Qtopia, but you could also probably use "khctl reload".
However, if you disable KeyHelper before running DOSbox, the 3 key combo above to gracefully exit the shell ceases to work.
Also discovered that SHIFT + Fn + C still acts as screen capture, although you won't hear the shutter sound effects to let you know that it is working.
So I took a shot of the screen.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
But then thought, well how can I PROVE this actually came from my C860 instead of a regular desktop. Ah, but I also discovered that the Fn + <LEFT JAPANESE KEY> combination causes Qtopia to attempt to pop up the input pick list, fail & leave the task bar visable but DOSbox still running. So I took a shot of that screen.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
A neat trick, but it also causes the SHIFT + <LEFT JAPANESE KEY> + CANCEL key combination to stop working leaving one with battery removal as the only way out of the shell.
Do NOT press the SHIFT + HOME keys. That combination causes a similar effect except with rotation to portrait mode & a real hashed up screen.
I tried an old PCTOOLS v4.1 but it wimps out claiming that both C: & Z: have damaged FAT sectors.
Lastly, just for grins, I ran Micro$oft's Diagnostics (MSD) to see what would happen. And it ran fine. Here is that screen shot.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Now I await the howls of outrage at this perversion of an innocent Zaurus by having run Micky$oft code upon it .... put down those stones, people. (G)
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The inability of DOSbox to see the keycodes for ":" is a major difficulty to using DOS.
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Thanks for all the helpful information in this posting!
About the one issue quoted above, I have found a DOS utility called scancode that may help. There are probably other utilities with the same name, but the download file for this one is named scncd590.zip , if that helps.
The following command will enable typing a colon in dosbox by pressing shift-fn-g:
scancode K shift-; ":" r
Unfortunately, there are a lot of other keyboard problems, at least in my installation: no alt key, no function keys f1-f8, no forward shift, question mark, plus sign or double quote. That may be more than this scancode utility can handle. Further investigation is needed.
I have been able to run my favorite text editor/lightweight word processor, VDE. However, with so many keys missing it's a rather pointless exercise. I have attempted to run a limited version of the Geos operating system, but no luck so far.
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Well, regarding the colon issue:
What about loading an alias tool and simply replace the colon by an underscore for example?
So the commands would become c_ or z_
Not sure if this would work, but it may be worth a try.
daniel
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Thanks for all the helpful information in this posting!
Very welcome. Thanks for your feedback as well!
About the one issue quoted above, I have found a DOS utility called scancode that may help. There are probably other utilities with the same name, but the download file for this one is named scncd590.zip , if that helps.
The following command will enable typing a colon in dosbox by pressing shift-fn-g:
scancode K shift-; ":" r
Nice utility! Had not seen it so far. Thanks!
Unfortunately, there are a lot of other keyboard problems, at least in my installation: no alt key, no function keys f1-f8, no forward shift, question mark, plus sign or double quote. That may be more than this scancode utility can handle. Further investigation is needed.
Yep. And many can not be over come by the tricks that work on the ":", "/" & so forth. The lack of F keys really cramp running a lot of DOS programs.
I have been able to run my favorite text editor/lightweight word processor, VDE. However, with so many keys missing it's a rather pointless exercise. I have attempted to run a limited version of the Geos operating system, but no luck so far.
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My main reason for this work was to run the HP200LX database engine using CPACK under DOS. Which can now be done at the basic level. But not really very useful with all the keyboard problems.
Instead I have gone more towards a conversion in Perl from the HP *DB format to the Portabase POB format via XML. Which has its own major snags since Portabase lacks full compatibility with some of the *DB functionalities and is apparently stagnate in development.
Disappointing that Linux software on the Z can not even do a reasonabley full emulation of old DOS systems (sigh).
Chyang shared his source for the hacked LibSDL but I have not made much headway with further mods to it.
..... "part is buggy, no active update on the code for Z, so I hacked something inside to keep it runnable with dosbox and bochs."
The libSDL API hooks appear to be where dosbox takes its keyboard & mouse input from. And libSDL is probably our problem point.
I visited the www.libSDL.org fora to learn some more and noticed some very spotty message traffic about ports to Zaurus & Qtopia, but they were all rather stale. Back in 2003 or so.
The dosbox fora traffic indicates to me that they consider the problem to be the responcibility of the libSDL & Zaurus communities (and I can see their point). The libSDL fora traffic seems to indicate they do not really consider any problems of this sort of any major importance to them.
So it looks to me like it is up to the Zaurus users to get the fix done if anyone will (G).
Very few folks seem to consider the problems important, though. Ah well.
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Well, regarding the colon issue:
What about loading an alias tool and simply replace the colon by an underscore for example?
So the commands would become c_ or z_
Not sure if this would work, but it may be worth a try.
daniel
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Trouble is that LibSDL seems to do the conversion from the Z key codes to the API hooks used by DOSBox & Bochs. So any alias tool would have to be on the linux - Zaurus side of the system. Keyhelper doesn't seem to work here & the DOSBox key remap does not appear sufficiently robust (maps the whole key functions as one without breaking out any modifier key functions).
I'm open to suggestions for any alias tools that might work however (G).
The only thing that I have found that even half way works so far is via editing specialized BAT files by cut & paste from pre coded text template files containing the characters ":", "/", "?" & so forth. Nothing works for the F1-F10 keys to date.
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When the emulator is launched and the task bar area begins to flash & flicker, instead of pressing "Cancel" as Chyang has suggested, until the display finally decides to give up & clear, just pressing "Home" once should cause the display to correct itself without further delay.[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=108061\")
This works great!
Dosbox used to occasionally crash on me when I used the cancel key, and the zaurus would return to the Applications screen without releasing its memory.
Then I would have to reboot to clear the memory.
I have used the home key several times, and it has worked perfect every time.
Thanks for this very useful tip.
P.S.
Meanie's latest Dosbox compilation gives you the much needed : key.
You can get it [a href=\"https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=15580&view=findpost&p=140855] here[/url]
Regards,
Doug
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This works great!
Dosbox used to occasionally crash on me when I used the cancel key, and the zaurus would return to the Applications screen without releasing its memory.
Then I would have to reboot to clear the memory.
I have used the home key several times, and it has worked perfect every time.
Thanks for this very useful tip.
Glad that it was useful. My DOSbox starts with a batch file that uses a "pause" command at one point.
Using the Cancel key would frequently allow an "extra" key press to trip the pause unintentionally. Since Home only needs to be pressed once, the pause works as it was intended every time using Home instead of Cancel.
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I just got my F-Keys working in Dosbox by using Scancode.
Just google for the file listed above "scncd590.zip"
(thanks RobbH for the tip)
Scancode should be placed in your Dos path.
Here is how I set up my F1-F10 Keys using Ctrl-1 - Ctrl-0
This is an example batch file to run a program:
@echo off
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-1 F1 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-2 F2 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-3 F3 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-4 F4 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-5 F5 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-6 F6 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-7 F7 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-8 F8 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-9 F9 Repeat
SCANCODE WaitForKey Ctrl-0 F10 Repeat
CD C:\PROGRAM
PROGRAM.EXE
CD\
SCANCODE UninstallI hope this helps someone else out.