Here's something you don't see everyday

[depscribe]

This was a stunt but only partly so. Given the size/resolution of the Gemini's screen, applications that expect a bigger screen tend to be tiny (some, really, really tiny). It would be good if there were a pure console mode, but there isn't, though a suitably configured QTerminal, run full-screen, is pretty useful -- I may actually switch to Mutt or Alpine for email because of this.

Complex applications, such as the word processor in LibreOffice, can be a real pain. If there were a console word processor for Linux. I'd be all over it, but there isn't. (No, emacs is not a word processor.) So . . .

This morning, when I should have been doing useful things. instead I sacrificed for the good of the community and the world at large and installed Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS and got it to run, sort of, on the Gemini:

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

It's  *almost* big enough to use -- when DOSbox first starts up (if you install it, it lands in the "Games" menu), it is postage-stamp sized with no window controls to make it bigger. So I spent a while ssh'ed in, with DOSbox running on the Gemini as I edited ~/.dosbox/dosbox.conf from the desktop machine. Best I could get was what you see in the screenshot.

After which it was a cinch to d/l the free but ancient Word from Microsoft and install it.

But alas and alack! DOSbox gets its keys, apparently, from the raw keyboard, because many that we find useful were not there. / for instance,was < and : was , -- and these are important in DOS. Also, sometimes, in writing.

It's likely that by poking around some more I could get the keyboard to behave. But enough for today. And in case you are one of the millions wondering if DOSbox runs on Linux on the Gemini. you may rest easy. It does.

[DJO]

And in case you are one of the millions wondering if DOSbox runs on Linux on the Gemini. you may rest easy. It does.

Interesting, I might see if my old Wordstar discs are still readable - if I can find a working 3.5" drive :-)

Addendum - Just installed a DOSBox and found the / key didn't work, gave a ? instead. After much mucking about it suddenly started to work, I then realised I was using the right shift key while before I was using the left one. The upshot is the two shift keys are not functionally identical and if a shifted character doen't work try using the other shift key before you start mucking about with codepages and other black magic.

[jornada720]

This was a stunt but only partly so. Given the size/resolution of the Gemini's screen, applications that expect a bigger screen tend to be tiny (some, really, really tiny). It would be good if there were a pure console mode, but there isn't, though a suitably configured QTerminal, run full-screen, is pretty useful -- I may actually switch to Mutt or Alpine for email because of this.

Complex applications, such as the word processor in LibreOffice, can be a real pain. If there were a console word processor for Linux. I'd be all over it, but there isn't. (No, emacs is not a word processor.) So . . .

This morning, when I should have been doing useful things. instead I sacrificed for the good of the community and the world at large and installed Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS and got it to run, sort of, on the Gemini:

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

It's  *almost* big enough to use -- when DOSbox first starts up (if you install it, it lands in the "Games" menu), it is postage-stamp sized with no window controls to make it bigger. So I spent a while ssh'ed in, with DOSbox running on the Gemini as I edited ~/.dosbox/dosbox.conf from the desktop machine. Best I could get was what you see in the screenshot.

After which it was a cinch to d/l the free but ancient Word from Microsoft and install it.

But alas and alack! DOSbox gets its keys, apparently, from the raw keyboard, because many that we find useful were not there. /m for instance,was < and : was , -- and these are important in DOS. Also, sometimes, in writing.

It's likely that by poking around some more I could get the keyboard to behave. But enough for today. And in case you are one of the millions wondering if DOSbox runs on Linux on the Gemini. you may rest easy. It does.

Cool!

You should be able to press Alt Enter to go full screen.

[depscribe]

And in case you are one of the millions wondering if DOSbox runs on Linux on the Gemini. you may rest easy. It does.

Interesting, I might see if my old Wordstar discs are still readable - if I can find a working 3.5" drive :-)

Addendum - Just installed a DOSBox and found the / key didn't work, gave a ? instead. After much mucking about it suddenly started to work, I then realised I was using the right shift key while before I was using the left one. The upshot is the two shift keys are not functionally identical and if a shifted character doen't work try using the other shift key before you start mucking about with codepages and other black magic.

Good to know. I'll revisit it tomorrow -- I've been the last little while trying to optimize the Libreoffice word processor for Gemini. Like pretty much all applications it needs to be run full screen. But also in "Optimal view" zoom and some other stuff. It might be usable after all -- no worse than a word processor on an iPad Mini.

My old friend, the late William F. Buckley Jr., was a Wordstar devotee right up to his death 10 years ago. Good luck getting it going!

[tuk0z]

This was a stunt but only partly so. Given the size/resolution of the Gemini's screen, applications that expect a bigger screen tend to be tiny (some, really, really tiny). It would be good if there were a pure console mode, but there isn't, though a suitably configured QTerminal, run full-screen, is pretty useful -- I may actually switch to Mutt or Alpine for email because of this.

Complex applications, such as the word processor in LibreOffice, can be a real pain.

I'm expecting to go on using Ranger for efficient file management and Markdown for almost-if-not-all my texts and simple spreadsheets with Vim (or any Markdown editor). This is my present workflow on Android, Linux or any-OS, and I can see no reason it wouldn't work on my « soon-to-be-delivered » Gemini! Then for collaborating Pandoc can export Markdown to any file format. I believe LibreOffice can import Markdown too, just in case.

[jornada720]

In keeping with the just-because-we-can department, here is WordPerfect 6.2  for DOS in graphical mode and also a screenshot of Windows 3.1.

The former is much faster than the latter.

[depscribe]

In keeping with the just-because-we-can department, here is WordPerfect 6.2  for DOS in graphical mode and also a screenshot of Windows 3.1.

The former is much faster than the latter.

DOSbox, unfortunately, is pretty much designed for games. I used to have Word-for-DOS 5.5 running nicely on my Linux desktop, which was useful because I had a zillion floppies with old Word files on them, and they wouldn't open in anything modern -- not even Word can read old .doc files -- so I made a task of opening 'em and saving 'em as .rtf files. But that was under dosemu, which appears to be dead (and which won't work with a current Linux distribution). I suppose it would be possible to do the FreeDOS thing in VirtualBox, but c'mon -- I don't want to torture the poor little Gemini. (And I would then *just have* to see if I could get OS/2 to run in a virtual machine . . .)

[jakfish]

This is wonderful work. Word 6.0, 16-bit, was one of my all-time favorite programs.

Don't stop at word processors.. Regenerate browsers! A couple of years ago, on a creaking Thinkpad, I got DOS's Arachne browser to connect via an Orinoco pcmcia card. Had to do it through WEP but I was on-line...

Jake

[jornada720]

This is wonderful work. Word 6.0, 16-bit, was one of my all-time favorite programs.

Don't stop at word processors.. Regenerate browsers! A couple of years ago, on a creaking Thinkpad, I got DOS's Arachne browser to connect via an Orinoco pcmcia card. Had to do it through WEP but I was on-line...

Jake

I just tried to run Word 6.0 for Windows within DosBox but unfortunately, it requires the old DOS share.exe function which DosBox does not support. When I get some free time, I will try Word 2.0 to see if that works.

For the record, Windows 3.1 runs pretty well if you are using Android and the Magic DosBox Free emulator. On Linux, Windows is mostly unusuable in my experience.

[mifritscher]

Some could try Windows 95 + MS Word 97 on qemu ;-) Sadly, limbo (qemu) doesn't work on android (severe problems with the File Chooser), but bochs works fine, also with my Win95+MS Office 97 image.