SpitFire-666 / ms-dos

MS-DOS stuff

Tools, info, links and resources for MS-DOS

Recommended software

SOFTWARE	Desc	Notes	d
EIDL	Places CPU in a HALT state when DOS is idle, allowing the CPU to run cooler	https://www.bttr-software.de/products/eidl/
DOSKEY (enhanced!)	With tab autocompletion and other great stuff	http://www.paulhoule.com/doskey/
Blackout	Screen blanker/saver	Note: place this into a non-"blackout" subfolder otherwise autoexec.bat will not process its parameters correctly. Eg use C:\apps\blackout.exe 12 in autoexec.bat
UNISOUND	UNISOUND is a Freeware DOS-only tool useful to configure and initialize ISA PnP sound cards from serveral brands and models, like ESS, Creative, ALS, CMI, ADI, Yamaha, Diamond tech, Aztech, OPTi, Crystal, community-made ones like Orpheus, AWE64 Legacy... (And also some non-PnP cards, like early SB16 software configurable models which required DIAGNOSE.EXE, are supported). Works on all x86 CPUs (8088/8086/286/386... and higher)	https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=72553
FastDOOM	Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible!	https://github.com/viti95/FastDoom
CuteMouse	CuteMouse is a DOS based, open source mouse driver, which supports many protocols of serial and PS/2 mice. It can search for a serial mouse at all COM ports or only at a specified port. An important CuteMouse feature is its small memory footprint: the resident part (TSR) occupies less than 3.5kb. CuteMouse can also install itself in upper memory, when available, without requiring external utilities such as the LH (LoadHigh) command. Modern BIOSes often make USB mice visible through the PS/2 interface if you enable "legacy" support in BIOS setup.
DOSMid	Midi Player		This is the only Midi player that works for me
Norton Commander
PlayWAV	http://www.fysnet.net
Treesize
EtherDFS	a network drive for DOS	https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=52260

System info

Process config.sys line by line (and also skip processing of autoexec.bat)

F8

Backup/copy folder

• Copies subfolders (/s) including empty ones (/e) xcopy "C:\SomeFolderName" "D:\SomeFolderName" /s /e

Virtual/protected mode

• To use real mode, comment out HIMEM.SYS from config.sys and reboot

CPU

CHKCPU

Screen Utils

• UltraVision https://www.4dos.info/tools/uv212.zip

http://www.reimagery.com/fsfd/screen.htm#screenmode

Audio

• http://www.reimagery.com/fsfd/sound.htm#midiplayers

• https://www.cubic.org/player/download.html

• https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=37630

|--|---|--|

MIDIplay	Play MIDI files through PC speaker	MIDIplay is a freeware 19K DOS program which plays a MIDI file through a PC's internal speaker. Output is monophonic	no working links found
SBPlay	SND, VOC, WAV, AIF, IFF, RAW sound files player – no sound card required		ftp://ftp.externet.hu/pub/mirror/sac/sound/sbply258.zip
LxVox - Tiny WAV file player (8-bit mono), no sound card required.	http://hplx.pgdn.de/lxvox.zip
PlayWAV 1.0 Quick playing of WAV files	http://www.dreamlandbbs.com/sound/utils/playwav.zip
DOSMid	http://dosmid.sourceforge.net/

GUIs

• OpenGEM

• COSTA graphical shell:

https://github.com/jacobpalm/costa

Menus

Screenshot	Menu Software	Info	Comment
	Moo	Doesn't support LFNs (trips up on ~ character which it uses for internal purposes	https://archive.org/details/moo31
	RLoader
	AutoMenu

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/file/934-launchbox-for-ms-dos-special-edition/

https://github.com/alespergl/slr/releases/tag/v0.1

RLoader

https://github.com/marco-sacchi/RLoader

MS-DOS Tool Alternatives

EDIT: Edit http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Edit

MEM: http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Mem

FREESP - Faster free space/dir listing: https://github.com/ChartreuseK/FREESP

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/dn2.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/doszip.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/fdshell.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/fdtui.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/paint2.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/pgme.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/group-edit.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/ewsnake.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/flpybird.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/vertigo.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/group-gui.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/cal.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/du.html

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dog/

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/foxcalc.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/pdtree.html

https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/Jemm

Prompt Customisation

ANSI.SYS required to be loaded!

• Coloured prompt $e[37m $p

$e[xx;yy;zzm

xx = attribute code, yy = background color code, and zz = foreground color code.

0 Turn Off Attributes
1 High Intensity
2 Normal Intensity
4 Underline (mono only)
5 Blink
7 Reverse Video
8 Invisible
30 Black
31 Red
32 Green
33 Yellow
34 Blue
35 Magenta
36 Cyan
37 White
40 Black
41 Red
42 Green
43 Yellow
44 Blue
45 Magenta
46 Cyan
47 White

• Load ANSI config.sys

  DEVICE = C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS

PROMPT $e[1;32m$p$g$e[m

PROMPT $e[1;32m$p$g$e[m

PROMPT $e[1;31M$p$g$e[0;32m

INVERTED PROMPT $e[7;10m$p$g$e[m

PROMPT $D $B $T$H$H$H $_ $P$G

PROMPT $D $B $T$H$H$H $_ $P$G

• Merry Christmas

prompt $e[1;5;37m  *$_$e[0;32;40m  1$_ $e[1;31;42m u $_$e[33;42m
  x o $e[30;40m$e[K$_  _$_$e[31m MERRY$_CHRISTMAS!$_$e[37m$p$g

prompt $e[1;32;40m  Z$_$e[33;43m   $e[40m$e[K$_$e[43m    $_
  __ $e[37;40m$e[37;40m$e[K$_ BOO!$_$_$e[35m  $p$g$e[37m

prompt
 $e[44;37;5m$e[16C$e[0;44;1;31m$_111$e[36m111$e[31m111$e[3
 5m11 1\]$_$e[32;5mx x x x x x   x$e[0;1;44;37m$e[1A$p$g

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/11073/set-screen-resolution-in-dos-only-pc

Boot menu

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/6801/how-do-i-create-a-boot-menu-to-select-between-windows-and-dos/6802#6802

https://kb.iu.edu/d/aamm

FONTS

FONTEDIT: https://www.uselesssoftware.com/download/fontedit-zip

FontEdit is a program which lets you to modify the font used in DOS Text mode with a VGA adapter. It provides a graphical interface in which you can modify the standard DOS font. It is mouse driven, and cannot be run without a mouse.

https://github.com/viler-int10h/Fontraption

https://github.com/viler-int10h/vga-text-mode-fonts

Hardware

ISA USB adapter (incl mass storage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgtvVi_mjjg

Bracket

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5350142

updated driver (faster)

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1074259#p1074259

http://www.toughdev.com/content/2018/04/usb-flash-drives-on-8-bit-isa-bus-using-ch375-isb-to-usb-adapter/

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=43311

https://monotech.fwscart.com/XTCFMini_Bootable_8bit_ISA_CF_Card_Interface/p6083514_19478750.aspx

parallel-port, Ethernet-to-WiFi connectivity.

🐁 Mouse

http://cutemouse.sourceforge.net/

Applications

TheDraw/AcidDraw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObKua8bdr8

https://dosprograms.info.tt/links.htm

https://winworldpc.com/library/applications/platform-dos

http://www.sysinfolab.com/index.htm PC Tools, CPBackup, Autodesk Animator, VPIC, QPEG, E3 text editor QText EinsteinWriter Scream Tracker 2/3 Impulse Tracker Blaster Master 16 TeleMate Terminate BlueWave DESQview

DOS Navigator

Networking and Internet

http://www.dendarii.co.uk/FAQs/dos-apps.html

SSH

https://github.com/AnttiTakala/SSH2DOS/

Internet

https://github.com/jhhoward/MicroWeb

https://github.com/DrKylstein/retro-proxy - A https to http proxy that allow old browsers to access modern sites, with conversion and compression options.

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

SMB Networking

http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/samba/dos.html

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configuring_FreeDOS_to_Access_a_Samba_Share

http://www.toughdev.com/content/2018/06/using-microsoft-network-client-3-0-for-ms-dos-with-modern-versions-of-windows/

Initialise NIC

C:\LAN\3C509.COM 0x60

NET.EXE - http://www.ka9q.net/code/ka9qnos/

https://syncterm.bbsdev.net/ - SyncTERM is a BBS terminal program

mTCP

http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP.html

Setup

• Create Environment var

SETMTCPCFG=C:\LAN\CONFIG.CFG

• create CONFIG.CFG file (in the folder that SETMTCPCFG points to)

PACKETINT 0x60
IPADDR 192.168.1.99
NETMASK 255.255.255.0
GATEWAY 192.168.1.1
NAMESERVER 192.168.1.2

• DHCP.EXE - Get an IP

DCHP.EXE

• HTTPSERV.EXE

Hosts a web page, eg http://192.168.1.50/index.htm

HTTPSERV -doc_root c:\lan

• FTP

Setup an FTP server, eg Xlight FTP Server

UNSORTED

https://github.com/ChartreuseK/VGASNOW

Necromancer's DOS Navigator, ems/xmsdsk, mfplay, pkzip,

cd-emulation programs fakecd/fakedr so I don't have to mess with disks...

https://github.com/microsoft/GW-BASIC

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=63514

Graphics, Pictures, and Publishing

• Micrografx Designer (poor man's CorelDraw, but even better IMHO)
• Paint Shop Pro
• ACDSee
• Sea Graphics Viewer with support for high resolution video modes. http://www.dcee.net/Files/Graf/sea11gfx.zip
• QPEG-386 (DOS image viewer, VESA support)
• PictView http://www.pictview.com/pictview.zip
• LxPic http://hplx.pgdn.de/lxpic.zip
• ShowJPG http://www.pictview.com/showjpg.zip
• PixView http://www.cs.unibo.it/~rossi/pixview/pixv23.zip
• LWhiz ftp://ftp.sac.sk/sac/graph/lwhiz.zip
• PrintMaster and BannerMania (kind of a very basic publishing programs (banners, greeting cards, etc.)

Office:

• PFS Professional Write Plus (DOS word processor)
• Microsoft Word 2.0
• Microsoft Excel 3.0
• Recognita Select (OCR)
• Ami Pro
• Quatro Pro, from time to time)

Engineering:

• AutoCAD 12 (DOS and Windows 3.1)
• Easyplot
• Matlab 3.5 SE
• Mathcad 6
• Lahey FORTRAN
• QuickBasic

Utilities:

• Stacker
• Colorado Backup
• QEMM
• Norton Utilities
• Checkit Pro
• PCTools
• DiskCopyFast
• F-Prot
• Ontrack Disk Manager
• XTree Gold
• Volkov Commander
• Electronics Workbench
• TreeSize: http://www.cnd.org/HYPLAN/yawei/freesoft.html

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=58922

Arachne web browser:

http://www.glennmcc.org/

Graphics

VMODE

GAMES

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=81589

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=82495

• http://www.pixelships.com/adg/
• https://github.com/viti95/FastDoom
• https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=61035&hilit=t3100&start=160
• The Catacomb Abyss 3D
• LHX attack chopper
• Wings of Fury
• Paganitzu
• Pinball Night Mission
• http://www.mobygames.com/game/mach-3/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopCorn_%28video_game%29
• Colorado,
• Targhan,
• Starblade,
• Metal Mutant - all great 2D games from French developer Silmarils. They all work on both CGA and Hercules
• North & South - ton of fun and local multiplayer possible. CGA & HGC both.
• Prince of Persia - timeless classic. Native CGA and Hercules support.
• Prehistoric - tough as nails, but I have a soft spot for it. Native CGA and Hercules support.
• BlockOut - 3D Tetris clone. Not that great today, but played a hell out of it as a kid. Native CGA and Hercules support.
• Budokan - nostalgia factor mostly for me, but still can be enjoyable in small doses. Native CGA and Hercules support.
• Digger - quick, fun, works via SimCGA (you have to jump through a few hoops) on Herc.
• Sokoban - did not like it too much as a kid, but appreciate logic games more now. Native CGA and Hercules support.
• Korean Dungeon Boy
• Street rod
• Arctic Fox
• OutRun
• California Games
• Pinball Dreams
• https://github.com/nanochess
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6SkrEFcoI
• https://www.youtube.com/c/dosnostalgic/videos

DEMOS

https://www.dropbox.com/s/df1h2w2zapo2kpv/crystfix.zip?dl=0

http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/demo_reviews.html

QBasic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqy7Xfklo7w

https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/222397

http://www.petesqbsite.com/downloads/graphics.shtml

Convert a VirtualBox VM to a physical disk

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage" internalcommands converttoraw DOS-256MB.vdi DOS-256.img

References

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=82258

http://reimagery.com/fsfd/#siteidx

https://www.danielsays.com/ssg-dos.html

http://www.dcee.net/Files/Graf/

https://www.danielsays.com/ssg-dos-mace1.html

https://www.danielsays.com/ssg-dos-fs.html

https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/genres/pcs-and-clones/15399-ms-word-5-5-for-dos-for-free-legally?15238-MS-Word-5-5-for-DOS-for-FREE-(legally)=

https://www.fltk.org/index.php

https://winworldpc.com/product/pc-speaker-driver-wi/pc-speaker-driver-windows-31

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=82258

https://github.com/zerokelvinkeyboard/tachyonos

https://sourceforge.net/projects/michalos/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/zexos/

https://www.mdgx.com/dos.htm#DOS

NewDeal Office 3.2a

http://www.doshaven.eu/released/2007/

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_texteditors

http://www.bttr-software.de/freesoft/

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/english.html

http://mpxplay.sourceforge.net/

https://www.4dos.info/dalter.htm

http://www.resoo.org/docs/dos/free_software/fileman1.htm

http://ndn.muxe.com/

http://dosprograms.info.tt/utils.htm

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos

http://www.reimagery.com/fsfd/#siteidx

https://www.tindie.com/products/theoldnet/rs232-serial-wifi-modem-for-vintage-computers-v3/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S35-jFSMEf8