Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: haywirepc on July 27, 2010, 06:52:02 AM
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If you have or use ms-dos, dr-dos, free-dos, dosemu or dosbox...
Here is something nice that will run on amiga, aros, windows, linux, osx and just about anything else that runs a dos emulator.
If there is interest, I may package this up in some way so that others can use it. It is or at least was open source. What we have here is a program launcher of sorts for dos. It can do 1280x1024 x256 colors on any computer with vga (or dosbox/dosemu of course) I know there is some type of program launcher frontend for dosbox, but I still kind of prefer this. Here we see the Dos gui desktop at 1280x1024 on my vector linux desktop, which is 1600x1200.
www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap1.jpg (http://www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap1.jpg)
Next we see the dos desktop full screen... I realize the icons look boxy, but I'm not sure the icon format supports transparent backgrounds so...
www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap2.jpg (http://www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap2.jpg)
Next we see the desktop again, but a bit cleaner I suppose. The background image can be scaled.
www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap3.jpg (http://www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap3.jpg)
Next, a bit darker or grungier, but cool...
http://www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap5.jpg (http://www.subcultureproductions.com/linux/cap5.jpg)
of course this is just a nice launcher/shell, there is no multi-tasking or
really advanced features. Just looks nice and helps launch programs
fast. When launched, the program starts, dosgui drops out. When you quit the program, you return to dosgui.
Icons can be made any size I suppose, Fonts, background image can be changed. You can create, delete or move
icons however you like. Screen res can be changed, and so on. Interesting anyway... Let me know what you think.
Not bad for basic programming...
Steven
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I like it
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Will this work ok with MorphsOS ?
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Nice one!
Just curious, but can it support 320x200 (VGA Mode 13h) screenmode? :D
Cheers Valentin
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It will do 640x400 x256 colors. I am trying to locate the source code...
Many dos programs won't start due to some dos programs memory requirements. I'm going to see if I can't make the shell dump out of memory completely when a program starts, it would then restart like a dos batch file after the program ends.
Steven
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It will do 640x400 x256 colors. I am trying to locate the source code...
I see. Whilst I can theoretically emulate that through VESA, I think I'll save it for my next hardware revision :)
Many dos programs won't start due to some dos programs memory requirements. I'm going to see if I can't make the shell dump out of memory completely when a program starts, it would then restart like a dos batch file after the program ends.
Are you referring to the conventional memory limitations within DOS? If so you can also try loading the launcher itself into extended/expanded memory upon DOS boot-up. Please ignore if you've already tried this..
Cheers Valentin