I basically had this setup back in the day. I don't really know how I ended up with it, I was 7 at the time and none of it was intentional - but my bootloader had two entries: I could boot into Windows 98, or I could boot into Worms.
As far as I know, Worms is a normal DOS game, so the only way for that to happen should be a DOS install configured to just auto-start Worms on boot. Which makes sense as a way to keep a kid away from anything that could cause trouble.
I very vaguely recall that there used to be a very few PC games that worked as boot floppies and possibly didn't use DOS at all, but it was a rarity and Worms definitely wasn't one.
No, I set it up. My parents were non-technical. I had a CD-ROM re-release of Worms for DOS from one gaming magazine or another. I guess the installer set it up somewhere somehow but I remember it wasn't easy to get it installed and there were further problems trying to launch it. It's possible the installer itself was a DOS program, not a Windows program.
BIOS can only manage VESA which is much much slower than the capabilities of a modern GPU, so they might have meant graphical performance in regards to that.
Perhaps not serious, but I think people gravitate towards older systems these days because they are easier to conceptualize. It's not unrealistic for a single person to have a complete grasp of e.g. the C64 and it's programming environment. DOS is similarly constraint, but also easier for you to form a more or less complete mental model around.
Some people love computers and making them do weird stuff, older computers make certain tasks feel more manageable.
Most computers in Turkey come with FreeDOS preinstalled because there's a law that states all computers must be sold with an operating system. FreeDOS turns out to be the cheapest and easiest.
That's why you don't let people who have never touched a computer write tech laws. You get results like this.
(FWIW: I suspect there are more than a few old industrial control systems and such out there that are still running DOS, just because of an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude)
I think this PR is awesome, and I can totally see myself playing around with this at some point. Being able to create DOS executables of SDL projects is just ... cool!
But I do wonder about the practicality. This would, I presume (never done DOS development, never touched a memory extender) only run on 386+ CPUs, and maybe more importantly, probably require a newer CPU than that to run anything non-trivial at acceptable performance. So I wonder how many "real DOS machines" this can practically target.
SDL is written in C. So it can support it without too much trouble. And some people are compiling stuff to run on DOS. So it makes sense. And your objection doesn't hold any water.
All that's left now is SDL for UEFI, and then all our games can run in a pre-OS environment.
Well… UEFI is kind of modern DOS.
That honestly sounds amazing. Imagine booting into something like a grub menu that's just a list of classic games.
I basically had this setup back in the day. I don't really know how I ended up with it, I was 7 at the time and none of it was intentional - but my bootloader had two entries: I could boot into Windows 98, or I could boot into Worms.
It's a similar idea, but that's a DOS menu. At the point when the menu appears, MS-DOS 7.1 has already been loaded.
Probably your parents setting it up?
As far as I know, Worms is a normal DOS game, so the only way for that to happen should be a DOS install configured to just auto-start Worms on boot. Which makes sense as a way to keep a kid away from anything that could cause trouble.
I very vaguely recall that there used to be a very few PC games that worked as boot floppies and possibly didn't use DOS at all, but it was a rarity and Worms definitely wasn't one.
No, I set it up. My parents were non-technical. I had a CD-ROM re-release of Worms for DOS from one gaming magazine or another. I guess the installer set it up somewhere somehow but I remember it wasn't easy to get it installed and there were further problems trying to launch it. It's possible the installer itself was a DOS program, not a Windows program.
I bet it wasn't actually the bootloader but something with autoexec.bat - you could setup choices in it and windows was just one launch option.
Well, if you treat DOS as a bootloader for Windows 98 - which it was actually - then modifying autoexec.bat would count as setting up the bootloader.
I would guess a modern BIOS chip is as powerful as an NES, right?
You can do substantially more in UEFI than NES-level games. (See https://uefi.org/specs/UEFI/2.9_A/12_Protocols_Console_Suppo...)
What do you mean by "BIOS chip"? Like, the flash memory that stores the motherboard's firmware? I don't think that contains any processing elements.
BIOS can only manage VESA which is much much slower than the capabilities of a modern GPU, so they might have meant graphical performance in regards to that.
This is an especially funny screenshot as DosBOX itself is built on SDL.
Hm, then we need dosbox running in dos!
even better, windows running in dos.
oh wait...
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.0)
Awesome. I wonder how this would work with a 386+ targeted MS-DOS executable from FreeBASIC, which supports binding to SDL.
[1] - https://github.com/freebasic/fbc
Perfect! I was just doing some Turbo C development inside DOSBox-X inside Debian GNU/Linux inside VMware Fusion inside macOS this morning.
you may also enjoy watching Inception then :)
Technically this already worked with HXDOS, which emulated DirectDraw well enough that SDL could use it.
Good - now we can play more DOS games again!
I got really confused and thought this was sdf, I only read the comments and none of them made sense
Well I guess Allegra was a bit old already /s
I loved Allegra! Saved me a lot of time when I was writing code for our musicdisk. That was 29 years ago though. :)
Uhm... excuse me? Why? Is there anyone even using DOS for anything serious these days?
Perhaps not serious, but I think people gravitate towards older systems these days because they are easier to conceptualize. It's not unrealistic for a single person to have a complete grasp of e.g. the C64 and it's programming environment. DOS is similarly constraint, but also easier for you to form a more or less complete mental model around.
Some people love computers and making them do weird stuff, older computers make certain tasks feel more manageable.
Most computers in Turkey come with FreeDOS preinstalled because there's a law that states all computers must be sold with an operating system. FreeDOS turns out to be the cheapest and easiest.
That's why you don't let people who have never touched a computer write tech laws. You get results like this.
The really weird case is where the computer isn't actually compatible with DOS, so they put in a locked-down Linux distro that emulates FreeDOS.
Wasn't it Dell or HP that did this? IIRC it was FreeDOS-on-QEMU-on-X11-on-Linux.
Those types of laws aren't all that bad.. they got us this: https://segaretro.org/Dottori_Kun
Is there a reason they don't go with Ubuntu or something like that instead?
I guess they don't want to get support's call. DOS looks like firmware for non techies.
Because it's fun, at least for certain folks? Crazy, right?
Who said anything about "serious"?
(FWIW: I suspect there are more than a few old industrial control systems and such out there that are still running DOS, just because of an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude)
The real question is "why not?" :)
I think this PR is awesome, and I can totally see myself playing around with this at some point. Being able to create DOS executables of SDL projects is just ... cool!
But I do wonder about the practicality. This would, I presume (never done DOS development, never touched a memory extender) only run on 386+ CPUs, and maybe more importantly, probably require a newer CPU than that to run anything non-trivial at acceptable performance. So I wonder how many "real DOS machines" this can practically target.
Still, it is massively cool.
There used to be stock exchanges running happily on DOS. Maybe there still are.
Most use Linux now, and specifically RHEL. I did see some IBM z, but that was specifically for one old DB that handled oil pipeline stuff.
Worked at an exchange in 2007/2008 and... we had systems still running from the 80s. Mostly tape audit stuff.
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SDL is written in C. So it can support it without too much trouble. And some people are compiling stuff to run on DOS. So it makes sense. And your objection doesn't hold any water.
because you can