I finally got round to publishing a version 1.0 of my long-running hobby project: a bootable DOS live USB image with tools for writers, providing a distraction-free writing environment.
This is very rushed and the instructions are incomplete. Only FAT16 for now; FAT32 coming real soon now.
GitHub - lproven/usb-dos: Usable DOS-based live USB media
Usable DOS-based live USB media. Contribute to lproven/usb-dos development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
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Samuel π
in reply to Liam Proven • • •Liam Proven
in reply to Samuel π • • •@samuel A big reason is that the available selection of console mode writing tools is awful, whereas there are lots of superb ones for DOS.
I personally wouldn't wish Vim or Emacs on anybody. I know they have many fans, but I detest them both. David Given's WordGrinder is about the only one.
Samuel π
in reply to Liam Proven • • •fair enough.
I really like vim but as a developer I'm very biased.
Pendell π TFF
in reply to Samuel π • • •Liam Proven
in reply to Pendell π TFF • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Liam Proven • •@lproven @Samuel my partner uses joe rather than vim like a normal person :D because it has almost the same keybindings as wordpress, which he was used to from turbo pascal under dos.
my fingers require vi-like keybindings, however, so I don't have personal experience :)
edit: I meant wordstar, of course
Liam Proven likes this.
Liam Proven
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Liam Proven • •Liam Proven likes this.
Liam Proven
Unknown parent • • •Liam Proven
in reply to Liam Proven • • •I already thought of an enhancement for version 1.1: add Robert Sawyer's version of WordStar...
sfwriter.com/blog/?p=5806
Thoughts?
Robert J. Sawyer Β» Blog Archive Β» WordStar for DOS 7.0 Archive
sfwriter.comtekhedd
in reply to Liam Proven • • •Thoughts?!?
OK, in order:
1) You're completely insane!
2) Well not completely
3) I'm boosting this
Liam Proven
Unknown parent • • •Jim Hall of the FreeDOS project tried it recently, and found importing the files into anything modern tricky.
technicallywewrite.com/2023/08β¦
I had a _very_ quick look for a download and didn't find anything. Do you know of anywhere?
Technically We Write
technicallywewrite.comStewart Russell
in reply to Liam Proven • • •> Protext is installed in the root directory, in C:\PROTEXT
Yassss! Protext remains the best
Liam Proven
in reply to Stewart Russell • • •@scruss I knew someone somewhere would love that.
IIRC Jo Walton is a big fan and writes exclusively in Protext.
jowaltonbooks.com/about-jo-walβ¦
About Jo Walton | Jo Walton -- Science Fiction and Fantasy Author
www.jowaltonbooks.comStewart Russell
in reply to Liam Proven • • •I had it on EPROM for my 464, then slowly went up through Amiga and PC versions
It's a shame that the good version of the manual was lost, and it only really lives via the Wayback Machine
Liam Proven
in reply to Liam Proven • • •I've now added the promised FAT32 version, which has ended up considerably smaller.
The wiki now has one whole page -- count it! -- of documentation!
Alice Averlongπ³οΈββ§οΈ
in reply to Liam Proven • • •Liam Proven reshared this.
Pendell π TFF
in reply to Liam Proven • • •@foone What a lovely project! I'll definitely have to stick this on an old flash drive or better yet something weird like a FAT32-formatted DVD-RAM disc to ensure it breaks π€£ which then makes me curious if adding external devices to save to is supported?
Cool as heck project!
Liam Proven
in reply to Pendell π TFF • • •@pendell @foone Thanks!
I have experimented quite a bit since I started fiddling with this. I had the FOSS DR-DOS Enhancement Project disk images booting in VMs back then:
liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/β¦
So, yes. This disk image boots fine in a VM and it should run fine if copied to a primary partition on HDD or SSD. (You'll need to `FDISK /MBR` the whole drive, though.)
If it's presented with additional readable volumes, it will mount them as drives D:, E:, F: etc.
I haven't tried booting it from an optical disk, but it should do. Then it could access any FAT volumes.
The thing to beware of is this: the BIOS is doing the heavy lifting of translating USB devices for DOS. It *won't* be able to access additional USB drives on its own. If they're present for the BIOS to enumerate when DOS boots, _maybe..._ but I wouldn't count on it.
Thomas Dorr
in reply to Liam Proven • • •Liam Proven
in reply to Thomas Dorr • • •@thomasdorr There's occasionally discussion about this on the FreeDOS mailing list.
I reckon it would be doable with a 386 memory manager on steroids, plus a copy of SeaBIOS. Mostly, though, the developers say no way. And they know much more than I do!
Liam Proven
in reply to Thomas Dorr • • •@thomasdorr If on the other hand you were thinking of creating a lightweight Linux distribution just to run DOS apps, then go for it. I suggest taking a look at the way HP did it.
blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-verβ¦
The very weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option β Interesting things
blog.tmm.cxThomas Dorr
in reply to Liam Proven • • •Liam Proven
Unknown parent • • •@withaveeay The thing is, Microsoft is very much alive and well... and highly litigious.
MS *gave away* Word 5.5 for DOS as a Y2K fix for all previous versions. It's freeware. But sadly Word 6 is not.