FreeDOS kernel build 2033
31 Jan 2004 by jhall
Bart Oldeman has released the latest version of the FreeDOS kernel: The newest FreeDOS kernel is up at sourceforge now, at the usual places. The emphasis for this release was on fixing bugs. The short list of changes: (bugs fixed:) - 1712 findfirst returns wrong filename[0] in TP 7 - 1722 "COPY X+Y Z" which makes drive overfull causes corruption - 1729 int21 func 3d (open handle) doesn't work for char device - 1730 int 0x21 func 0x44 (ioctl) has problem with char devices - 1737 external stdin stdout filter fails in BP7 IDE (grep2msg) - fix when DosUpChar() is called via CharMapSrvc with DS != SS - ctty now works without funny characters repairing onscreen. - sys corrects sectors/track, head and hidden sector values in the boot sector when appropriate - FAT32 kernels now ignore the high word of cluster numbers on FAT16 partitions (as they should) - Use a table so that FATs won't be too big for FAT32 partitions. - Improve FAT size calculations - fix problem with creating r/o files - fix int2f/ax=1216. Affects Artz Praxis Wiegand, a German program for medical doctors. - fixes for multisegmented device drivers, in particular DUSE - fix FCB problems with int21/ah=27,28 (RandomBlockIO) - fix boot sector problems with largish FAT12 partitions. (new features:) - sys now has a /L option to specify the kernel load segment - the SET command is now supported in config.sys. - allow 0 as a menu item in fullscreen menus - the kernel prints a message to run chkdsk if it ever has to encounters invalid cluster numbers in the FAT - added (basic) support for the following int2f functions: ax=1211h NORMALIZE ASCIZ FILENAME ax=1220h (get job file table entry). also affects APW. ax=4a33h CHECK MS-DOS VERSION 7; necessary for SpinRite (Steve Gibson). This release is also available at ibiblio.

New UDMA 6.8 is out
31 Jan 2004 by jhall
Lucho writes to announce: the new UDMA 6.8 is out (see web site). Besides the ubiquitous optimisations, the main news in it is that especially for some badly written BIOS's pretending to meet but *not* meeting the EDD standard, a special hardware-only scan mode has been added. If anyone can test it on the latest Intel south bridge, 82801EB (ICH-5), please do so. We're pretty confident that it'll work, but our beta-tester with such a chip vanished and we'd like to add this chip to our "hardware compatibility list" (HCL). A .zip version of this release has also been mirrored at ibiblio.

FORMAT 0.91n released (updated)
28 Jan 2004 by jhall
Eric Auer writes: Hi, at format-0.91n.zip you can now find FreeDOS FORMAT 0.91n. Changes: made the changes from 0.91m to 0.91M official (extra Win98 checks), added /Z:longhelp for extra verbose (3 screen pages long) help screen, added some floppy tweaking (the old 720k in 1440k drive problem). I am told that 0.91m did work for 360k (only seems to work if you use an HD medium if drive is 1200k???), 400k, 1200k, 1440k, 1680k, 1743k. The tester has an 1200k and an 1440k drive, so no idea about performance on 360k and 720k drives. Chances are that 720k in 1440k drive still does not work, but you never know (just added some more tweaks!). [..] I need TESTERS and I have the bad feeling that running FORMAT under Win98 kernel still creates BROKEN filesystems! I only HOPE that it got better, but got no feedback yet. By the way, at least on MY system, 720k in 1440k drive still does not work (lowlevel format, that is - if you formatted to 720k with something else, the quick / logical format should actually work...). (Read more..) This has also been mirrored at ibiblio.
Update: (30 Jan 2004) Eric has posted an update to this version of FORMAT: I have uploaded FORMAT 0.91n again. The changes are: - floppy format gives up earlier on track 0 troubles; - floppy format diagnostics now are less verbose; - saving mirror / unformat data gives up earlier on write errors. So basically it is the same FORMAT but it is less verbose esp. in /D mode. If you downloaded FORMAT 0.91n, you should grab the latest update.

Slight EDIT update - EDIT 0.7a
24 Jan 2004 by jhall
Eric Auer has posted an updated to the FreeDOS Edit program. Eric writes: Hi, I have modified EDIT a bit. Changes: New hotkeys ^N new ^O open ^S save Time display should now use country setting to decide am/pm & 24h display and proper separator (e.g. 23.59.59 & 11:59:59pm), blinking got fixed and alignment of time display for 1-digit hour values got fixed. A crash when displaying an error message for files >64000 bytes got fixed. Hope all fixes really do what they should do . Changed source files: readme, edit.lsm, edit.txt (source of edit.hlp), message.c (clock), dflat.h (version string), menus.c (new hotkeys), editbox.c (exclude new hotkeys from verbatim typing), calendar.c (now displays sth. like "ctrl-f4 to close"), edit.c (big file error message). edit07a.zip This has also been mirrored at ibiblio.

DOSEMU 1.2.0 released
20 Jan 2004 by jhall
DOSEmu is, of course, a PC emulator geared especially for DOS, so you can run your DOS applications under a UNIX system like Linux. DOSEmu version 1.2.0 has just been posted! Bart Oldeman writes: This release fixes many bugs (including security-related issues if DOSEMU is suid root) with respect to the previous stable release. It has easier configuration and installation from source, Unicode support, joystick support, fullscreen support in X, xterm mouse support (including Putty), large file support for file locking, and shows the running DOS program in X and xterm title bars. Many improvements were made to the DPMI support, sound support (SB16/Midi), VGA emulation in X, console support, networking(TUN/TAP), PIC emulation, terminal support, and I/O performance. Refer to www.dosemu.org/stable for more details.

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