FreeGEOS on an XT-class machine?

[Hak Foo]

When I built my NEC V40-based project-machine, one of the biggest achievements for it was being able to run GeoWorks 1.2 on it.

I've heard claims that even the recent FreeGEOS releases are still capable of running in real-mode, but I've been unable to get it off the ground.

It seems to fail in one of two modes:
* Blink the disc light for a few seconds, then go unresponsive. Control-alt-delete may work.
* Blink the light for a few seconds, then drop back to DOS. If you try to launch some software (Ensemble again, or the PC-DOS E editor, for example) the disc light goes on hard and it freezes requiring a hard reset.
* With the "EC" builds, it reported KRX-375 once, which seems to be a "wrong filesystem driver" issue. I've tried changing it to 'ms4' to no avail. I also tried changing the specified graphics driver to 'vga.geo' since I doubt the default, described as 800x600x16-bit colour, is achievable by my 512k Trident 9000.

I've tried using MS-DOS 4.01 instead of PC-DOS 2000, and booting without the unholy nightmare of DOSMAX/USE!UMBS to load stuff high.

I suspect it's possible there are features in the new builds that assume a 286+ system, or maybe it's just configured for a combination of features my machine doesn't have.

If anyone is running it on an actual 8088/8086/188/186/V-series, I'd love to crib your geos.ini and any other tweaks you had to do to hammer it into shape. I know it will be slow (it wasn't as sprightly as 1.2 was even on a 386SX/16 with several megs of memory), but it's more a "look, the dog is talking, who cares if all he wants to talk about is Science Diet" sort of thing.

 

[dieymir]

I cannot help you with this ... but I'm curious Where did you get the FreeGEOS binaries?

 

[Timo W.]

Given that the source code of PC/GEOS is available since 2018 at https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos, what stops you from simply compiling it for the 8088/86/188/186?

 

[Hak Foo]

I got the binaries from https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos/tags.

I guess it's really three questions in one:
* Does GEOS > 1.x actually still support 8088-class machines? I seem to recall claims it didn't anymore.
* Is the "off the shelf" build set up for 8088 machines? I haven't succeeded yet in building it myself, trying to compile OpenWatcom for my particular Linux distro blew up, so maybe I'll try building inside Windows.
* If so, what other knobs should I be turning to try to get it running?

 

[aazard]

Look what I found, I re-posted to reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/1ersxsq/xt_nec_v20v30_ats_using_new_deal_office_2000

Notably: READ THIS 1ST ONE, ABSORB, SERIOUSLY!
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecom...xt_nec_v20v30_ats_using_new_deal_office_2000/
"So, I re-compiled latest FreeGEOS kernel with 32-bit support off and dropped it into NewDeal Office 2000 install. It boots and it works, there is SSL and HTML4 in the browser, and there's PDF that supports PDF 1.0-1.3 and then some. It works with acceptable speed, in fact."
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecom...xt_nec_v20v30_ats_using_new_deal_office_2000/
&
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecom...xt_nec_v20v30_ats_using_new_deal_office_2000/
"Nice bonus: even if MediaViewer doesn't seem to support JPEG files, they can be opened in browser. It is a very big deal for a 286 machine

Multitask ..on the web?

 

[Hak Foo]

Well, dropping the updated geos.geo into a modern FreeGEOS package got to at least bootable and navigating GeoManager. I also had to disable the programs listed in GEOS.INI as "start at launch" or it died with a KR-09 just after going graphical.

Some of the programs died with KR-06 or KR-09 unexpectedly, but there's a fair chance I hosed the install in fun ways trying to coax it into usability before this.

Working from a cleaner install, it seems like removing the TrueType font support at least is also necessary to get it to finish the setup process. This may be the cause of other weirdness (i. e. no fonts in GeoWrite) I wonder if the TTF module also has to be built non-32-bit to work.

 

[aazard]

Well, dropping the updated geos.geo into a modern FreeGEOS package got to at least bootable and navigating GeoManager. I also had to disable the programs listed in GEOS.INI as "start at launch" or it died with a KR-09 just after going graphical.

Some of the programs died with KR-06 or KR-09 unexpectedly, but there's a fair chance I hosed the install in fun ways trying to coax it into usability before this.

Working from a cleaner install, it seems like removing the TrueType font support at least is also necessary to get it to finish the setup process. This may be the cause of other weirdness (i. e. no fonts in GeoWrite) I wonder if the TTF module also has to be built non-32-bit to work.

you boot and navigated GUI in FreeFEOS? ON AN 8088!!??
This was made for direct use with New Deal Office 2000 (try that) its on WinWorld website, free and opensourced with breadbox

If someone wiser in the elder ways of kernel recompiling/etc, can give this a pass, we have a "modern" OS for 8088 XT's with 256kb+(less/more??, 640kb min?? unsure I need an XT to test) ram, with a functional "Office Suite" & "SSL/HTML4" web browser to boot!

Anything from New Deal Office, past the web browser "skipper", is also free for use in FreeGEOS (is it not?) for an "XT compatible update"?

 

[aazard]

PS, on this topic check out:
DOS GUI FOR 8088 XT - COSTA
see 7m20sec for it on an XT

Works on, Website/Github info out of date:
- A 8088 or better CPU (386 recommended)
- EGA (64KB or more VRAM required) VGA mode removed (was uneeded vram hog)
- A recommended minimum of 200 KB available memory while running Costa.

 

[Hak Foo]

you boot and navigated GUI in FreeFEOS? ON AN 8088!!??
This was made for direct use with New Deal Office 2000 (try that) its on WinWorld website, free and opensourced with breadbox

If someone wiser in the elder ways of kernel recompiling/etc, can give this a pass, we have a "modern" OS for 8088 XT's with 256kb+(less/more??, 640kb min?? unsure I need an XT to test) ram, with a functional "Office Suite" & "SSL/HTML4" web browser to boot!

Anything from New Deal Office, past the web browser "skipper", is also free for use in FreeGEOS (is it not?) for an "XT compatible update"?

Technically, I did it on a NEC V40, which is closest to an 80188; it might be using some of the 186-class instructions.

 

[Hak Foo]

Just as an update, I noticed the "missing font" problem may be partially remediable. The FreeGEOS repository contains a few .fnt files in FontData (https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos/tree/master/FontData) and it seemed like adding those to /ensemble/userdata/fonts helped. GeoWrite would launch with a font in the dropdown and not using the default UI font for text. Of course, next thing I tried to open (Perf) just froze hard.

I found it was easier to get the build process working on a Win10 install than Linux, but I still have no clue what the special sauce used in the custom kernel is. Actually broke down and ASKED.

 

[Zare]

Can't seem to get this working, as I can't get it to switch the VGA driver off.
The Newdeal 2000 exits with "no compatible video hardware off", cga.geo driver is in there, if I put it in geos.ini same thing. Per README if autodetect fails I should manually install the CGA loadercg.exe but such file is not found by installer, neither are loaderec or whatever it is for EGA. Possibly the reason why setup didn't install the proper loader in the first place.

I'm using disks found on Winworld.

With FreeGEOS there is no mention of loaders and video section isn't in README, so I guess it's all automatic. The machine just hangs. I'm also not certain which FreeGEOS artifact should I download for XT, _ec, _loc, or _nc.

Both systems I replaced geos.geo per https://tech.lgbt/@nina_kali_nina/111653827347219206. I'm running V20 at 4.77MHz with 640kB RAM. Ultimately I want to load att6300.geo as video driver but for test reasons cga.geo should suffice.