VB_INFO.TXT in folder vb in dosbosex.zip and dosboxex.iso NEW CRAZY SPEEDS WITH F3 -- THE VIBE VERSION (V.B.) Written by Aristo Tacoma (with L.A.H.) February 12, 2012. ******************************UPDATED!!!**************************** UPDATE FEBRUARY 13, A DAY OF LUCK!!! START INSIDE THE THIS "VIBE" VERSION OF F3 WITH COMMAND F3V INSTEAD OF F3 AND BY USING SOME PROGRAMS WITH COPYRIGHTS DOCUMENTED IN THE FIRTH PLATFORM, WE HAVE TWEAKED A PERFECT EXIT FROM MOST F3 GRAPHICS INTO TEXT!!! THIS F3V IS NOW WHAT THE VIBE PLATFORM STARTS UP AUTOMATICALLY. THIS HAS RESULTED IN ONE LINE ADDED TO FIC3.TXT IN FILE FIC3VIBE.TXT, WHICH IS WHAT THE F3V STARTS. IN DOSBOX KEEP ON STARTING WITH F3. WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE EARLIER VB_INFO.TXT UNCHANGED. ---> BE ALSO SURE TO CHECK AT norskesites.org/fic3 AND THE SAME AT moscowsites.org/fic3 FOR vt_ftp.txt AND OTHER INFO SLIGHTLY IMPROVING ON SOME OF THE COMMENTS IN WHAT FOLLOWS, BUT WHAT FOLLOWS IS ESSENTIALLY FULLY CORRECT ONLY IT NOW WORKS EVEN BETTER WITH THOSE EXTRA UPDATES. THE F3V COMMAND IS NOW PART OF THE dosboxex.iso & .zip CONTINUED GOOD LUCK TO YOU!!! *************************UPDATED!!!************************************ Any F3 enthusiast have gotta give the virtualization mode a chance, sooner or later (regardless of how totally we agree that the word 'virtual' can, and indeed has been, overused in this case ;) WHAT MIGHT BE REALLY EXCELLENT IN VB FOR F3: Speed of all textual and numeric processing. Stability of graphics during fast graphics with mouse. WHAT IN PRESENT VB-VERSIONS MAY BE A QUESTION: Exit of some graphics programs by a highly unorthodox method ;) PcSpeaker may simply be absent. MAKE A POINT OF LEARNING: How to do FTP with equal ease as a file manager for files going in and out of the VB. How to get fullscreen mode on and off (right-ctr F) and also how to click the mouse into the page and (by right-ctr) release it so as to better align it to the 1024*768 F3 screen. WHO IS THIS TEXT FOR? This is a text that attempts to make something complex easy enough that nontechnical but very patient folks can do it. The complexity level is so that we had to write in part while trying it out on several PCs, and we realised that the complexity can be reduced by providing a bit more ready files and a bit more standardised downloads of free software than first were planned. So pls overlook if there are any contradictions in this text, by reading it several times you will probably get the clear and good understanding of just how to get this going, and be forgiving about the hopefully minor confusions and contradictions in this text. THANKS! :-) This text is dedicated to honoring the good work at www.freedos.org of an open source GNU GPL licensed free software (consult www.gnu.org) be having a clear room in allowing Lisa GJ2 Fic3 programming language to run under the free program at www.virtualbox.org. In order to minimize the chance of confusion between version numbers we do as we have done with Dosbox, which is licensed on the same principles, and that is to provide the whole set of files for www.freedos.org platform ABSOLUTELY UNCHANGED with all copyright notices etc intact. We then provide the solution of many hours of work to get it to work on a variety of platforms as magically beautifully as possible with the Lisa GJ2 Fic3 programming language and with the task of getting the file transfer in and out of VirtualBox when it runs native Dos in order, which is solved by the suggestions given at the Freedos sourceforge.net wiki page but which nevertheless can result in dozens of complicated hours of messing about as there are slight things not said there which come out differently on some platforms, and which it requires more than medium level of insight into the things to solve. A bit of background first. The dosbox74 is the primary and perfect way of doing first-hand Lisa GJ2 Fic3 programming. Some programs, notably WT WildTone, and heavy graphics, deserve a bit more monitor stability and a bit more speed. There is a lot more stability to WT.TXT in VirtualBox, and there is a little bit more speed to F3 in VirtualBox compared to Dosbox. It is however still much an emulation in many ways despite the hype. So, one step back in terms of getting a grander picture: VB? What is this all about? It is a way that I would only advice those who are either VERY eager on getting more speed with F3 to do -- or VERY eager to get the WildTone WT program to work to maximal satisfaction -- OR those who have such technical competence that they don't think this installation is staggering. I have to say that Oracle's VirtualBox from www.virtualbox.org is a product that deserves praise no matter what. It is however not tailormade to run such as www.freedos.org and so this and that and the other thing requires a little bit more effort. These more or less entirely open source products must be given support by all who are in love with first-hand programming, for they open up new avenues for use of Personal Computers whether they have GNU/Linux or MsWindows on them. If you know you want this but doubt you can do it technically then use Dosbox with F3 for all its worth first. Get to learn as much as you can about dos commands and look around in settings and this and that. The people who have worked out the www.freedos.org have worked, I think it is right to say, often entirely driven on the foundation of enthusiasm (and not all that much money) of -- statistically -- very very few, and so one must accomodate a whole lot of rather technical-sounding language and so on. But what with one thing and another, it turns out that these guys have made most things such that at most complex questions, a simple LINESHIFT followed by a simple Y or YES or selection of the first entry by such as the number "1" is all it takes to answer by far most of the installation questions. The tricky point is if there is even one big technical adjustment omitted which for a big majority of platforms (except perhaps those these guys used) is the whole key to get it to work at all! And so it turns out that you may want some extra help after all, not just answer all the menues by lineshift and hope for the best. The information linked to at the download section of www.freedos.org is however chock-full of additional info. What I will do here is to try and say everything in words on how to get VB up. See ("HOW TO GET VB UP") at the completion of this document, after pondering on all things in it, and there is no promise there isn't some kind of thing I have said a bit wrongly here, as we had to write this after many hours of testing and adjusting all sorts of things on many computers and there is always the risk then that one doesn't get all info re-represented correct. But then it is to be hoped that by finding the right page in the documentation either at www.freedos.org and its sourceforge.net links it links to, or by searching for more dos or virtualbox products at sourceforge.net, or by looking into (the more general) info at www.virtualbox.org, you will get exactly the correction or added info you need. So, still more background -- and the completing paragraph is entitled, as said, HOW TO GET VB UP. This one begins with the newest www.norskesites.org/fic3 or www.moscowsites.org/fic3 dosboxex.iso, and points to our download of www.freedos.org (and to freedos.org itself), and to www.virtualbox.org (for such as Fedora and MsWin) and tell you how to blend the three in a hopefully winning Lisa GJ2 Fic3 combination. The dosboxex.iso has the same files as dosboxex.zip exactly, but in the form of what can look like a CDROM to VB. And that is the only way of getting anything into the 'bare' VB when we have just readied it with the standard FreeDOS. I first bring here a copy of the info lines in the startup file for Oracle VirtualBox when it runs FreeDOS in the present version, with F3 -- it gives a lot of info -- and the extra info here is how to get it work given a first-time installation of www.virtualbox.org and www.freedos.org on any of the most-used platforms and it seems to work on most at least fairly compatible Personal Computers. There are SOME applications in F3 that require extra handling of speed -- also, extra handling of mouse speed / graphics, either for these applications to be pleasant to use, or for them to be clearly useful at all. And a case in point is the WildTone drawing program which has no bugs yet after issues with Dosbox made us look with interest at this alternative way of doing it. But here is the condensed startup info we've prepared. Have a good look at it -- the word 'echo' means 'print this info text', so ignore it, and the question-mark ? in front of F3 at the completing line means 'Ask whether a startup of F3 is to occur next'. cd \boehm\boehmian echo GREAT WELCOMES!!! to F3 in a dos (www.freedos.org) w/VirtualBox.org!!! echo With VB on most platforms, after graphics F3 (with files saved while echo within the graphics, of course), press RIGHT-CTR R for FULL restart echo of the graphical dos as VB (present ver.) is handling only its start. echo Use only LEFT-CTR for F3-program-work. RIGHT-CTR mouse-(un)capture, echo R-CTR F fullscreen for some videocards, R-CTR HOME for CDROM mount. echo VB on any fast PC is way too fast for 1st-hand F3. The WT works here, echo -- the artistic WT.TXT program that tends to need more than Dosbox. echo VB emulates native Dos videocard a bit like Dosbox but some parts of echo VB fluxes through direct calls to the processor and so speeds all up. echo Disk is handled so that we usually must call on FTP inside the PC. echo This however work wonderfully fast once you have got settings right. echo [[[Bit info is in ABOUT_VB.TXT from now on inside the dosboxex echo in the subfolder VB alongside some files incl. AUTOEXEC.BAT, MTCP.CFG echo and (edit to set a username / pw) FTPPASS.TXT to help you echo going quickly up with VB.]]] Some example editor commands: echo The program :XXXLT IN can be started if you wish to stay in text echo mode. Or try B9 then RCTR-F in fullscreen then RCTR-R reset. ATwLAH ?f3 So a workaround, then, is that you make use of the very very fast startup of VB by its right-ctrl R key instead of going back to text mode when running a graphical application. For instance, this text is written in the B9 editor. We save this text, then, clicking ESC, the program attempts to exit. This we help by clicking RCTR-R, and we then work onwards -- checking that the file is correctly saved and all. It will be saved then to a disk file called .vbi which also contains all other files in a bundled format, rather as a disk-represented-as-a-file. To get files out of this one, and into this one, all the time dos is not oriented towards USB flashdisks nor oriented towards writing on real or imagined CD-RW drives or anything like that has been worked through by the FreeDOS folks in their SourceForge wiki link and, though I had to work through all sorts of things to get it to work before I changed a setting in the Oracle VirtualBox settings menu, and though it seems to be hopelessly complex if one gives that description a first quick look as it presently stands, it is in fact -- surprisingly -- a magnficent and fast and elegant solution to use FTP within the computer, starting up a normal FTP program in the surrounding platform and a neat program called FTPSRV inside the VB. Using the a graphical FTP program -- any one you like -- to access the VB files, both reading and writing and by folder management and what have you, it works fast and effortless. You may have to turn of such as a Firewall to get it going. The FTP address you give is of course a kind of number. This number is told you by the startup-process when you get it to work. HOW TO GET VB UP *1*** Get the dosboxex.iso and the fd_std.iso from my site at norskesites.org/f3. Save this .iso file to an easily recognisable place on your harddisk such as a top folder on a main drive called something like backup1 The VirtualBox.org product will maybe prompt you several times if you remove a file that you have mounted as possible CD without informing VB again, in the menues. In general, if you follow the advices here you should be able to do just fine by just click on the "Don't give this message again" that comes several times when VB is starting up. After all, it is only trying to help. ;-) *2*** Go to www.virtualbox.org and pick the most suitable download for the platform. If you are about to install any Linux and wonder which, choose a 32-bit if it is available, as these have more wide compatibility. Make a note of which version it is and, naturally, check that it is in the virtualbox.org list, if you have the fortune to do this at the same time. I advise www.fedoraproject.org and www.centos.org and only as bridge over to more open programming versions of Linux, from an MsWindows platform, do I advice such as Ubuntu but Ubuntu may crack passwords locking a hardware to an MsWindows platform better; a PC should never be locked by passwords -- it is an immoral thing to lock a personal computer in its hardware just to push out a competitor. A computer is supposed to be something that can be programmed. Having an alternative operating system is part of programming the computer you have bought. Nobody has a moral right to exclude programming of your own computer in order to run a free platform that you have righteously obtained. It is moral to have computers free from passwords, and it is not necessary to close out other operating systems to make operation on internet as safe as meaningfully can be, so it is entirely right that Personal Computers should be as standard as possible, and as near to the Y2000 standard (which did run Red Hat 8.0 perfectly and also my own Firth platform which derived from a much earlier form of Freedos) as possible. VirtualBox.org is, together with Dosbox.org, and other products I have not looked into such as Dosemu, part of an enterprise to protect the NOTION of a classical 1024*768 IBM PC compatible personal computer of the 32-bit kind with some dozens of megabyte corresponding to the year 2000 principles, more or less. And we should aim at buying computers that are like this even if PC's which are reduced so as to merely run a particular version of a particular commercial platform is a bit more inexpensive. Note that you can select in VirtualBox.org that you do not want auto-updates for new versions. It may be a way to protect the compatibility of what you have got to work, that, in this case where we are blessedly free from all internet virus concerns as we focus on running on a standalone PC with internet cable plugged out and any wireless switched off (generally speaking, so as to get to focus on good programming and serious depth work without all the time getting an influx of net noise), we do not have to have the newest versions just to 'patch holes' against viruses and so on that goes on all the time in the browser market. *3*** Install www.virtualbox.org where you write as name of the operating system FreeDOS, and you accept that it proposes that this is a 'DOS' type of O.S. (I mean, install the program you fetched from www.virtualbox.org by something like double-clicking on it and typing in any administrator passwords if your platform requires this for installation. Do that, REBOOT THE PHYSICAL PC, and start program. It allows you to go straight ahead and make 'virtual machines'.) Accept all standard settings in the first run except that, sooner or later in the menu, when it asks whether you want fixed sized or dynamically changed size you select (unless you have to save disk space) FIXED SIZE and when the slider comes up and you can select which size, you select 30 gigabyte, no more, but less if you have to (it is important to respect that limits are part of what drives DOS, at least some versions of DOS, ie too big things can stop it). If you have to, you can go back and change most settings afterwards. That includes for some PCs which tend to overheat (check this always with new installations the first hours and first days, that touching can be very hot but not frying hot, and for any laptop, make sure you have free air flowing under it and near all areas with fans -- or it will simply cease operation after some days) -- that you can adjust CPU processor speed to such as 40 percent. A suggestion: play around with the Settings menu so you know its language without adjusting anything initially. *4*** Exit the VirtualBox program and start it up and then double-click on the symbol for the Freedos virtual machine. It will give a wizard startup menu, turn off all such things. Just look at it -- it will give a nice message about 'fatal error' in big letters for nothing is installed, but look at the text, get the feel for it. It is sure lookin' like the real thing. Try the right-click F back and forth; try just right-lick (or click) to get mouse back when you click it into the area, and try right-click home for menues while it is fullscreen, if that works with your card at least in the emulated text mode, and also try right-click R, which does a full quick reset. *5*** Exit the VirtualBox, start it up again, and open up the Devices menu it has somewhere, and get the folder backup1 or what you called it, where you saved that freedos fd_std.iso file and start going with it. Play around with that menu until you get it right. This one is lookin' like a CD to the program. So we are going to find the place in the Settings menu called BOOT SEQUENCE and check that the CD is right there, rather on top of the list. When we are bored with installation -- in other words, when we have done it, and it works, -- then get into this Settings menu and throw away that CD and the emulated floppy from BOOT SEQUENCE so that the VirtualBox won't try to reinstall the fd_iso.iso into its little virtual disk again and again. Having got these things right, do the R-CTR R which you so easily do, one could almost say it is a thing you do with your left hand except of course, that would be a bit peculiar. It is exactly NOT a thing you do with your left hand. But it is good to know about the power of R-CTR R to reset the virtualbox so that you do not without intention that is conscious and clear do a reset of the VB when you work on creating important new files and haven't got around to save them yet. You may also at once try to learn a very beautiful thing about VB -- that you can close the main VB window and allow the virtual machine to keep on running. This will also very minutely save some processing energy. *6*** By starting up the boot-iso stuff within VB, you are getting an option to create/partition disk, and you are getting -- as another option that you can get to by moving with arrows on the keyboard, then clicking ENTER after any one of them when you are sure which one you want -- an option to boot from harddisk, and also install to harddisk. We first need to create/partition disk. This looks complex but thankfully the FreeDOS folks have made it easy in action, despite the complexity of the text output. It is essentially a matter of lineshifts, an occasional Y or YES, and to select the number 1 option on any menu present. ENGLISH KEYBOARD IN THE DOS ALTERNATIVES WORKS BEST. Just simply answer all in the affirmative this way -- and the acbracabra will then be that you have 'created a primary DOS partition and you have set it to be active'. You then exit that program -- at the moment I don't recall whether that is by ESC or by a menu selection -- and the info is slung into the virtual disk, and a reset is then the correct thing. This either happens by itself or you do it by RCTR-R again. IT IS NORMAL THAT DURING FREEDOS INSTALLATION IN VB THERE WILL BE SOME ERROR MESSAGES THAT FLOWS BY, AND SUCH MESSAGES MAY NOT NORMALLY INDICATE THAT ANYTHING AT ALL IS WRONG. Just proceed, try it out. *7*** In the next startup, you select INSTALL TO HARDDISK or how it is formulated. I said that you only have to go with all the standard suggestions. In order to save the FTP that we need for in-PC quick file transfer when doing the F3 in the VB way, we are going to modify what we just said only this much: when you get an option to click-unclick some MORE of the programs about to be installed, by touching the SPACE BAR and moving with ARROWS, then ensure that ALL proposed programs indeed are included. I repeat, include ALL proposed programs, also those that are not as standard or default value indicated to be about to be installed. Get them all X-marked, and then press ENTER and it installs. It will ask you whether you want the disk to be formatted, you must type YES fully, do that -- it is all happening within the VB machine unless you have actually switched off your whole PC and really rebooted with a CD or something which has this .iso as a boot file. [[[Physical (non-VB) boot of dos may work only poorly on most the widescreen laptops or similar products which depend on different interaction elements between keyboards and the CPU, between mouse and the CPU, and between the screen and the CPU, compared to the Y2000-standards. Microsoft has been most unhelpful in the past and we hope that they will stop being unhelpful in the future. Microsoft has something to gain from there being a common PC standard as they have a competitive product as far as many forms of standardisation goes, and they need there to be hardware around for it. Microsoft, Inc must not see GNU/Linux as an enemy product, but as a complementary product that saves the independent PC. However you can buy expensive compatible stuff.]]] So, we have it all sorted out? You click through one thing after another, and you also just click lineshift when it asks you such as to 'insert another CD'. A slow laptop will take lots of time, lots, lots, before it is all installed. Do something else and come back to it occasionally. *8*** Let it reboot and watch out that you select it to 'boot from harddisk' on the main menu and NOT AT ALL that you allow it to do any more installation, when it is finished. If it is finished, it is finished. We are going to adjust Settings in the VB when we want to use a CDROM, or else you'll have to wait minutes each time it starts any of the CDROM-enabling ways it has. SO MAKE A NOTE TO DO THAT IN A MINUTE -- GET THE BOOT SEQUENCE FOR THE VB SO THAT IT DOESN'T LOOK TO CD. As it is, FreeDOS gives you about four alternatives during startup. These have subtle differences and some big differences which however matter little (as long as you are aware of such things that in one of the startup ways, the normal "Y/N confirm overwrite" when you copy a file over another won't be asked) when it comes to doing F3 work. We have got to have a way of getting F3 into it and so I have provided the file dosboxex.iso that also is available at norskesites.org/fic3 and moscowsites.org/fic3 and which contains EXACTLY the same as dosboxex.zip. This is so that you can select in the Device menu of VB (which you also can reach in the Fullscreen mode by RCTR-HOME) and mount it as a CD. But first enjoy it if it works in its initial form -- select the option (4) that has the least stuff during its startup (otherwise it will take a lot time) -- look at it; also select Device and unclick the freedos .iso in the overall background options that VB gives you. Now or later you are going to set it to the dosboxex.iso instead. This will be accessible at menu option 2. (And do that change of boot sequence also, in the settings menu of VB, look around till you find it.) Do a restart, type DIR, look at it, try the fullscreen back and forth, get used to the keyboard if you have a national keyboard. English keyboard works with F3. Do a restart again and this time option 2 is selected, which is the one that works with CDROM, when you have a good standard version of VirtualBox and a platform it likes, and the settings right. Normal F3 startup with FTP will be menu 3. It will take a lot time in the present version of VirtualBox.org to start when CDROM is on the horizon. When you have loaded the stuff I provide you with, you can select option 3 and it will ASK you whether you want the CDROM driver, so that you don't have to wait for it, though for the sake of another Dos program you may want to go into just that option. It will only work in option 3 as it stands. There are other CD disk drivers available, also in my yoga4d.org/download version, but it is a bit overdone to get F3 working. So! It's a lot but I notice you are gettin' goin'. Then in backup1 folder of your overall real physical PC you have that dosboxex.iso don't you? Get to this now, by the Devices menu in VB, set up as CD. This CD you will be able to fetch files from by typing such as DIR D: (to see all top folders and top files on it. Try E: or F: or possibly G: if nothing shows.) If you don't get it up, try RCTR-R and reboot or close the frame and try change settings a little. The VirtualBox.org I have not provided my own copy of as it is a big package and there are many versions of it and I haven't checked whether the free program as it is also listed as a program that can be given at a leisure if it is kept unchanged. We just have to hope they keep on all the important things that do work well. After all, that is their ambition!!! Allow boring couple of minutes during CD start. If you don't get it up, exit the VB frame (Power off, as VB calls it), check that Settings in VB shows that 'Chipset' which is called PIIX3 and that the first option on the menu, about APIC, is NOT clicked. So DIR D: shows stuff? Wonders and wonders. Do this: COPY D:\VB\*.* -- but read ahead. We want the few files two places, both at the \ root area and the \FDOS area also. When you do this, by the way, we are overwriting the AUTOEXEC.BAT with mildly extended one, and one that has an opening towards FTP file transfer by a slight modification inside it for #3. We also get some other files overwritten. If there is any question from the PC as to whether or not confirm overwrite, do so (unless you are trying out this with a different Dos and want to protect the original files first in which case you do a COPY FILENAME.TXT BACKUP1.TXT or something, before you do the overwrite.) If in doubt whether you are in the present top area, top of the folder hiearchy in other words, type C: CD \ For that's where we want the VB files. We also want them one more place, for that's where the password file for FTP is going to be accessed, as well as the configuration file for FTP. (Meanwhile, I assume that you have a good easy-to-use FTP program on the same PC that you are getting VB to run at. Try sourceforge.net for a much-downloaded easy graphical FTP for your platform, or such as GFTP for Fedora selected within Fedora's program-list. Start gftp by the command gftp if you like, from a terminal inside Fedora or Centos or other such linuxes. If I remember correctly, ftpzilla or filezilla or something is the name of a pretty quick normal MsWindows program.) Then copy the VB files also here, where FTPPASS.TXT will be available to your change if you want to have a different password and username on the within-PC file transfer stuff we will activate. CD \FDOS COPY D:\VB\*.* FTP user name and password here will only be in effect as long as you do a particular session with your VB in which you have started up a 'FTPSRV' program, and then -- given how we naturally adjust the settings next -- only within the PC will this FTP work. So as long as you exit the FTP when done and not let it linger, you may want to not take it so seriously just what this setting is -- supposing that you take responsibility for your security on your PCs yourself. Otherwise by all means put in and up all the protections for it you think is right. Here, it is set to 123456 for both id and pw. Make a note of that. Then, let's get over the real engine. The shiny chassis having been prepared, the CD still mounted to our dosboxex_iso, type: cd \ mkdir boehm cd boehm mkdir boehmian cd boehmian copy d:\boehm\boehmian\*.* Then wait a second, press R-CTR R for reset. *9*** Try it! You'll love it, if it works. If it doesn't, you'll always find a way to it -- if not on that PC, then on another. Try it by option 3 (and no point in Y to CD when it asks, for that is only for option 2). Answer Y however to the question of F3 next. When you do F3 text, you can exit to command line. When you do F3 graphics, for most platforms and most PCs, the way to exit is by means of getting any files saved, then clicking RCTR-R for reset. As it starts fast, and as you can usually use other menu options than 3 for even faster startup when you don't need FTP, it is possible to consider this an appreciable and acceptable workaround given the benefits VirtualBox.org gives one who ordinarily has Dosbox. Right-ctrl gets you mouse back, right-ctrl s for settings, but these are best adjusted when the whole virtual machine is off, right-ctrl home for temporary loading of CD .iso files or real CD-ROMs. Play around. The VirtualBox.org freezes the whole operation when the F3 tries its normal good and tested ways of going out of S3 graphics mode and back to text mode. That's an issue with it, not with F3. But on a fast enough PC, the reset is ultra-fast and so it is just another thing to learn as workaround. It is really good, no question about the fact -- the video card emulation is superb, quite simply. It will work fullscreen correct unstretched pixels on 1024*768 on GNU/Linuxes where the fullscreen mode doesn't come out right on Dosbox and it will not break down when WT is done on it, nor on other things which has quick mousepointer stuff going. So it is a very valuable piece of work and for just this we can approve of what Oracle is funding. *10*** Everything in VB is stored in a crazy manner as for files. Fucking crazy, and you need a whole lot of uninteresting serious deep patchwork of programs to decode a file in it and and even more serious deep patchwork to get a file into it. So this motivated FreeDOS.org folks and their friends to come up with an intensely elegant approach, when it works (although it is not at all elegant to get it to work at first if one doesn't have a really all-round explanations that fit all platforms -- hopefully you'll usually get it to work by our work here). To someone who hasn't heard about it before, it sounds rediculous -- FTP within a computer? Can't one just copy and paste or -- heck -- import? But remember that, thinking along the lines of the SPIRIT of the VirtualBox approach, you are partially shutting down a PC after starting it up -- in a manner of speaking -- so as to make use only of the screen- drivers, and so on, while directly accessing the CPU. At least that is part of the myth. Anything shown in VB is just graphics, you can copy and paste that to get text over. You can import and export only if you BOTH handle VB's internal .vbi format AND ALSO handle the classical VFAT file structure with/without long file names and what have you. So ALL this is elegantly jumped over, a kind of quantum leap, by doing what DOS should never be set up to do in an ordinary case, and that is to set it up to do FTP -- file transfer protocol -- but we do it so it only goes on a 'virtual internet', which really exists only on the one PC you start it on. It is lovely, then, that the PC is indeed able to run other things at the same time as VirtualBox.org stuff, otherwise we could not have done it this way. So one has to give it to www.freedos.org folks and friends, they are not the stupidest folks on Earth. What we have done here is merely to accomodate it, make it simpler to actually work fast on both MsWindows and GNU/Linux, and with F3 ready to spark flashes and create joyous sexuality fun and and art stuff and whatever else you use Lisa GJ2 Fic3 in. Start up a graphical easy-to-use FTP program that you know how works, more or less. Start up VB and the virtual machine and start option number 3 -- but do this only after you have made sure that some settings are like this, more or less -- with a readiness to experiment right here with these things if it doesn't work. [[[Additional measures include turning temporarily off firewall on the computer, or consciously adding the VB to the list of very trusted programs within the computer control panel somehow -- and also looking up the wiki sourceforge.net pages linked to at www.freedos.org or from sourceforge.net search field as to the use of freedos -- in the VirtualBox.]]] So here are the settings: Choose, in VirtualBox Settings when you are not running the Virtual Freedos machine, NETWORK -> Host Only Adapter, (and it will auto-change a next field to something alright), and ADVANCED -> PROMISCIOUS MODE Allow All as well as Ensure that CABLE CONNECTED is clicked on. Check these settings regularly and esp. each time you have the slightest trouble in getting FTP to work. [[[As an alternative, but we don't recommend it, and it won't work for many main platforms, select NETWORK -> Bridged adapter.]]] Be sure that, in the Settings SYSTEM -> Chipset is PIIX3. When you start up the F3 in VB by menu option 3, it will pause and ask you whether to start up the CD. That is the point in cosmic time where you note the numbers it proposes as the FTP address, the so-called IPADDR, higher up on the page (and this is automatically written into a MTCP.CFG inside the \FDOS folder, at the completion of this settings file, which MIGHT be valuable to modify if FTP doesn't work). So the number will be 192.168somethingsomething, and this must match the number you get up when it starts. If it reports any issue, if all is well with FDCONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and FDOS\MTCF.CFG and you also have selected menu option number 3 with XMS then it is something in the platform around it that has got to be adjusted. You type in the user id and password as secretly given above in this text ;) and you also type in the server address by means of the numbers with dots in between, and perhaps indicate port 21, -- and just before you then try to call on the FTP, you go to command line in the virtual machine -- in other words, you don't start up f3 first, or you keep it in text mode then exit it, and you type C: CD \ ftpsrv (followed by a couple of lineshifts as it asks for floppy) where you can omit first line if you haven't changed main disk to something else, and you do the CD \ because it is good to have a routine to do certain things in the top folder proper. So you start up the FTP program and you also start up the FTPSRV and that's all there is to it each time, -- as long as you stick to menu 3 when you get up F3 which we recommend, unless there is something that works better in the other menu options due to internal memory or driver handling. You can then copy and paste files and do all sorts of things but respect 8 size filenames and avoid creating new folders unless it is important and you check it while doing ftp. Rather transfer a .zip and type UNZIP BLABLA.ZIP at the right location. You can make new zip files within F3 in VB FREEDOS by zip -r newzip.zip foldname when you want everything in folder named 'foldname' to be included into the file newzip.zip, where the -r which is lowercase indicate that one recursively looks into the folder. This folder ought to be viewable by DIR foldname command, in other words, it ought to be a folder that is at the same level in the file / folder hierarchy as where you presently are, with the command line. CD \BOEHM\BOEHMIAN is the command to get you into the standard folder for f3 work, but the command UP when at \ spares you that. As you perhaps know you can type XO once F3 has started and it is text mode for swift exit to the command line. At the command line when in the proper standard boehm\boehmian folder, you type F3 to re-enter it, or CD \ to go to top, or consult subfolders of \FDOS for additional commands for this particular DOS. ***11* CONGRULATIONS, when it all works. GOOD LUCK to you. Please consider first-handedness in programming something that belongs together with a NOTICABLE TANGIBLE FEELING OF DURATION and don't get attached to speed. Suppose you were to travel with a lightwave on a real globetrotting, to experience a multitude of countries. You would get a chance to do it inexpensively, fast, faster than the fastest Concorde ever made -- or at warp speed, say, -- a round-trip, all around Earth, at one-seventh of a second, or much faster if we are talking warp. Now Cosmos needs such speeds but EXPERIENCE NEEDS DURATION and INTELLIGENCE NEEDS EXPERIENCE and so don't go loosing yourself in top speed PCs and getting attached to only top speed implementations of the best programming language there is, Lisa GJ2 Fic3. Got it? :-) GOOD LUCK!!!