Windows 95!

edmaul69

@tyreal90 so i have a question? When you put the windows image on the pi did it boot straight into windows or did it try to reset it up? I cannot get it to just boot and it always reconfigures to a black screen or crashes, depending on the image i put on. I even tried reinstalling windows while on the pi. Still the same problems.

tyreal90

@edmaul69
mine does a scandisk but then it is ok. you are definately using a different version. i am using an oem cd. what is your version? Can you send a screenshot of what Windows 95 is doing when it is re configuring your system?

edmaul69

@tyreal90 oem "A" osr1 and oem "C" osr2.5 they act differently as to what dll crashes i get on setup and boot when installing on pc, but running scandisk fixes them on the pc. But then on the pi "A" will try to do the final setup and crash when it tries to re-add shortcuts. "C" will go from the "windows is preparing to be used for the first time but then goes to a black screen instead of the configuration screen. I am going to try putting an image that has not been configured by windows and see what happens. When you can, can you right click on my computer and select properties and tell me what version you are using?

edmaul69

@tyreal90 also i just found out i can boot into safe mode at 256 colors. I switched back to 16 colors in safe mode and restarted. Still a black screen. Ive even tried booting with vgaonly instead of svga_s3 still the same old thing.

tyreal90

I'm using windows 95 4.00.950 b I haven't had any first time setup issues.

I got a driver off of the vogon forum that I haven't tried yet. They all needed it for dosbox 256 color support in windows 3.1. Fingers crossed....

it is s3 868 1415b driver.

tyreal90

Driver's worked! I have posted the driver here because I had to look all over the internet and had to download from a weird website in the nether realm. My version of directx isn't very good so I am upgrading it but these graphics drivers make 256 color mode easy!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw4WQfUCKImBRDN6bXNXOVU3T3c

edmaul69

@tyreal90 so i followed that guide to install windows and besides still not getting it to run on the pi. Every single img/vhd i have made, if i add something to the image after windows is installed, it doesnt show up when i boot windows. I have done it through daum and mounting the drive in windows 10. Is there something you did different than the guide. I had to add all my ither drivers and stuff at the same time i copied the cd onto the image file for them to show up. I am going to make another vhd as a second hard drive to get around this.

Edit i have been using the s3 trio 3d driver on widows 3.11 on the pi with 256 colors. So if you can install that it is your best option.

tyreal90

I'm sorry to hear that it is not working for the popping files in and out of the disk. Ok so I am going to go over my method just to make sure that it isn't accidentally something I'm doing that is making it so mine works. I use .vhd's exclusively because I never had luck with images.

For anyone following the thread - additional steps can be found here http://dosbox95.darktraveler.com/guide part 1.html

First I download dosbox daum and then the dos 622 boot image

http://ykhwong.x-y.net/
http://dosbox95.darktraveler.com/downloads/622c.exe

Then I changed the dosbox parameters according to the first steps in dosbox.conf:

vmemsize=8
memsize=63
core=dynamic
cputype=pentium

Then I make the disk on daum with the following command. - Im using an older command i have used because I've used that command more often than the new version above

imgmake w95.vhd -t hd -size 2048 -nofs

Then I mount the image along with the image for the dos 6.22 bootdisk with the following mount lines at the bottom of dosbox.conf:

imgmount 0 622c.img -t floppy -fs none
imgmount 2 w95.vhd -t hdd -size 512,63,128,520 -fs none

When dosbox starts both images should be attached and you shouldn't see any errors in dosbox's startup log.

Then I fix the disk drive.

boot -l a
fdisk
1
1 
y

Then I exit dosbox, reboot dosbox and format the C drive

boot -l a 
format c:
y
win95

Then I have a drive that I can plop the win95 install and other programs into. Let me know if following my method works but we definitely have to make it so that it is working for you!

I also right click the *.vhd file and it lets me select mount and then I can see it on my computer like a drive. That is how I get files in and out.

I was thinking that it may not be working for you because of the type of windows you are using. Have you had luck changing the install cd type again?

edmaul69

@tyreal90 using a vhd and the two versions of windows 95 its the same issue for me. Using a and c. I am going to have to try b. When i took the 95c iso yesterday and mounted it and tried to just dump the folders on the vhd it has problems and cant copy several files. They were listed as non ms-dos files according to windows 10. But when i do it in daum it doesnt give me any issues but i cant be certain. I am going to try the b version and see what happens.

edmaul69

This post is deleted!

tyreal90

@edmaul69

i just looked at the vogons forum and they recommend the b disk on an old thread about windows 95 before it got shut down so let me know if the b version does the trick. I obviously cannot tell you where i got mine but it should be out there.

Back to your comment about the s3 trio 3d drivers. I found that win95 uninstalls the hardware after i installed the driver. Try it and then let me know if it worked for you, if it doesn't, the drivers above are the only ones that dont have an issue for me.

Finally, if a b disk fixes your issue, then i think we have successfully plumbed the depths of win95 on pi. For me 3.1 games and 95 games that dont use open_gl or directx work ok. For our higher level stuff the build will have to branch/appropriate to an svn based on hal9000 or daum that add later features. I get an error on dx games that the video card we use isnt compatible with the game.

edmaul69

@tyreal90 ok so the b disk didnt give me any error copying the files from mounted iso to mounted vhd. After installing and switching to dosbox 7.4 on the pc it doesnt do a setup before booting like the other two. So it boots straight into windows. Then i copy it my pi hard drive and it has the windows 95 boot screen then it goes to a black screen. This is also the only version that didnt give me any dll errors.

Are you using hard drive or sd card for your image file? Also can you post your entire dosbox-SVN.conf on paste.bin and post that link here? I want to see if there is something i am doing differently. Is there any programs i should install before putting on the pi?

tyreal90

https://pastebin.com/embed_js/7QEwR6rs

That is the config file on the pi of a working build I'm playing with.

Best,

Chris

Also, did you remember to bring it to 16 color mode before transferring to the pi? That always throws me for a loop.

tyreal90

@edmaul69

im using sd cards only and i have 2 builds on an 8 gig and a 16 gig. i also have a win 98 build that installed but crashes on boot

whats paste-bin?

edmaul69

@tyreal90 paste.bin is a website that you can post the entire contents of a text file on then post a link to that text file you created on there. Really easy to do. Probably easier than using your google drive. So i should have been putting the images on the sd card. Runs a thousand times faster than a hard drive. All my other dosbox games are on my sd card. So it still is the same old thing. Question or two for you? So when the image is on your sd card, how are you mounting it in windows? And did you build the dosbox from source or just install the binary. What version of retropie are you on? I just cant figure out why it wont work on the pi for me. Also what resolution did you set it to inside of windows? I do know that there is a file dosbox has somewhere that knows if say you need to run scandisk on an image, if you replaced it with an image that was good using the same filename it would still run scandisk. If you rename an image that booted fine into windows it will rerun the initial setup. You can close it out in the middle of that and change the name back it will boot right into windows. The pi version does to. If i knew where that file was, i could use your file and boot right into windows.

Edit: i noticed you put the info to the image file inside the dosbox config file. What are you using to boot dosbox. I tried with using the premade dosbox.sh file but that didnt work with the hard drive info in the dosbox config file how you have it.

SIrRandall

Windows 95 can run ok. Don't expect anything speedy. Due to new changes in DosBox windows 98 will not install. Maybe this will be fixed in a later update.

tyreal90

@edmaul69

In regards to your questions. I mount the .vhd disk image file on a NTFS drive on either my laptop or desktop computer. The raspberry pi like fat drives but the ability to right-click and mount the .vhd in windows 10 requires the drive to be on the NTFS format. I have had to do ALOT of copying but I tinker with the windows image on my computers hard drive and then copy it wholesale onto the SD card that I will be using. I use retropie 4.0 and 4.2. I have like 3 SD cards with windows on them now and I just switch them up at will. I have not noticed a difference between the versions. I think I installed dosbox from source. I always tend to go with the first option down on the menu and if I remember correctly then that is source. Do you mean resolution on a monitor or resolution in windows? In windows I have to initially have it at 16 color and 648X480 or whatever the lowest is. The drivers off my google drive will hard-set the resolution and colors when you install them. This will change the settings permanently until you reinstall the drivers and select a different choice. I never change the name of the disks I create. Once they are created I change the command line code instead on dosbox.conf. Dosbox on my pi has an option to run it. I just hit that and my mount codes are applied from the config file. On some of my sd cards I have to type

boot -l c

after I boot dosbox. Typing boot -l c automatically starts the windows start-up. I often get a screen with weird green lines but when I hit enter it starts scandisk. Scandisk proceeds to work and then it boots Windows. I haven't seen a difference either way if I automatically boot or manually boot windows.

edit - I agree that we need to get it working for you. Would it be helpful for me to do a build, write down my complete steps, post it here and see if it works for you? I mean a complete from scratch build re-downloading everything?

edmaul69

@tyreal90 you can mount a fat vhd. You just have to do it in disk management. How are you putting the vhd in ntfs instead of fat 16?

Edit: can you tell me which version of retropie you are using?

tyreal90

@edmaul69

I apologize if i wasnt specific about which drive was ntfs. So I make the disk fat16 like it says to do through the tutorial, but i make it on a disk drive on my computer that is ntfs. then i open it while it is on the drive by right clicking it in exporer and choosing the 'mount' command

edmaul69

@tyreal90 strange. My pc is windows 10 with ntfs and i do t have the mount option. I have to go into disk management and mount it.