Port access and keyboard emulation w/ dosemu

Port access and keyboard emulation w/ dosemu

[Richard White]

Hi!

I'm trying to set up dosemu to run a couple of applications:

a) DBASEIII
b) XPRESS a proprietary (well-behaved as far as I know- at least it has always 
worked well under WinNT4) application that controls a home-automation 
computer via a serial port.

Current status:

RedHat Linux 9 (kernel 2.4.20)
installed dosemu 1.0.2.1 and freedos -b8p from tgz binaries per instructions 
to a subdirectory of my personal directory (instructions worked 
EXACTLY as written- thanks developers!)

Basically the emulator and apps seem to work as they should, and, most 
importantly seem stable and preserve the integrity of data.  But there are a 
few problems:-

1) keyboard emulation.  'Auto' does not seem to work well (these apps need the 
full keyboard with function keys and CTRL/, SHIFT, and ALT/, char sets.  
Setting 'ibm' for keyboard emulation seems to work best, but that is just by 
experimenting.  Are there any rules/suggestions for this?

2) More seriously, I can not manage to get the dos apps to see the printer.  
Printing is set up (CUPS), and the 'lp' command works from linux.  The default 
lp printer is a networked HP laserjet. In dosemu.conf, $_printer is set to 
'lp', printer timeout to 20 sec, and $_ports has no settings.

3) And finally, COM1 seems to be invisible.  $_com1 is set to /dev/ttyS0, but 
no luck.

Any advice on how to diagnose and fix this?

Thanks so much!

Richard White

Re: Port access and keyboard emulation w/ dosemu

[Bart Oldeman]

On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Richard White wrote:

> 1) keyboard emulation.  'Auto' does not seem to work well (these apps need the
> full keyboard with function keys and CTRL/, SHIFT, and ALT/, char sets.
> Setting 'ibm' for keyboard emulation seems to work best, but that is just by
> experimenting.  Are there any rules/suggestions for this?

Either:
* use xdosemu. And make sure that your window manager doesn't steal the
  keys. Sometimes shift+key helps.
or
* in dosemu use ctrl-^ s to simulate shift. Press ctrl-^ h for help
* try 1.2.0rc1 (aka 1.1.99.1) and run with the -k option on the console
  (or set $_rawkeyboard = (1)). In 1.0.2.1 this only works with root
  privileges.

> 2) More seriously, I can not manage to get the dos apps to see the printer.
> Printing is set up (CUPS), and the 'lp' command works from linux.  The default
> lp printer is a networked HP laserjet. In dosemu.conf, $_printer is set to
> 'lp', printer timeout to 20 sec, and $_ports has no settings.

try to replace "lpr" with "lpr -l" in conf/global.conf. If you download
1.2.0rc1 you'll have to copy the global.conf example file, change it
there and then specify it explicitly like in ./dosemu -f conf/global.conf

There will be a more comfortable solution in 1.2.0 final.

> 3) And finally, COM1 seems to be invisible.  $_com1 is set to /dev/ttyS0, but
> no luck.

1.0.2.1 is only able to access COM1 as root because otherwise it cannot
create lock files. This problem is fixed in 1.2.0rc1 -- just make sure you
have permissions to create a file in /var/lock and r/w access to
/dev/ttyS0.

In short: please try 1.2.0rc1 -- more feedback is always welcome ...

Bart

Re: Port access and keyboard emulation w/ dosemu

[Ralph Alvy]

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> 
> 1.0.2.1 is only able to access COM1 as root because otherwise it cannot
> create lock files. This problem is fixed in 1.2.0rc1 -- just make sure you
> have permissions to create a file in /var/lock and r/w access to
> /dev/ttyS0.
> 
> In short: please try 1.2.0rc1 -- more feedback is always welcome ...

BTW, Bart, the problem I was having with 1.1.5, where I couldn't access COM1
as non-root (a locking problem I could never resolve), is resolved with
1.2.0rc1. That is, COM1 is now not locked when I "boot" xdosemu as
non-root.