Re: various dosemu comments and hacks (sound, delays)

[Stas Sergeev <stssppnn@yahoo.com>]

Hello.

Ryan Underwood wrote:
>> Just wondering where can it be
>> used besides dosemu? 
>  Various other adlib-related things, like Sierra AGI/SCI interpreters that
>  are ported, plugins for sequencer software, etc.  Of course one could 
>  always link in AdPlug or the mame opl2, but the server would simply be a
>  concurrent-execution method of accessing the same functionality so the
>  adlib-client program can simply forward the writes and worry no more 
>  after that.
Yes, that can be usefull. The
downside of that approach is
that the program can itself keep
the /dev/dsp busy (like dosemu does)
and your adlib server will conflict
with an app trying to output the
sound. Of course for the cards that
allows multiple streams this is not
a problem, but for others (like the
pc-speaker:) this can be troublesome.
Perhaps the only solution would be
to make dosemu to use some sound server
and to make your adlib server to use
the same. By linking dosemu with mame
opl emu and implementing the mixing
(which is necessary for dosemu anyway)
doesn't have the aforementioned problem.
The alternative could be to implement
the entire SB in a separate server.
DMA needs to be in another thread/process
anyway, so nuking the SB out of dosemu
and to a separate server process can
be great I think.

> I copied over my Win-OS2 install, which is a hacked WFWG3.11 from IBM for
> use with OS/2, that is a DPMI client instead of VCPI.  But, I couldn't 
> get it to run yet. :(
Probably you have to try 3.1
instead of 3.11.

> Its weird though.  It seems like doing this is turning dosemu into what 
> plex86 tried to be. :)
I don't know much about plex86, but
the power of dosemu is in its great
integration in a linux environment,
i.e. ability to work with the mounted
filesystems, networking etc. Also
dosemu has a good speed due to running
the progs natively rather than emulating
the CPU (emulating only the privileged
instructions is not a big slowdown).
Does the plex86 have all that?

>> simx86 and implement some missing
>> features to it rather than using a
>> bochs as a CPU-emu server as you suggested.
>  Interesting, I will take a look at it.
To make your life easier here is a
patch that resurrects a real-mode part
of simx86 (prot mode is still broken but
it was functional in the past)
https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=1662943&forum_id=8386