[Solved] Screenshot DOS boot process \ VOGONS

[Solved] Screenshot DOS boot process

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First post, by Malvineous

Posted on 2016-02-13, 10:48

Malvineous Offline

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Hi all,

Does anyone know an easy way to get a screenshot of the DOS boot process without needing expensive frame grabber equipment or resorting to photographing the monitor? An emulator isn't an option as I want to grab the text from a device driver which no emulator supports, so all I'd get there is an error message. I don't have any boards that run the hardware and have console redirection either, so that's out.

I'm wondering whether you could do something like load Screen Thief first in CONFIG.SYS with an INSTALL command, then grab a screenshot in the normal way after.

Failing that, is there any option ROM I could install that might do the same? I'm guessing there's no VGA BIOS that grabs the Print Screen key and saves the current output to a file when you press it, even during the BIOS POST...

Just thought I'd ask whether anyone has figured out a clever way of doing this before I start wasting time trying to figure something out 😀

Last edited by Malvineous on 2016-02-13, 12:17. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 5, by leileilol

Posted on 2016-02-13, 10:55

leileilol Offline

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Poor way:

1. A video card with Svideo out
2. A video card / TV tuner with Svideo in
3. ????
4. profit

long live PCem

Reply 2 of 5, by alexanrs

Posted on 2016-02-13, 11:11

alexanrs Offline

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One way that MIGHT work:
1- Install ScreenThief in memory (or another screen grabber)
2- Load the driver with DEVLOAD afterwards.

Or
1- Use DR-DOS (it doesn't reorder INSTALL lines in CONFIG.SYS)
2- Install ScreenThief with an "INSTALL=" line in CONFIG.SYS
3- Load your device driver after that

Reply 3 of 5, by Jepael

Posted on 2016-02-13, 11:23

Jepael Offline

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What driver is it?

Is it enough to just execute a program after the driver, like first thing in autoexec.bat to write screen texts into text file or as B800 memory dump file?

Reply 4 of 5, by Malvineous

Posted on 2016-02-13, 11:40

Malvineous Offline

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Thanks for the suggestions!

S-Video is an interesting idea, that seems to give results that aren't too bad, so it could be worth a shot. A still frame might not look so good but judging from that video it seems quite nice for motion.

DEVLOAD looks interesting but it appears to throw up other stuff on the screen which might detract from the screenshot. It'd look a bit like those game screenshots that say "Screenshot saved to 0001.pcx" at the top of the screen 😀

DR-DOS could work too. My only concern is getting the Screen Thief text in the screenshot as well, for the same reason as above.

A B800 memory dump would be fine, I could run that first thing in autoexec.bat and that would do the job. Are there any programs that can do that already or will I have to write my own? Maybe I could use a DEBUG script perhaps.

EDIT: Looks like the CAPTURE program can save a B800 dump from the command line, I'll try that out and see if it works.

Reply 5 of 5, by Malvineous

Posted on 2016-02-13, 12:17

Malvineous Offline

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It worked! I added "CAPTURE C" to the end of autoexec.bat, then copied the resulting COLOUR.VID file back to my main PC, loaded DOSBox, ran "CAPTURE PLAY C" to restore the screen, then used DOSBox to take the .png screenshot: