First post, by VileR
- Rank
- l33t
When programming for DOS, I typically use native Windows development tools and do most of my quick testing/debugging in an emulator. So my workflow involves very frequent file transfers from the host (Windows) to the emulated machine. When the emulator is DOSBox, its filesystem integration makes this quick and painless.
But in PCem or 86Box it gets a little more cumbersome. There may be ways to do this if the emulated system has networking (or even a CD-ROM), but let's say it doesn't. To copy anything from the host filesystem to the hard drive image, you can either:
- Shut down the emulator, mount the image in whatever host tool you use, do your writing, restart the emulator, then wait for the emulated machine to POST etc.
- Keep the emulator running, and use a temporary diskette image for the transfer: switch to e.g. WinImage, create/open a disk image, add your files, save, close, switch back to the emulator, mount, and copy.
As you can imagine, with frequent compile/test cycles, both of these methods get old REAL fast. However, the floppy-image method can possibly be automated (albeit in a hackish sort of way).
I'm thinking of a quick-'n'-dirty tool to let you select (and keep) a list of files, then do the image creation and file transfer in one click. Something like AutoHotkey combined with ImDisk Virtual Disk Drive should do the trick.
I've actually started working on this, but:
- Does something like this already exist? (I couldn't find anything, but if there is such a tool, I wouldn't need to duplicate the effort.)
- If not: would this tool be useful for anyone else?