First post, by ppgrainbow
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Does anyone run Fifth Generation Systems Direct Access on a PC emulator (such as DOSBox, Qemu, Virtual PC, etc) or on a real PC running plan DOS?
For me, I'm using it under Virtual PC 2007 for more than a week now after getting fed up with Microsoft MS-DOS Shell.
Direct Access is a popular DOS menuing programme that is capable of handling up to 26 menus (A to Z) and up to 6 sub-menu levels for a maximum total of 308,915,776 menu entries (26^6).
Direct Access is capable of handling links to software installed and the use of custom application parameters that are required for certain command-line executables.
The only drawback is that when you press F2 for the Info and F1 for the Hardware Info, Direct Access doesn't properly detect the amount of extended memory larger than 32,767 KB. If you have more than 32 MB of system memory installed, the amount of memory will end up displaying a negative number. As for processors, Direct Access 5.1 can't properly detect processors later than a 80386 (in later versions, 80486) and the BIOS date is NOT Year 2000 compliant either.
Here's a screenshot of what the main menu looks like so far:
All 26 menus have been filled up with more sub-menu entries being added in the near future.
On the main menu, typing A brings me to the 4DOS-based command prompt, B takes me to Microsoft Windows 3.1, C through T are sub-menu entries, U is the Library Utility supplied by Direct Access, V has the Direct Access Readme, W has the Microsoft Diagnostics, X has the MS-DOS Help Command Reference. Selecting Y reboots the virtual machine and Z shuts down the virtual machine session.
If you use Direct Access, what software do you have installed on your real PC or virtual machine? 😁