VOGONS


First post, by pm386

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Hello!

I'm new here and I'm really glad to find a place that is so dedicated to old software/hardware.

Anyway, I've been using the excellent DOSidle utility by Marton Balog for a long time both in virtual machines and on real hardware. It works great with one notable exception: in most programs the mouse becomes nearly impossible when DOSidle is active - the mouser pointer jerks and the mouse clicks are ignored most of the time. This includes Borland C++ 3.1 IDE, PQ Magic 3.0, Norton Ghost and many others.

So, I've decided to fix this annoying problem and to create a 2.50 version of DOSidle. Please note that while the source code of DOSidle is included, unfortunately it was incomplete. I had to reverse engineer the missing portions of the code, which means that it is possible that there are some bugs that are not present in the original DOSidle 2.10. Also, please make sure that DOSidle is loaded after your mouse driver, because otherwise it won't be able to hook to INT 33h.

I'm posting the updated version here in hope that it will be useful for someone else too. Please let me know if you have any problems or found any bugs and will fix them (whenever I can find time, of course).

UPDATE Aug 12 2015: There is a new release DOSidle 2.51, which you can find here DOSidle new version 2.50 (fixes mouse problems).

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  • Filename
    DOSIDL25.zip
    File size
    28.11 KiB
    Downloads
    1343 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by pm386 on 2015-08-12, 01:17. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 10, by Dominus

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cool, thanks

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 2 of 10, by MJK

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Thank you! It's a super utility, and your mods are also excellent.

(I'm new here also, so I don't know the preferred protocols).

I'm running some DOS apps under Win-XP, under V-Box, under Win-7-64bit! I had an old utility to release cycles when the apps are idling at the keyboard, etc, but this is only at the "software" level - Int21-2F, etc). So, I tried DOSIdle 2.50 - even though it might not be appropriate under XP?

Excellent performance improvements, and, in general, it worked very, very well.

I did see a few unusual, random errors/crashes in the apps, so I presume these are caused by some tiny issue(s) in DOSIdle - so I looked at the code.

I noticed that a few of the resident procs use a few registers that are not saved/restored. I adjusted these in the source, but I use an ASM environment (not TASM), so I've not assembled/tested the revised code yet. If you want the revised source, let me know, and I'll email it to you (and/or upload it here?). If you agree with the tweaks, we can build a new EXE, and upload here - if that's the preferred approach.

Thank you
- Mike

Reply 4 of 10, by MJK

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This is the source where I inserted a few Save/Restore registers. I don't have a TASM setup, and I don't have the referenced INCLUDe files, so perhaps someone who has these might check the mods ("MJK" on each source-line), and build an executable.

- Mike

Edit: My apologies. The file uploaded yesterday (July 6th, 2015) was incorrect - it preserved AX in some instances (eg, keyboard functions) where a new value in AX should have been returned to the caller. A revised attempt is attached!

- Mike

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  • Filename
    D_I_MJK.TXT
    File size
    60.81 KiB
    Downloads
    221 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 5 of 10, by pm386

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I haven't been here for a while, so I saw this just yesterday. Thank you MJK for taking the time to try and fix the problems! I'm reviewing your changes right now and I'll e-mail you the results.

I haven't found any instability problems with DOSidle 2.50 but your mileage may vary. I'm using the new release on a daily basis in VMWare DOS 6.22 virtual machine and on real 486 DOS machine.

Reply 6 of 10, by pm386

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Thanks to the efforts of MJK, there is the new release (2.51) with some stability and performance improvements. 😀

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  • Filename
    DOSID251.zip
    File size
    28.92 KiB
    Downloads
    1812 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 7 of 10, by MERCURY127

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Hello to all!
pm386, sorry for inconvenience... i write to u week back in PM, but it look as that u not read PM...
i repeat my request in public.

its very cool, that u can recompile DOSIDLE!
i cant do it seven years...
i knownt where can find *.ah includes, which req for compile.
but as i understand, u find it files, or reversed it manually?
if so, can i get it includes from u, or let know, where i can get this?

Reply 9 of 10, by tn3270

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Hi,
Not sure if this is still of any interest but I re-created the source code of dosidle 2.51 by disassembling the original binary. It seems from the inspection of the source that it could be much improved. I tired to contact the original author to find out if the recreated source can be placed online but got not any reply message.