It works for me on my DOS (7.x) rig. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded the ZIP from here
2. Copied over just the \NET\DILLO directory
3. Edited the DILLO.BAT to comment out the "search/find" commands near the top as I don't have the vfdutil program it tries to use.
4. Set the SELF environment variable to the full path to the DILLO.BAT and set the DILLO environment variable to the full path to the DILLO directory itself.
5. Ran DILLO.BAT

hey thanks mscdex for giving nice pointers 😀

I tried what you suggested (and i had to comment out the last row in dillo.bat that executed the vcls in order to catch what it said on the screen). When running it, it loads for a bit and then gives me "Exit code: 1" and an elapsed time.

It creates a "stdout.txt" file as well that contains a number of 'path' statements (i.e it cannot open file this and that) and the last lines complains that it can't initialize the screen and can't connect to nano-X server.

But maybe i need to update my dos version to 7.x?

Since it appears to be having problems starting nano-x, you might try adjusting the NANOSCR environment variable in DILLO.BAT to something your video card/display supports. Here's a description of the format of that environment variable value from here:

There is an environment variable which Nano-X reads and which allows to set the screen resolution and pixel type. This variable […]
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There is an environment variable which Nano-X reads and which allows to set the screen resolution and pixel type. This variable is called "NANOSCR" which is defined as:

NANOSCR=[SCREEN_WIDTH] [SCREEN_HEIGHT] [SCREEN_PIXTYPE]

For SCREEN_PIXTYPE the following values are valid: 8888 for 32bit, 888 for 24bit, 565 for 16bit and 8 for 8bit. An example would be:
"set NANOSCR=800 600 565" for 800x660 and TRUECOLOR565

The strange numbers are the values nano-x uses internally and could be extended to even more pixtypes. *AND* 8 bit does not work since I have problems with palette mode. 24 bit is not supported by my graphics card.

I usually set it to 16 bit to be able to make screenshots with SNARF.

The screen_width and screen_height have to be set to values supported by the VESA mode of your graphics card.

Additionally the user guide mentions needing support for long file names to be able to load the fonts, so you may also need to make sure your DOS installation has support for it (either natively or via the "doslfn" program).

EDIT: Actually, I'm not sure that is the case anymore with the version from the link I posted earlier, based on mailing list discussions I read. I suspect parts of the user guide PDF may be out of date with regard to Dillo for DOS's current limitations.

good input. Thx 😀 I played around with the NANOSCR variables and when i set it to 8 (previously 565) it did not give me the "1" error but the "255" one (idk if that improves things or not).

i also tried to use this version (https://archive.org/details/msdos_dillodos) + copy the version in the link that you gave above on top of it (+ the changes as this new one did miss some of the subdirs/files), but it gave the same error.

Could it be that it does not work with msdos but perhaps only freedos? Also downloaded and ran the doslfnm (v. 0.34) but it made no difference 🙁

I would gladly try the freedos, but it requires either a USB, CD or working floppy (neither of which i do have atm) so a bit stuck. Is it possible to install freedos from say a CF?

my03 wrote on 2021-08-23, 17:35:

Could it be that it does not work with msdos but perhaps only freedos? Also downloaded and ran the doslfnm (v. 0.34) but it made no difference 🙁

I believe I've read about others using it successfully outside of FreeDOS (I think at least MS-DOS 6.22?). My DOS 7.x setup came largely from the Windows 98SE CD for what it's worth.

Additionally, I didn't load any drivers/software (e.g. no EMM386 or any other memory managers, etc.) at startup other than what was needed to get Dillo working. So that consisted only of my ethernet packet driver and the latest cutemouse to be able to use a mouse.

The hardware I tested it on is "newer" hardware (ca. 2004 -- a Via Epia mini-itx board), so I'm not sure if that makes a difference either (graphics chipset or otherwise).

Hey Mscdex, imho its worth quite much what you say. I looked at wikipedia and it mentions Freedos and others (but not msdos). Maybe msdos 7.x is ok but 6.22 is too old...

I did manage to get the "Links" browser working (with Tls 1.2) but it works quite "clunky" to be honest.

But i also managed to install the latest Freedos on a 512MB industrial CF this evening so tomorrow i will try Dillo using that 😀 (fingers crossed). I'll post here with the outcome.

Thx