FreeDos 1.3 Problems

[mdkoehn]

I'm new to the MiSTer community, and I've been doing some initial setup and poking around.

This week I created a 512 MB VHD to install FreeDos 1.3. The installation from CD-ROM ISOs seemed to go well. The system boots from the VHD, FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT load, and CD-ROM access works. Base commands all seem to work, but many of the additional applications lock the system, requiring a hard reboot of the core. (That is, CTRL-ALT-DELETE doesn't work, I have to use the reset button on the I/O board.)

As examples:

- EDIT works with no problems, but VIM locks.
- SUDOKU86 works, but Fancy Mines (FMINES) locks up.

I've tried reinstalling with no luck. Crashes are consistent even when I bypass FDCONFIG and FDAUTO completely, so I don't think its a memory management issue.

I'm using a new DE-10 nano with 256 MB RAM, USB 2.1 board, and Digital IO board.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to troubleshoot?

Thanks.

[DevilHunterWolf]

Is there a reason you're trying to use FreeDOS instead of MS-DOS? DOS 6.22 is pretty easy to find on Internet Archive and the tutorials I found for configuring AO486 tend to walk through the setup and configuration for it. And by 256MB RAM are you stating you are using two 128MB SDRAM modules? I don't imagine it would have an effect on the AO486 core but I don't know how many people with dual SDRAM setups also use the AO486 core. AO486 isn't one of the very few cores looking for a second SDRAM module. Someone more knowledgeable might have to weigh in on that.

[Malor]

AO486 is a pretty low quality core. The memory handling is particularly bad; there's something really bugged in how extended memory works, and many DOS extenders do not like it. You may be able to improve behavior some if you limit the core to 16MB of RAM.

And, as DevilHunterWolf says, DOS 6.22 may work better, because it's doing much less. It's less comfortable, but still works okay as a game launcher for the games that work correctly with the core.