Home | Reviews | GUIpedia | Forum | Fun500

MPNQBEnd of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
Over time, I began to realize that the DOS platform simply does not have a future. The last version of FreeDOS was released over two years ago and shows no signs of life. Computer hardware drifts further and further away from its DOS-compatible origins. The memory management is extremely annoying in the face of unified modern techniques and video cards no longer include the VESA modes that unified DOS apps under a common SVGA interface. I held out development of DOS-based EnSpireMe in the hopes that someone would modernize DOS and make it a unique blend of its humble origins combined with compatibility for the basic framework of what modern PCs use. Unfortunately, this does not seem like it will occur and I have little incentive to continue developing for a platform that will not even natively work properly anymore on the majority of computers. Therefore, I am here to announce the immediate discontinuation of EnSpireMe version 0.5.0, the Walden project, and the immediate end of support for EnSpireMe versions 0.2.0 and 0.3.0. As of today, I will no longer accept any e-mails on how to use/modify EnSpireMe and I will not accept any requests for features or applications for versions 0.2.0/0.3.0, and 0.5.0. This is not an easy decision I made, but I hope for it to pay off in the hope of a more modern, functional, practical desktop environment on a modern OS made by MPNQB. Note how I said "DOS-based" EnSpireMe. EnSpireMe is most certainly not dead. What needs to be done now is the cessation of talk and the engagement of progress: a UI on a modern operating system that supports neat memory addressing, SATA, USB, and all the other modern goodies on modern computers. I'm currently eyeing small, open-source operating systems with a good foundation such as MenuetOS, and whether or not their licenses permit derivative works in the form of revamped user interfaces. If not, the next step's a simple X11 replacement for Linux, written in either FreeBASIC or more likely C++ as I obtain more knowledge on the subject. I am sorry to disappoint those who were looking forward to more DOS-based user interfaces. Almost every GUI author in the QB/FB GUI scene has simply faded away, but I felt it more appropriate to conclude formally. I've been creating models and prototypes since 2003 and did enjoy the nice bit of experience the coding gave me in other areas of computer science, and look forward to the brighter future of EnSpireMe on modern platforms. Perhaps one day we'll even see EnSpireMe as a major contender in the GUI field, whatever platform it inevitably ends up on. I will keep in touch.		2009-05-1210:23 PM
MPNQBRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
I am also relinquishing any rights over the EnSpireMe 0.3.0 codebase. Users are now free to rename it, modify it, whatever the hell you want to do with it. The only request I really make is that if you do derive from EnSpireMe, and make it something else, give me credit for the original codebase. Just a one-liner in the About box or even the readme. And, entirely up to you, send me an e-mail at mpnqb6@NOSPAMgmail.com (remove the obvious) and show me what you were able to do with it.		2009-05-1210:28 PM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Unfortunately I have to agree with you. More computers are becoming less compatible with DOS hence the NTVDM in Windows nowadays. I haven't seen much from FreeDOS and a lot of DOS sites are quickly dying a slow and painful death. We're cornered with the few remaining DOS enthusiasts in the realm of ever expanding technology. It would seem pointless to keep going on but some motivation or incentive drives us to do more with such an obsolete operating system. I am selling many of my old Windows 98 / DOS laptops since I don't have any use for them now. Much of the software made today won't run on any computer without an internet connection. However in these times of hardware improvements and advancements of better and more efficient machines, I still keep a few old laptops by my side. Just like everything, time will take its toll. My laptops will begin to stop working and their CMOS batteries will lose their strength and eventually the hard drives or motherboards will just give up leaving me without DOS. No emulators, not even DOSBox, can really bring the true feeling of DOS to me.		2009-05-1312:28 AM
trollyRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
you certainly know KolibriOS it's based on MenuetOS, but it his more active. i think it's a good base to begin your OS. else, i've coded the base of an monotasked os. with floppy,HD and RamDisk read/write support, loadables modules (even at run time, not only at boot time).and a simple gui toolkit		2009-05-133:14 AM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
I have to agree, you can see over the past months I have done less with my GUI and more with Linux, I mean I have done a little work on Fun500 5, but my heart isn't in it. I really can see myself working on a Linux Based OS, with a efficient desktop and low resource usage.		2009-05-131:45 PM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Same. I personally gave up in 2006 when I got annoyed by QB's memory limitations and slow performance speeds. I wanted to do something but I had to work with my 640 KB memory limit. :P I do a lot of internet applications and web-based methods to accomplish tasks as well as handy ways to control things through the net (i.e. send a TXT message and turn your computer off).		2009-05-134:14 PM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Yes what you all speak of is true.. and me being an old dos fan/Buff im going to miss the days when computing was simple and black and white. this is why we (at doscore) are building out own OS kernel (unix like) similar to Menuet OS but our own GUI. even look at projects like SkyOS which was really good but they cant keep up with the hardware demand! Linux for me is way way too fat. i liked it but im now over it. takes ages to load even worse than windows. Mac is me now and XP in Vmware. goodbye DOS :(		2009-05-142:46 AM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Personally I think Linux is good depending on who maintains the distro. You can have a big distro like Ubuntu or a tiny 15 MB distro like TinyCore. I feel that it's getting there but it lacks in ease of hardware support and documentation. The other day I was trying to get my friend's NIC card working with Ubuntu.		2009-05-1410:27 AM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
its lost the idea of preformance ubuntu. unix is better in my opinion.. wikd.		2009-05-1411:44 AM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
I think Ubuntu is tailored more for the desktop user wowed by little things like window effects and look and feel stuff like in Mac OS X. You notice that Ubuntu with Compiz has similar windowing effects as Leopard.		2009-05-1412:08 PM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Yeah Ubuntu sucks, and if I made a Linux Distro, it would definately look bad, over having bad performance.		2009-05-141:12 PM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Same. In an ACM meeting last month, we talked about why people use Windows so much, and it's because in Windows, everything is graphical. In Linux or Unix, it's a lot of command line interfaces while Windows has a GUI for those things. :P		2009-05-142:07 PM
agumaRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Which is bad because...?		2009-05-145:39 PM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
n00bs don't like the command line, like us DOS guys.		2009-05-146:15 PM
pharoahRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Well, I think it would be nice if Windows provided a powerful command line to go along with the GUI. Of course there's PowerShell, but AFAIK you have to download that separately. Graphical distros provide a GUI and Bash, a very powerful shell.		2009-05-147:52 PM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
the whole windows os is entwined. there is no layers like linux and Mac... 3.GUI 2.CLI 1.Linux (or unix) Kernel windows NT is just farked. they need to rebuild the system like apple did with darwin and it worked in their favour. NT is getting old.		2009-05-1410:02 PM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
I think you just discovered the reason why Microsoft doesn't do that with Windows nowadays. They have no need for a CLI since new computer users don't know what to do anyway. I personally like CLI over GUI most of the time since you have more control and less limitations of what the program stops you or makes you do.		2009-05-151:11 PM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
The command line is much simpler than some GUIs. For example, formatting a hard drive. That's just what I can think of now :P		2009-05-152:04 PM
agumaRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
How is formatting a hard drive hard? Control panel > Administrative Tasks > Edit Partitions		2009-05-155:40 PM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
WTF is Control Panel?? We are not all M$ humping ____ here. Beat typing "FORMAT C:", nothing could be more simple, I see 3 different menus in your post, and that's just to get to the format app.		2009-05-157:34 PM
agumaRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
then go to the command prompt and type format C:, there is one you know. and it's easier than remembering 5000 commands and all of their arguments!		2009-05-158:16 PM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
[b]aguma wrote:[/b] [quote]then go to the command prompt and type format C:, there is one you know. and it's easier than remembering 5000 commands and all of their arguments![/quote] That's why they have "documentation" for CLIs. ;)		2009-05-159:46 PM
agumaRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
But then don't I have to lug a giant book around everywhere I go?		2009-05-1612:28 PM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
I you can't remember "FORMAT C:" you shouldn't be formatting a hard drive to begin with.		2009-05-161:10 PM
agumaRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
But what about copying a bunch of files with a bunch of subdirectories? I tried for hours but then I finally tried xcopy, but that didn't work, then I searched again and finally found that I had to use /S!!! It was so annoying!		2009-05-161:49 PM
pharoahRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
How did this turn into a CLI cs GUI debate? What's wrong with a system that provides powerful versions of both? And Aguma, you realize you're comparing the very flawed DOS prompt that we agree is inferior to the GUI Micro$oft has sunk billions of dollars into developing.		2009-05-163:13 PM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Jurassic and modern systems both have their advantages and pitfalls. most people who use (used) dos knew the main commands from formatting to directory creation and etc... i could do all this at like... 7/8 y/o. Linux is a very powerful CLI and GUI Unix is a good CLI less gui... (PC-BSD is pretty good) (mac os x seems to be a good unix gui/cli mix) Windows Has an emulated CLI (Command prompt) its not real. and lacks soo much. at the end of the day you will get your computer illiterate users using windows. you will have your nerds using linux,dos and unix based systems. (power users) and you will have your video and sound techs using mac. (specialist users) i think Linux and unix systems need to step in this way to cater tot he needs of media creation suits and gaming to gain attraction. DOS is old and has its limitations thus, it was faded out. its a fun this to play with but unless someone builds a dos based more on a linux or Unix suit it wont develop. memory restrictions, drivers, hardware limitations etc... dos is cool tho. haha		2009-05-171:37 AM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
My problem with Linux is hardware compatibility. Modern machines aren't a problem, but I have a lot of machines at around 200MHz, and with a minimal desktop, could be a nice web browser, text editor, or IM machine. But 2 of my 5 systems fail to run linux or run it well. One has very poor video performance with its Cyrix MediaGX MMX, the other has an old Geode and a Cyrix video chipset, with a minimal bios, and fails to run Linux. I have never had DOS fail to run on hardware. That is the beauty of DOS, it works on everything. Honestly I will never be able to use Windows, I'm not going to pay for poor coding(if I wanted that I'd buy some of Todd's PHP :P jking) Syllable is a promising OS. It runs on any machine I've tried it on, even the 2 linux doesn't like. It has a simple UI, a modern web browser, is UNIX like, is pretty light resource wise, I've ran it with 64MB RAM, and the download is 66MB. PS: It has a DOSBox port, for all of you GUI makers, its not a bad OS choice for an older machine. The thing that makes me the most upset is wireless support. Syllable and DOS have no support. Linux supports, in my experience a few, and ndiswrapper never seems to work right. Mac OS only supports the cards they want to. That leaves Windows, with has drivers for all of them. I really think I need to learn some C, so I can work on the Syllable Project. Its really quite promising.		2009-05-179:36 AM
ToddRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Speaking of Syllable, how do you install it on a computer that doesn't boot from CDs? This guy gave me an old IBM Aptiva that has a CD-ROM but doesn't want to boot from any CD at all. I keep getting the stupid IBM screen of a floppy disk with a pointing arrow moving to the floppy reader. Is there a boot floppy for Syllable?		2009-05-1710:42 AM
BrandonRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cance
Heres something that might help: http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=512&highlight=floppy		2009-05-1712:00 PM
ikonguiRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
Yeah, I've been trying to get away from DOS as well lately. I actually shut down Ikon's website a few months ago so I can focus on my own 32-bit OS. I brought it back up again a few days ago thanks to JFK saying people should be able to download it and use it. (I think there are 4 people who use it.) GRRRR... JFK, I just read your post above, you are also obviously thinking about moving away from it as well. Don't be such a hypocrite. And for christ's sakes, quit asking me about doing a distro, and for my sources. Read the license that comes with it and stop bugging me. Anyway... I will be removing any references to DOS based Ikon on my site. I will be focusing 100% on my own Operating System with it's own native GUI.		2009-05-171:43 PM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
awwww does iKon need a hug? :D dude we have been working on our own os Kernel For a long time. hipo? no. i only suggested the distro thing if you wer going kill the dos version.... sources....hm...i dont want your sources pal. and please dont use the lords name in vain man.		2009-05-182:18 AM
ikonguiRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
I DO need a hug. :laugh: Anyway, it looks like a release under it's own kernel will be a ways off, if it ever even happens. My current OS needs a complete rewrite if it ever hopes to compete with what DOS already has. @JFK My apoligies for "flying off the handle". It just seems like you're always hassling me about doing a distro. You have to understand that Ikon is my baby.. well.. after my two daughters. I've been working off and on with it for years. I realize most DOS gui's have become dead projects, leaving not much selection. It's great that you are trying to resurrect Seal. That, and Qube, were two of my favourites. So I will try not to lose focus again with Ikon. It does have a few features that I'm sure a few dos fans will miss if I kill it off.		2009-05-191:04 PM
JFKRe:End of the line for DOS EnSpireMe, Walden cancel\'d
no worries dude. i am kinda just wanting you to keep ikon alive its good. seal v3 is far from done as you can see on my site but i dont really wanna let it die. so im actually paying a friend to get ozone and seal finished to the point where it can go online and people can create their own programs. after i have got doscore to that point we will move onto the Aura Kernel. and the ozone and seal gui will be the same as the dos versions for aura so the programs are all backwards compat...		2009-05-2212:10 AM
MPNQBFuture plans with KolibriOS
Well, in searching for the candidate that will serve as a good base for the next version of EnSpireMe, I discovered KolibriOS, an OS based on the aformentioned MenuetOS. To begin with ASM, I may create a suite of applications for it. Some of you may remember my applications for EnSpireMe: PIMPlus, SchoolPro, MoneyPro, and a never-started game called Cosmic Jake. I plan on porting these over to KolibriOS over this year to get my foot in the ASM-Menuet door. Perhaps if I get the hang of it, I can create an OS based on KolibriOS or Menuet. Since KolibriOS is already a derivative work, I may just start with Menuet in the interest of originality. I never really liked the idea of starting off others' code, but perhaps I can emphasize the new OS's origins to make it clear that a lot of the base stuff was already done. Think "EnSpireMe based on Menuet" as a full name of sorts. Anyway, a nice, simple demo I always put together on an OS is MoneyPro. MoneyPro is basically a very simple account tracker, so there's not much more to do than basic text, file I/O, and computations. If I get the hang of these, the door's thrown wide open. Learning the base makes everything else come easier and faster. So, if you want to expect another software release from MpnQb, count on a simple test-version of MoneyPro for Menuet. Anyway, look ahead to the bright future of EnSpireMe!		2009-05-254:05 PM
Re:Future plans with KolibriOS
i recomend you to consider kolibriOS instead of menuetos. it has a better filesystem support and it could load dynamic libraries. I've already made some apps for it, KolibriOS has better systall than MenutOS		2009-05-254:19 PM
ksrRe:Future plans with KolibriOS
This sounds like a cool project. KolibriOS already seems to be pretty fully-featured - are you planning on rewriting the GUI or just creating a distribution?		2009-05-255:43 PM

GUIs

2021 Brandon Cornell