That amber screen has always attracted me, Very neat desktop which uses graphic mode only when needed, I think I can spend a lot of time using it without getting to the point of boredom. and plus 1 for the lock screen, Thanks Jim,
It doesn't compare to the Workplace Shell, but it can easily compete with the desktops we use nowadays. (The difference being application centric vs document centric. PsychDOS works well enough to start applications.)
Since you asked for opinion ... while watching it I couldn't stop but thinking - o boy that is ugly. And the reason is not that is in text mode, rather color combination and visual representation. In old times I had used Borland Pascal text UI interface for making programs (Turbo Vision) and it looked beautiful. Norton Commander my fav File Manager also looked beautiful, tidy. While what you had shown ... just make me shivers seeing the pink and greenish together. I understand that these programs are made by geeks in their free time with main focus on functionality rather how it looks, but you can copy from big boys from the peak of DOS era. where companies had spend money to hire professional designers.
There are some DOS programs I still like to use, even today. As Easy As on DOS is my favorite spreadsheet - if I didn't need to share spreadsheets with others, As Easy As could manage almost all of my modern spreadsheets. And it's just a pleasant experience to use As Easy As (and that's why I sometimes like to do more videos with As Easy As.)
I was such a dork as a kid in HS and college, I wrote a full qbasic 1.1 gui that even had its own installer and updates for things I added after the fact. It even browsed disks in screen mode 12 color. Used the dir>textfile.txt to fetch the contents of the selected folder to a file, then loaded it to a dimensional variable, and then used a graphical font built into a sub procedure to draw the content out in graphic mode, no text mode. Also it handled shortcuts similar to program manager in win3.1.
Fantastic. What about open source Nano-X Window System? It would be interesting maybe because it should based on something be like Xlib (Xlib is used by a lot of unix and many other operating systems; I think in graphics it should be a sort like of a Java library for GUIs but only as far as *interoperability* , not OOP). I never tried it but some DOSes should have been supported in the past.
It's been a long time since I ran an X server on DOS. I suppose I might look into demo'ing something like that. But as you might guess, I usually prefer a text mode interface when working on DOS. :-)
I like the program. Its things like this is what really made me love DOS so much. One question for you can add to the menu a path way to a outside Dos program you install later on the system in its menu.
5:00 The "neat little conversion program" would be better if it left open the specific conversion after doing the problem, letting you enter different values or reverse the conversion. That is, like what Google does in its info box when you ask for a conversion. It seems almost rude to slam it shut after giving the result, and making you start over if you wanted to adjust the value. BTW, back in the DOS days, I wrote some library code and interactive utility that uses it called UnitWit. Jokingly you can shift the accent to the second syllable :) It is a calculator that keeps units attached. The hard part is displaying some arbitrary unit dimensions in a preferred way or finding simple combinations of named units, like newtons/second which doesn't exactly match a named unit.
This is a cool system. I wanted to know what library was used to program the windows, scrollbars, and buttons in text mode and if this might be useable in C# for console apps.
Glad you like it! I don't know if there's a similar "desktop" experience for Linux terminals. Individual file managers, yes. But I don't know about Linux apps that replicate what PsychDOS does.
@@freedosproject It might be a while before I get that far, but will let you know if I make any progress. Think I finally set up the system, I hope to keep today.
In theory, yes! In the README.TXT file, you can find instructions for "Adding custom software" by using [Category]->Cust0m->Edit, and using hte [Category]\GMENU\GMENU.DAT file to add new items. (I couldn't get it to work, but I didn't do much experimenting.)
That's pretty cool. Is it actually running in text mode? Or graphics mode made to look like text mode? At 6:34, the music player and FLWriter too awesome!!
When I run DOS, I prefer to use the command line, so I'm using DIR and CD and DEL and all the other filesystem commands. But a lot of folks like DN2, which is a very nice file manager. I did a video on it, here: th-cam.com/video/N6Vyr52eiw4/w-d-xo.html
Its a clone of Northon commander for wich was a GUI file viewer software for DOS... You have to agree with me, from DOS to develop a GUI based OS is a times faster than whatever linux versions have done for 20 years -it just does not work that way, UNIX is a evolutionary relic, DOS had alot more simpler underlayer.
I had freedos installed on a machine and for the life of me I could not get it installed whenever I tried to got to the cd drive it read D then just drop me back in C
That's going to be difficult to debug over TH-cam comments. Can you join our Freedos-user email list, and ask there? That's the best place to ask for help like this. (Our email lists are not high volume, so we're not likely to fill up your inbox.) See this page: www.freedos.org/forums/ More direct link to join Freedos-user is here: sourceforge.net/projects/freedos/lists/freedos-user
Yeah just glorified launching shell. FreeDOS itself should try to push past that to a Concurrent DOS mode or even emulating the VM mode Windows do to DOS.
you're so dedicated to the DOS thing even the computer room aesthetic is straight early 90s.
When Norton Commander got mouse support that was what i used to start applications going forward.
That amber screen has always attracted me,
Very neat desktop which uses graphic mode only when needed,
I think I can spend a lot of time using it without getting to the point of boredom.
and plus 1 for the lock screen,
Thanks Jim,
Go for it! It seems like a great project to try.
DOS Navigator was always my favorite to use with FreeDOS. It's basically a desktop GUI
DOS Navigator is a great file manager.
It doesn't compare to the Workplace Shell, but it can easily compete with the desktops we use nowadays.
(The difference being application centric vs document centric. PsychDOS works well enough to start applications.)
Since you asked for opinion ... while watching it I couldn't stop but thinking - o boy that is ugly. And the reason is not that is in text mode, rather color combination and visual representation.
In old times I had used Borland Pascal text UI interface for making programs (Turbo Vision) and it looked beautiful.
Norton Commander my fav File Manager also looked beautiful, tidy.
While what you had shown ... just make me shivers seeing the pink and greenish together. I understand that these programs are made by geeks in their free time with main focus on functionality rather how it looks, but you can copy from big boys from the peak of DOS era. where companies had spend money to hire professional designers.
Computing can still be fun, great stuff.
I love retrocomputing! 😀
Back to the good old days. Such nostalgia. Those were good times back then with MS-DOS 😊😊
There are some DOS programs I still like to use, even today. As Easy As on DOS is my favorite spreadsheet - if I didn't need to share spreadsheets with others, As Easy As could manage almost all of my modern spreadsheets. And it's just a pleasant experience to use As Easy As (and that's why I sometimes like to do more videos with As Easy As.)
Didn't know there was a Dillo port,
messed with Dillo on Linux while looking at alternative browsers, fairly usable for basic HTML :^)
It's a good browser for DOS. 👍
Very interesting! I've used File Maven for years, as a file manager, but also to copy files over parallel or serial port between computers.
I was such a dork as a kid in HS and college, I wrote a full qbasic 1.1 gui that even had its own installer and updates for things I added after the fact. It even browsed disks in screen mode 12 color. Used the dir>textfile.txt to fetch the contents of the selected folder to a file, then loaded it to a dimensional variable, and then used a graphical font built into a sub procedure to draw the content out in graphic mode, no text mode. Also it handled shortcuts similar to program manager in win3.1.
Thank you very much! I didn't know about PsycDOS before. It's exactly the kind of thing that I have been looking for!!!!
Such a cool program. Thanks for showcasing it!!
You bet! It was a cool project to try out.
That converson program user the same UI as the OG Novell TUI utilities.
I think some of the features in PsychDOS is pretty neat. perhaps you can integrate some features into FreeDOS?
Fantastic.
What about open source Nano-X Window System? It would be interesting maybe because it should based on something be like Xlib (Xlib is used by a lot of unix and many other operating systems; I think
in graphics it should be a sort like of a Java library for GUIs but only as far as *interoperability* , not OOP).
I never tried it but some DOSes should have been supported in the past.
It's been a long time since I ran an X server on DOS. I suppose I might look into demo'ing something like that. But as you might guess, I usually prefer a text mode interface when working on DOS. :-)
I see a menu system, but what's the stuff on the bottom do? And what's the rest of the screen for?
I like the program. Its things like this is what really made me love DOS so much. One question for you can add to the menu a path way to a outside Dos program you install later on the system in its menu.
I should have explored that in the video, but I didn't. So I don't know, sorry.
@@freedosproject That's ok. The video is still great and glad you shared this. Have a good one.
Reminds me a bit of SideKick and or DeskMate.
5:00 The "neat little conversion program" would be better if it left open the specific conversion after doing the problem, letting you enter different values or reverse the conversion. That is, like what Google does in its info box when you ask for a conversion. It seems almost rude to slam it shut after giving the result, and making you start over if you wanted to adjust the value.
BTW, back in the DOS days, I wrote some library code and interactive utility that uses it called UnitWit. Jokingly you can shift the accent to the second syllable :) It is a calculator that keeps units attached. The hard part is displaying some arbitrary unit dimensions in a preferred way or finding simple combinations of named units, like newtons/second which doesn't exactly match a named unit.
This is a cool system. I wanted to know what library was used to program the windows, scrollbars, and buttons in text mode and if this might be useable in C# for console apps.
You can download the source code here: psychoslinux.gitlab.io/downloads.html#PsychDOS
This is great, thanks for sharing!
Maybe the question is out of topic but: Is there something like this but for Linux TTYs?
Glad you like it!
I don't know if there's a similar "desktop" experience for Linux terminals. Individual file managers, yes. But I don't know about Linux apps that replicate what PsychDOS does.
I want to try it. Hope to be able to change fonts in my Documents.. Thanks
Let me know if you can figure out the lists thing. Maybe I wasn't doing it right.
@@freedosproject It might be a while before I get that far, but will let you know if I make any progress. Think I finally set up the system, I hope to keep today.
I like ti, reminds me of QuattroPro Spreed sheet.
Can you add other programs to the menu structure, e.g. As-Easy-As or MSWord55?
In theory, yes! In the README.TXT file, you can find instructions for "Adding custom software" by using [Category]->Cust0m->Edit, and using hte [Category]\GMENU\GMENU.DAT file to add new items. (I couldn't get it to work, but I didn't do much experimenting.)
Amazing! I will try this in physical machine!
Go for it!
Yey!
New video!
Glad you liked it! What did you think of the video quality? I'm getting into video editing, and this was my first edited video for the channel.
@@freedosproject The video felt natural and smooth to me, I didn’t even consider it was edited, great job.
That's pretty cool. Is it actually running in text mode? Or graphics mode made to look like text mode? At 6:34, the music player and FLWriter too awesome!!
Yes, PsychDOS is actually running in text mode.
6:33: I don't think that deep-fried sound is normal. It sounds like there's something wrong with the audio setup.
Yeah, something weird happened there. I"ve updated my setup since then, so hopefully sound is better on more recent videos.
@@freedosproject Happy Christmas and thank you!
Thanks Jim for this info !
You bet! Always glad to highlight cool DOS programs and collections like this one.
When you want the sound turned off on the calculator, and press the button to turn it off, you get beeped at...yet people wonder why I'm an atheist.
🤣😂🤓
i would like to make a window 95-98 compatible DE but i don't know where to start, maybe reactos could help
Yes, I think ReactOS is probably a better place to start since React aims to make a Windows-compatible OS, and FreeDOS aims for DOS.
What file manager can you recommend for DOS/DOSBox? I don't need entire desktop environment, just a file manager.
When I run DOS, I prefer to use the command line, so I'm using DIR and CD and DEL and all the other filesystem commands.
But a lot of folks like DN2, which is a very nice file manager. I did a video on it, here: th-cam.com/video/N6Vyr52eiw4/w-d-xo.html
Its a clone of Northon commander for wich was a GUI file viewer software for DOS...
You have to agree with me, from DOS to develop a GUI based OS is a times faster than whatever linux versions have done for 20 years -it just does not work that way, UNIX is a evolutionary relic, DOS had alot more simpler underlayer.
It's a little jarring to have the audio suddenly cut out at 9:20.
I'm not sure what was going on with the sound in this one.
I had freedos installed on a machine and for the life of me I could not get it installed whenever I tried to got to the cd drive it read D then just drop me back in C
That's going to be difficult to debug over TH-cam comments. Can you join our Freedos-user email list, and ask there? That's the best place to ask for help like this. (Our email lists are not high volume, so we're not likely to fill up your inbox.) See this page: www.freedos.org/forums/
More direct link to join Freedos-user is here: sourceforge.net/projects/freedos/lists/freedos-user
Yeah just glorified launching shell. FreeDOS itself should try to push past that to a Concurrent DOS mode or even emulating the VM mode Windows do to DOS.
It's an interesting experiment
Another video about DeskMate yawning huh wtf?