Dear Steve,
It's 1.4, the version you get with apt-get from Ubuntu 10.04 and the
latest stable version, I believe.
Are you using 32-bit or 64-bit? I found 32-bit plays better generally.
Although we have source code and suitable compilers, tweaking it much is
probably not an option for business reasons. We are on a 2-week
fish-or-cut-bait time frame for evaluating DOSEMU for this purpose. If
we can't get this to work, we will look at rewriting instead, which is
our preferred long-term solution. DOSEMU, if it proves out in the two
weeks allotted, would be the short term solution. The reason for this
whole effort is hardware exhaustion - we haven't figured out a workable
way to replace the old hardware, and are running out of suitable
replacements, which are no longer available.
If all you talk to are serial ports, then you can use a VM under Linux
and have that run your software & MS-DOS in it, and pass through the
serial stuff to the machine's hardware.
Only 'gotcha' I have found is VM's generally can't successfully set
non-standard baud rates, where as dosemu can (particularly if its going
via direct hardware I/O to the serial ports rather than emulation).
Re-writing, while a good long terms solution, should *not* be under
estimated in terms of the effort needed!
Having the source code is a *major* bonus, and you might be able to
re-compile for Linux by only replacing some of the I/O and user
interface side of it. We still have a 19-year old DOS control program
that we use 24/7 on several systems because:
1) It works reliably (a lot of debugging over the years).
2) There is little "value" in a new program. Given we have it happy
under dosemu, there is no functional advantage to changing.
3) It is around 6 months effort to re-write, then at least another 6
months to debug to an acceptably good degree of reliability. Given (2)
there is a lot better use of our time on other projects (i.e. little
"business case" for it).
Regards,
Paul
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