China DOS Union

On a Tongfang machine here, when selecting real mode to boot, there is continuous beeping, and the screen displays garbled characters, as if showing some file.

Another way with cab, I can use the cabarc.exe software, and the compression ratio is even larger than rar. Your original extract.exe is a bit old, not recognizing the cab made by cabarc.exe, and can be replaced with that in Windows 98 SE. For example, your doset.cab, which was originally 205,432 Bytes, after using LZX:21 compression with cabarc, becomes 188,298 bytes.

It's very strange that according to the instructions, the optional value for lzx is 15~21, and 21 is the largest, but actually it's related to the file being compressed. Sometimes 18 is even larger than 21, but the difference is very small.

Cabarc can be found in the support toolkit of Windows 2000 or XP.

I am going to make a CD boot image. One is to use the 2.88 format, and there is a way to break through 2.88M, which is much more convenient. For a CD, space of 5M, 10M is not large.

I was exactly using the DOSET.CAB file made by CABARC. Maybe it's because of the version, so the compression ratio isn't that high. I'll go find the new version. The reason I used an old version (1994) of EXTRACT is mainly to save a few KB of floppy disk space. As for the compatibility issue, I'll make some conclusions after testing on a few more computers.

The extract of win98se is about 6k larger after being compressed by upx, and I used cabarc of winserver2003.

Uploaded!

The T in May has been postponed! It's all because of SARS!

Open the attachment Link has expired (admin note)

I just went to find a new CABARC, used the -M option, it's really great! It can save more than 20K of space again.

SARS (SARS) is also broadcast on TV every day here (Toronto, Canada).

Under the Windows 2000 kernel, there is also an expand.exe, which is only 17k in size and is specifically used to extract CAB files. Unfortunately, it cannot be used under DOS. Its file header says:

This program cannot be run in DOS mode.

Hehe!

May was changed to August, this is just a wait-and-see attitude. Before the emergence of accurate and effective treatment measures, it is恐怕 that it still needs to be changed.
The original plan is over! Some people are truly relieved, some people's time has been wasted, but
there are still some people who, although frightened, can obtain more economic benefits.

It was originally said that little Bush should hurry up and finish the war. The US economy has improved slightly. I don't know how many people's dreams can be fulfilled!

Now occasionally curse why there was no SARS outbreak in Iraq when the war started. In that case, at least the devils going to Baghdad would have to be careful!

Theoretically speaking, the streamlining of IO.SYS does not "streamline" any useful program code. It just removes the LOGO and Image, and modifies the file header information to be suitable for system startup. However, there may be some differences in the file size marked in the file header information under some specific conditions, causing a little problem. But one thing is already very certain that there will be no problem in standard hard disks and floppy disks. As for the deeper part, I will continue to study.

Sorry, it seems that it's not a problem with io.sys, but with UMBPCI. I modified your boot disk, removed some programs, replaced xzl with tway32, and the xzl font is too ugly. Positioned as an emergency boot disk.

Yes, if the DOS has successfully booted and then has issues, then it can be said that it has nothing to do with IO.SYS, but is caused by other programs. I just specially formatted my 1.44M boot disk into 720KB, 1.2M and 1.68M for testing, and found that there are no problems when booting with this streamlined IO.SYS.

I'm at ease with IO.SYS. But I'm still a bit uneasy about FDISK.EXE of FREEDOS. Also, I want to ask how to use cabarc.exe. cabarc.exe is from XP, and I'm on Windows 98. If I want to use cabarc.exe to make a CAB - format compressed file of 7 files with the maximum compression ratio, how should I type the command? Please give me some advice, thank you.

Free FDISK should at least be okay on most computers, because there are quite a few people who tested it. For the CABARC compression ratio, select the maximum available -m LZX:21 parameter, for example:
CABARC -m LZX:21 N FDISK.CAB FDISK*.*

The following is a quote from phantom on 2003-4-26 7:42:51:
sorry, it seems that it's not a problem with io.sys, but with UMBPCI. I modified your boot disk, deleted some programs, replaced xzl with tway32, because the xzl font is too ugly. Positioned as an emergency boot disk.

The xzl font is too ugly, but it's the most compact. Tianhui is still a bit large... Everyone has their own preferences, hehe... Actually, I also really like Tianhui... And CCDOS (this is even larger).

I actually think AW97 is very good. It can run with only two files, just a 27K executable file and a GBK font file, and it occupies very little memory (only 23KB of UMB memory). Moreover, it has strong compatibility, and the display effect is much better than XZL.

The title has also been changed. Hehe, but it really should be changed.

AW97 can't be found. Can wengier give a download? It doesn't matter if Tianhui is a bit large. Put it in the cab and delete some files that are hardly used, and it's差不多. The logo should be kept as much as possible, it's rare.

I've finished making the floppy boot image on my CD. I added PQmagic and PQDI to wengier's msdos7.1. Except for what's immediately used in config.sys and autoexec.bat, the rest are put in the cab. Finally, it's about 4.7M. I made a 5M hard disk image, and then used the method to break through 2.88M to make it bootable. I tested part of it in Vmware4.0 and it can boot. It hasn't been burned to a CD yet. The one on the CD uses ucdos98, which at most provides a Chinese environment, and it shouldn't be used for word processing on this platform.

Anyway, it's positioned for emergency use, and it's okay if it's slow.

AW97 is available for download in the sub-thread of "DOS GBK Chinese Character System" in the "DOS Software World" section of the forum.

All the files in the 7.1 startup disk I made have been compressed, so putting them in a CAB file often takes up more space because compressing already compressed files usually makes them larger.

The following is a quote from Wengier on 2003-4-26 20:09:10:
I actually think AW97 is very good. It can run with only two files, just a 27K executable file and a GBK font file. And it occupies very little memory (only 23KB of UMB memory). Moreover, it has strong compatibility, and the display effect is much better than XZL.

Moderator, what are the two files? Please tell the file names. Can a floppy disk hold them? Together they are more than 4MB.