China DOS Union

This tutorial is meant for beginners, so it may not be suitable for the intermediate and advanced experts!
If I said anything wrong, please correct me!
Thanks, everyone.
1. The simplest way to make an English multi-boot disc:

Principle: this process is completed by a system made up of diskem1x.bin and the like.
At present this version still does not support graphical display, that is, showing graphics before DOS.

This system has only three complete files:
diskem1x.bin loader.bin diskemu.cmd

The first two are fixed and cannot be modified, while the last one is our multi-boot menu at startup.
Seeing this, do you already have a rough idea?

Now let's look at the contents of this third file:

It starts here =>
:start
cls
print
print ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
print Bootable CD main menu zhanghuiwen Make in 2002
print ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
print F1=Help
print
print
print 1) MSDOS 6.22
print 2) WINDOWS 95
print 3) WINDOWS 98 SE
print q) Quit to command prompt
print r) Reboot
print Esc) Boot first harddisk
print
print Hit the key of choice:
:mainkey
; timeout is 20 seconds, default key is escape
getkey 20 esc
onkey 1 goto dos
onkey 2 goto win95
onkey 3 goto win98
onkey q quit
onkey r reboot
onkey f1 goto help
onkey esc boot 80
; When no key found...
goto mainkey
;
:help
cls
print HELP
print ----
print
print Here you can type help for your customers
print
print Press any key to return to main menu
getkey
goto start
:dos
print Starting Dos622
run dos622.img
getkey
goto start
;
:win95
print Start Windows 95 command mode
run win95.img
getkey
goto start
;
:win98
print Start windows 98 se command mode
run win98.img
getkey
goto start
; EOF

<= It ends here

If you already have a certain understanding of DOS, doesn't this look very simple?
It's as simple as our batch files.

There are some syntax points we need to pay attention to:

:start indicates a LABEL, that is, a marker used when jumping
print what follows is what will be displayed on the screen; in this example Chinese text cannot be written
；XXX the content following the semicolon is a comment and will not be displayed on the screen.
getkey this is a command; it gets the keyboard key value and only does the corresponding GOTO operation
goto jump to a label or execute a command
run call an *.img file or another file that matches the format

reboot reboot command, executed directly
boot 80 boot from the hard disk
esc means pressing the esc key

There is more syntax and more commands than just these. If you want detailed materials, you'll need to read more of the other posts.

Once you can understand the statements above, let's begin our next step:
First we still need to prepare one piece of software: UltraISO version 40 or above. It is used to build our bootable ISO file.
What you see here may be different from what is on the Internet, because I figured this out myself. At least nobody told me this could be done this way,
and I haven't seen this method anywhere else either. Of course, maybe someone had already done it this way long ago, they just didn't say so.
(This accompanying tutorial package includes this software)

Now let's take a look at what we have in our directory: (suppose our files are in the "test" directory on drive D

DISKEMU CMD 2,216 10-05-02 2:46 diskemu.cmd
DISKEM1X BIN 12,288 07-11-01 15:59 diskem1x.bin
LOADER BIN 2,048 07-09-01 9:13 loader.bin
DOS622 IMG 1,474,560 12-05-01 19:30 dos622.img
WIN98 IMG 1,474,560 11-28-01 1:03 win98.img
WIN95 IMG 1,474,560 11-28-01 1:03 win95.img

The first three files are the necessary files for our multi-boot menu; not one of them can be missing!
The last three files are the *.img files to be called in this example.

1. Since we're here, let's talk about how to make img files. You need to prepare a piece of software called winimage6.0.
Making a boot disk shouldn't be a problem for everyone, right? In short, you just need to make
a bootable disk. The specific contents depend on your actual situation, because what we
are discussing is multi-boot, not the contents inside it, so as long as you can make
a bootable disk, that's enough.
----, and that's how it is made.
2. Then use WINIMAGE to read in the disk you made, with "DISK-READ DISK"
and then save it as *.ima format, then rename *.ima to *.img. Because this software
cannot generate *.img format directly.
3. Use the same method to make the above three disks, then start the next step.
(This accompanying tutorial package includes this software and these files)


Alright, the preparation work ends here. Next we will make this multi-boot CD.
1. Open UltraISO5.0 (I use this version), and in the "Local Directory" window at the lower left, find the "test" directory on drive D:
2. Then the files listed above will be displayed in the "File Name" area on the right
3. Use the mouse to select these files and drag them all at once into the upper window; you don't need to care about their order.
4. Then use the mouse to select the loader.bin file that has already been dragged over, right-click it, and choose "Set as Boot File"
5. Alright, the job is done. Then click the disk icon at the upper right to save this ISO file; where to save it is up to you.
6. Test it with a virtual machine and see whether it succeeds. (What is a virtual machine? It's a fake computer that can simulate a real computer for operation. This accompanying
tutorial includes this software.)
7. If you need to make any changes later, just directly modify the menu file DISKEMU.CMD and the *.img files. After modifying them, repeat these steps
to regenerate the ISO.

Good article, I'll learn from it too... I want to use DiskEmu to make a multi-system boot disk for MS-DOS 7.10, ROM-DOS 7.10, and FreeDOS~~

There are several versions of DISKEMU. One is the original foreign version. That's the one Huiwen introduced above. It can only support English menu display. Later this software spread to China. Some domestic experts reverse-engineered it and made a Chinese-localized version, that is, one supporting Chinese menus. Later there also appeared a version with graphic text boxes and colored highlight bars (I forgot the author). Most amazing of all, this January bradyzhu made a DISKEMU with a graphical interface supporting 32-bit true color (just think about it, supporting 32-bit color before DOS even runs, how magical that is. Even the Win98 LOGO only supports 8-bit color). It's just a pity that bradyzhu had limited graphics cards on hand, so support for some onboard graphics cards is not very good. I really hope he can improve it in the midst of his busy schedule.
EASYBOOT is also a fairly good piece of software for making multi-boot CDs. The latest version is 4.0. The current version supports 8-bit color and mouse operation. (Supporting the mouse before DOS is also quite interesting.)
There are also VISUALBOOT and BS, which are similar foreign software. But they are much inferior to the above two.

As for ULTRAISO, the latest version is 6.0.

I already made one. It has everything from msdos3.10 up to msdos8, plus romdos, erdc, and other system recovery tools. If anyone's interested, give me an ftp and I'll upload it. But I made it with easyboot. diskemu2.0 is pretty good too, but easyboot4.0 supports the mouse, and I still don't know what to use for the next version ^_^

Hope we can make it into a small but refined CD tool disc!

Thanks! Teacher Zhang! Can you tell me! What is different about the Linux multi-boot for diskemu 1x?!

The following is quoted from minisheep's post on 2003-7-3 10:37:23:
Thanks! Teacher Zhang! Can you tell me! What is different about the Linux multi-boot for diskemu&nbsp;1x?!

Linux multi-boot?? Are you talking about LILO?

http://www2.zzu.edu.cn/ie/newdos/dispbbs.asp?boardID=11&ID=2919
Take a look! What's the difference between nre's boot disk and the bootable CD Teacher Zhang introduced? What are the respective advantages and disadvantages? I hope someone can list them out! Arigatou!

The following is quoted from minisheep’s post on 2003-7-3 21:33:27:
http://www2.zzu.edu.cn/ie/newdos/dispbbs.asp?boardID=11&ID=2919
Take a look! What’s the difference between nre’s boot disk and the CD boot Teacher Zhang introduced? What are each one’s advantages and disadvantages? I hope someone can point them out in a list! Arigatou!

The principles are different... one is an IMG Loader, and the other is a Boot Sector Loader... the latter can coexist with the former, just like a submenu (that is, there can be multiple IMGs, and each IMG can contain multiple Boot Sector Loaders to boot different operating systems)~~