[ros-dev] Trying to push ideas (again:) )

[Tim Woods]

Too much wheel re-inventing for the short-term. Dosbox works on ROS
doesn't it. There's the dos support.

Once we can make stable and maintain the windows NT basic features,
graphics/opengl, audio, drivers, etc, which is what this project is
about, then we can figure out what other priorities we want to create.
 Right?

On 9/13/07, Alexandru Lovin <thypope at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Aleksey suggested that I discuss this here, on the mailing list.
>
> First and foremost, these are enhancements to do for later, much later (what
> I would want for the next release is support for RAID / SCSI controllers).
> But I know that a developer doesn't actually keep something in his plans
> unless he's figured out a way to do it.
>
> I will paste and add additional comments to each of my suggestions.
>
>
>
> 1. Compatibility with every version of Windows, from Vista until Windows 3.1
> / 3.11
>
> That means applications written for 3.1 should work flawlessly on ReactOS,
> just like apps written for any other Windows. This is probably not hard, as
> at least XP does the same thing.
>
> However, drivers for Windows 3.1 most probably do not work. If the user
> actually has hardware that was left unsupported since 3.1, he should be able
> to use it.
>
> The same goes for the combination Vista-only driver / old Windows '95 or
> Windows 3.1 application.
> oiaohm said it's not really possible because VxD drivers are not well
> documented. So, maybe in the distant future, maybe when Linux devs will have
> reversed VxD's on their own. Just don't forget this.
>
>
>
> 2. Compatibility with DOS
>
> This will probably not mean DOS drivers, as probably any hardware with DOS
> drivers also has some sort of Windows drivers. It would only mean
> application compatibility. However, applications with direct access to
> hardware will probably have to remain used from within DOS (e.g. BIOS update
> software). The major thing are games here. The ideal way to run DOS games
> is:
>
> - anything requested by the game is interpreted and passed on to the ROS API
>
> - Glide commands are interpreted and passed on to OpenGL or Direct3D,
> resulting in maybe a better image quality, via the use of features OpenGL
> has and Glide doesn't.
>
> - software rendering requested by games should be interpreted and passed on
> to OpenGL or Direct3D, again resulting in a better image quality.
>
> Of course, this will probably result in a compatibility layer, like you
> suggested.
>
> - redbook audio commands should be passed on to ReactOS, who will read in
> analog mode or digital mode, depending on what the ROS global settings are
> for that specific optical drive.
>
> My own thing about Descent, quickly: the game tries to access file " 1.midi"
> but ReactOS plays "1.mp3". I have all the mp3's and will provide them
> whenever needed in order to make this happen. This will transform the old
> Descent for DOS in the CD version, that had redbook audio tracks.
>
> Such enhancements were also created for Tomb Raider 1, by Paul that created
> Glidos ( www.glidos.net ). Please see
> http://www.glidos.net/retext.html?lang=en and
> http://www.glidos.net/audio.html?lang=en
>
> Whenever Tomb Raider 1 asked for certain textures / audio data, it was
> "hijacked" or "redirected" to the better textures or audio files.
>
> Certainly, this DOS compatibility layer would probably need a Glidos-like
> application to control various specific settings from various DOS
> applications.
>
> Another DOS related thing would be a command prompt (terminal?) in ReactOS
> that has drag'n'drop, copy and paste functionality.Still oiaohm: for the
> distant future. Got it, understood it, I just want to convince you to keep
> it in your plans. oiaohm even said a compatibility layer already exists.
>
>
>
> 3. Processors as a devices, in Device Manager
>  For example, let's say a PC has a Pentium 4 at 3 GHz, with HyperThreading.
> Windows XP reports this processor as two identical ones in Device Manager.
> ReactOS should also do that. Apart from Windows, if the user does a
> right-click on a processor as a device, in the Device Manager tree, and
> chooses the Properties page of the processor device, that page should also
> mention the SPEED of the processor. More than that, it would be a blessing
> to also see the L1, L2 and L3 cache size, FSB and multiplier, like those
> SiSoft Sandra / Everest applications report. Maybe even further, the
> instruction sets supported - MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, etc.
>
> oiaohm again: can be done, but not right now. Stability and usability beat
> extra information. Got it, too. Bug 2644.
>
> 4. Clustering
>
> I discussed this with oiaohm and he said it's doable, as soon as ROS gets
> Active Directory Server. Only clustered in terms of processing power, the
> user has more machines in a cluster and he still sees ROS the normal way, it
> just works faster because there are more processors available. No hard
> drives in some sort of JBOD, and 3D data is only handled by the "master"
> machine(otherwise you need about 10 GB/sec between machines), the one the
> user actually interacts with. This is what he said would be the limitations.
> I have other details for this, but since it's very far away, it wouldn't
> make sense to bring them up right now.
>
> 5. Driver extraction tool
>
> I already got one, DoubleDriver, that backs up the drivers for devices in
> the device manager. I was thinking about the hardware that only gets drivers
> from Windows Publisher (like my MSI Starkey 2.0). Users would need one.
>
> Again, oiaohm said replicating a freeware tool is not high on the list. I'm
> fine with that.
>
> 6. A Windows Media Center equivalent
>
> WMC doesn't do much. Just lists program schedules, can do scheduled
> recordings, is able to duplicate streams so that you may record whatever
> you're watching. It stops suddenly while doing a "record once" capture, when
> it should have waited for the user to say stop (it happened on Vista Home
> Premium, on a HP laptop). It has a "touchscreen" kind of interface, that
> would probably be great on an actual touchscreen, works ok when using a PC
> remote control, but is kind of stupid when using the mouse. It can record
> from one channel and let you watch another channel if you have at least two
> TV tuners in your computer. Naturally, ROS should do this with "n" TV
> tuners.
>
> It doesn't have composite or S-video capturing, like the vast majority of TV
> tuner software out there. It only captures in Microsoft's special "Microsoft
> recorded TV Show" format, extension .dvr-ms I think (no AVI capture, no mpg
> capture). It won't let you specify how the tuner provides sound from the
> antenna/cable signal to the sound card (PCI audio, internal cable, external
> cable, and if any of the last two, what sound card channel it is). While
> watching, it should be easier to find out what channel you're on, and what
> the time is, via some sort of OSD (on-screen display) that appears when you
> move the mouse or something, just like in WMC. The recording should not be
> affected by this (i.e. the OSD shouldn't show up on the recording if you
> moved the mouse, again just like in WMC). While watching, it's not possible
> (or at least not easy) to jump directly to a specific channel, it may only
> be used as a TV (next channel, next channel...). If the user tries to switch
> channels while recording, he gets "warning, you're recording, if you switch
> channels it's going to stop, you want that?" It should just stop, or at
> least let the user specify that he doesn't want to see that message again
> somehow. It doesn't let the user specify exactly the framerate, video size,
> video standard...just the country of origin. And, as an example, Romania
> officially uses the PAL D standard on "air" broadcast, that you can get with
> an antenna. But cable providers use PAL B, which is the German official
> standard. So, in WMC a guy with cable from Romania must say he's from
> Germany or else he won't hear anything!
>
> All of these should be properly implemented in ReactOS Media Center. Apart
> from them, "ROSMC" should have all the deinterlacing options and
> deinterlacing-method autodetection routines from Dscaler. That program also
> offers a whole lot of other image improvement things, like a good enough TV
> station logo killer and image de-noising that actually works. Even better
> than Dscaler, REMEMBER the settings the next time the user runs the program.
> Maybe also provide the user with basic video editing functionality, meaning
> most of the features from VirtualDub (the one I find most important is the
> ability to edit a film with "direct stream copy", meaning it just copies the
> video and/or audio stream, it doesn't re-encode it. Edit as in cutting parts
> of the film. In this scenario, the ability to go frame by frame is also very
> useful).
>
> And since it's the Media Center and not the Media Player, this should be the
> application that rips audio cd's or audio dvd's. Most of all, it should be
> "cluster-aware." Regardless of ROS being cluster aware or not, this one
> should be.
>
> oiaohm said this is not your job, but a job for other projects. He pointed
> me to MediaPortal. I e-mailed all of them (Virtualdub, Dscaler and
> MediaPortal) but I doubt they'll combine the three projects. Still, that's
> why John User still buys Windows. Linux is all over the Internet (docs all
> over forums, drivers all over sites, applications all over sites as well).
> Instead, Linux has "cool" stuff like "mousespedometa" (measures the speed
> with which you move the mouse). Some people don't even have Internet to get
> what they need (X servers, for instance). To be a Windows alternative, it
> should contain a lot of things Windows has.
>
>
>
> 7. Running on 16-bit systems like 286/386/486 in a "ReactOS Essentials"
> (equivalent to a stripped-down XP) mode
>
>
> It should be the same operating system, but in 16-bit mode only. That's an
> ideal scenario and I'm sure it cannot be done no matter how good the
> programmers are. So, what can someone do on a 286 ? Listen to mp3's ? No
> way. Listen to audio CD's, yes, and hopefully digital playback, too. Watch
> TV ? Yes, if the user can find an ISA TV tuner (ATI made such tuners, but
> they required a PCI ATI video card, and if you have PCI why not get a better
> tuner?). Record TV shows ? Not on that kind of computer. Browse the internet
> ? That may be possible, with some really outdated, 16-bit browser, like the
> Internet Explorer for Windows 3.1. And I don't know how many sites will work
> on it. Play games ? Yes, either old DOS or Windows 3.1 ones or the ones that
> come with ReactOS, written in 16-bit especially for this mode. Join a hive
> as either master or slave ? Hopefully it will be possible, but probably in
> the year 2015 at least. Use office applications ? Sure, if the user can find
> that last Microsoft Office or maybe Microsoft Works version compatible with
> Windows 3.1. Run a web server ? I know a guy who had a server running on a
> 386 system, on Windows 3.11. So yes, it is possible, only I don't know what
> software he used to actually serve the data. Act as a router ? Again,
> hopefully. That is, if the entire network is on 10 megabit, because I don't
> think there are ISA 100 megabit network cards (ISA bandwith is not enough).
> 2D graphics ? It was possible in Windows 3.1, why not ? Maybe the first
> Photoshop versions actually were 16-bit. 3D graphics ? The first 3D Studio
> Max (that is, 3D Studio) was for DOS only. That probably means 16-bit right
> from the start, and that should mean yes, you can do it, with the DOS
> compatibility layer. Web design ? If you can find a 16-bit application, yes.
>
>
> A separate ReactOS for 16-bit only, or just all the 16-bit functionality
> included in the normal ReactOS ? Things look better when it works out of the
> box, but it's a waste of space to include applications written for 16-bit
> only. People that really need the 16-bit version will not mind paying extra
> attention to actually download this one and not the normal one. Besides
> that, ReactOS is free. And the presence of such a version would mean a
> selfless devotion to people. An act of charity for real. Allowing people to
> use their computers and do as many modern things as possible on them.
> An open source Windows 3.11 with better compatibility and adherence to
> standards. Compatible with all the 9x and ME. Has been tried in Free Win 95,
> oiaohm said "dead and staying that way" about it, but maybe VxD
> documentation and whatever else you would need will appear (or be reverse
> engineered by someone). Once a bigger effort will be done, the missing info
> is probably easier to uncover.
>
> Those are my suggestions. They are not for now, they are not easy to do,
> etc. Just don't discard them, please.
>
> Alex
>
>
>
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