• Re-post /2016

    From Skuz@21:1/105 to All on Saturday, September 09, 2017 00:47:40
    = FSX_MYS (21:1/105)==========================================================
    Msg : 1815 of 1822 From : Avon 21:1/101
    09 Jan 17 14:12:00 To : All
    Subj : Re: Run DOS BBS DoorGames on the Raspberry Pi =============================================================================== On 12/09/16, Gryphon pondered and said...

    Of course you can run DOS doors on the Pi. I wrote a HOWTO. It uses QEMU.

    For those of you who are looking for info on how to run DOS doors on a Raspberry Pi I am posting the often referred to how-to document that Gryphon has kindly written and published on his website here as well as a reference post for others looking for this information. Big thanks to Gryphon for his work in creating this document.

    You can find this document online at http://cyberia.darktech.org:8080/articles/qemu-howto.html

    [snip]

    Run DOS BBS DoorGames on the Raspberry Pi:
    by Darryl Perry 2016

    This tutorial is intended for BBS sysops who wish to run DOS door games
    on their Raspberry Pi (or other ARM device)

    This tutorial is developed with Mystic BBS as the default BBS to use. If
    you wish to use another BBS package, you will need to fix up the parts
    that are specific to the package you wish to use.

    How does this work?
    We will be creating an emulated virtual DOS environment from which to run
    our DOS door games. To do that, we will be creating a serial port into our
    VM and attching it to a computer port so that we can communicate via socat.

    Since we can mount host file systems into the DOS VM, we will not need to
    populate the VM file system with doorgame programs. This means we only need
    the bare minimum to boot and run the dos environment.

    Each time a door is ran, the script will build a batch file (run.bat) in
    the main bbs directory. When the VM boots, it will run that run.bat
    batch file to run the doorgame.

    These methods have worked for me on the following devices:
    1) Raspberry Pi B+ (raspberrypi.org)
    2) Raspberry PiB3 (raspberrypi.org)
    3) ODROID XU3-Lite (hardkernel.com)

    Caveats:
    The Raspberry Pi B+ is the least robust device I've attemted this with
    and I've had some good success with it. However, the device is inherently
    slow, so do not expect high-speed game-play like you do with traditional
    telnet doorgame activity. I would say that the speed of the display would
    be equivalent to a 1200 Baud modem.

    The Raspberry Pi B3 is a much faster device and the speed lag is not
    noticable at all.

    The ODROID XU3 is a much more robust device and the speed delay seems
    almost unnoticable.


    Required packages:
    qemu: apt-get install qemu
    socat: apt-get install socat
    todos: apt-get install tofrodos


    Create freedos image:

    We will be creating a FreeDOS image to be used in our VM.

    I find it helpful to follow this howto when creating a FreeDOS image.

    https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QEMU/FreeDOS

    Then I use this link as a HOWTO to install FreeDOS on the newley created
    image.

    http://how-to.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_install_FreeDOS_in_QEMU

    I made my image to be 100MB. I think that it may be quite a bit
    larger than I need so you may be able to use something much smaller.

    Configure 4DOS:

    Once you have a working FreeDOS VM, you will need to configure the boot
    files for your needs:

    I find it easier to mount the image onto the local file system, and edit the
    files with VI. To mount the image:

    1) Create a mount point:
    mkdir /mnt/freedos

    2) mount the image
    sudo mount -t msdos -o loop,offset=32256 ./freedos.img /mnt/freedos

    You can then cd to /mnt/freedos/ and edit your files. You can also use
    this method for copying files to the DOS filesystem. Don't forget to
    unmount the image before running the VM.

    sudo umount /mnt/freedos

    The default boot scripts are C:\FDCONFIG.SYS and C:\FDOS\FDAUTO.BAT.
    The following has worked for me. You will want to play with your own
    configuration to meet your own needs.

    C:\FDCONFIG.SYS
    ---------------------------------------
    !COUNTRY=001,858,C:\FDOS\BIN\COUNTRY.SYS
    !SET DOSDIR=C:\FDOS
    !LASTDRIVE=Z
    !BUFFERS=20
    !FILES=40
    DOS=HIGH
    DOS=UMB
    DOSDATA=UMB
    DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE
    DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\JEMM386.EXE X=TEST I=TEST I=B000-B7FF NOVME NOINVLPG
    SHELLHIGH=C:\FDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM C:\FDOS\BIN /E:1024 /P=C:\FDOS\FDAUTO.BAT
    ---------------------------------------


    C:\FDOS\FDAUTO.SYS
    -------------------------------------
    @echo off
    SET LANG=EN
    SET MTCPCFG=C:\FDOS\MTCP.CFG
    REM SET WATTCP.CFG=C:\FDOS
    SET PATH=%dosdir%\BIN
    SET NLSPATH=%dosdir%\NLS
    SET HELPPATH=%dosdir%\HELP
    SET TEMP=%dosdir%\TEMP
    SET TMP=%TEMP%
    SET DIRCMD=/P /OGN /4
    SET COPYCMD=/-Y
    FDAPM APMDOS
    LH SHARE
    DOSLFN
    MEM /C /N
    SET AUTOFILE=%0
    SET CFGFILE=C:\FDCONFIG.SYS
    alias reboot=fdapm warmboot
    alias reset=fdisk /reboot
    alias halt=fdapm poweroff
    alias shutdown=fdapm poweroff
    alias cfg=edit %cfgfile%
    alias auto=edit %0
    CALL D:\RUN.BAT
    ----------------------------------------

    Note how the batch file ends with CALL D:\RUN.BAT. RUN.BAT is the
    dynamically created batch file that gets created each time we run the
    doors.sh script.

    Setting up the doorgames:
    You will want to run the DOS VM initially, to setup your doorgames. To do
    that, you just run qemu normally, but with the mounted local file system.
    I've written a simple batch file that will load the VM. ----------------------------------------
    #!/bin/sh

    rm /home/bbs/temp${NODE}/run.bat

    qemu-system-i386 \
    -localtime \
    /home/bbs/doors/qemu/freedos.img \
    -boot c \
    -hdb fat:/home/bbs \
    -m 1024
    ----------------------------------------

    If you are running this remotely, from a terminal like putty, you can add
    the -curses flag. That will give you an interactive shell into the VM.


    The method used for running the VM will mount the /home/bbs directory as
    the DOS D: drive. This puts all the BBS subdirectories off of D:.

    I have my doorgame files in /home/bbs/doors/ on the host filesystem.
    My LORD directory is at /home/bbs/doors/lord. When viewed from the DOS VM,
    it will be located at D:\DOORS\LORD

    The dropfile locations will also be on your D: drive.
    D:\TEMP

    or for node #2:
    D:\TEMP2


    The working DOORS.SH script:
    This is the script as I have it working for me: ------------------------------------
    #!/bin/sh

    ## Pass the parameters for the door and the node.
    DOOR=${1}
    NODE=${2}

    DOOR=`echo ${DOOR} | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'`

    ## The linux path for the run.bat file
    gobat=/home/bbs/run.bat
    ## The VM will be accessable via a computer port. I have randomly selected
    ## 20200 as a base port number to use. Each node will 'add' to the base
    ## number. IE, Node #1 will be added to 20200 and the result will be
    ## port 20201 (20200 + 1)
    ## You may change the base port to any number you wish.
    portnum=`expr 20200 + ${NODE}`

    case ${DOOR} in
    ## Operation OverKill II
    OOII)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\OO" >> ${gobat}
    ### Use the CALL command when calling a door batch file.
    ### If not used, then the door batch file will not return
    ### to the RUN.BAT script to complete execution. If the
    ### RUN.BAT script does not complete execution, then it will
    ### not shut down the VM. It will then just go to a dos
    ### prompt and the user will not see it, and will think that
    ### the game is hung.
    echo "CALL OOIIDOOR.BAT ${NODE}" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    ## Legend of the Red Dragon
    LORD)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\LORD" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CALL START.BAT ${NODE}" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    ## Planets: The Exploration of Space
    PLAN)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\PLAN" >> ${gobat}
    echo "PLANETS.EXE /pD:\TEMP${NODE}" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    ## Barren Realms Elete
    BRE)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\BRE" >> ${gobat}
    echo "SRDOOR" >> ${gobat}
    echo "BRE" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    # Space Dynasty
    DYNASTY)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\DYNASTY" >> ${gobat}
    echo "DYNASTY D:\TEMP${NODE}\DOOR.SYS" >> ${gobat}
    echo "COPY \\DOORS\\DYNASTY\\DYNASTY\\DYNASTY.SCO \\TEXT\\" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    # NetRunner
    NETRUN)
    echo "@echo off" > ${gobat}
    echo "D:" >> ${gobat}
    echo "D:\DOORS\bnu\bnu" >> ${gobat}
    echo "CD \DOORS\NETRUN" >> ${gobat}
    echo "NETRUN D:\TEMP{NODE}\DOOR.SYS" >> ${gobat}
    ;;
    DOS)
    ;;
    esac
    ## At the end of run.bat, we add this line to gracefully shutdown the VM.
    ## This will return the user back to the BBS.
    echo "C:\FDOS\BIN\FDAPM POWEROFF" >> ${gobat}
    ## The batch file must be in dos format, or it will not run properly.
    todos ${gobat}


    ### The main QEMU call.
    ### 1) -localtime to pass the host clock to the VM
    ### 2) tell it to use the freedos.img
    ### 3) tell it to boot to the C: drive
    ### 4) Turn off all displays. Otherwise it will give errors or skewed displays ### 5) How many megabytes of memory to allow for the BM
    ### 6) Define a serial modem connection and assign a computer port
    ### 7) Mount the main BBS directory in RW mode
    ### The qemu call is loaded into the background. We do this so that we can ### spawn a concurrent socat process.
    qemu-system-i386 \
    -localtime \
    /home/bbs/doors/qemu/freedos.img \
    -boot c \
    -display none \
    -m 256 \
    -serial telnet::${portnum},server,nowait,nodelay \
    -hdb fat:rw:/home/bbs > /dev/null 2>&1 &


    ### Inform the user that it will take several seconds before the game
    ### loads up.
    clear
    echo
    echo "Loading door... please be patient...."
    echo
    sleep 3
    ### socat is used to communicate with the VM's serial modem.
    socat -,raw,echo=0 TCP:localhost:${portnum}

    if [ -f ${gobat} ]; then
    rm -rf ${gobat}
    fi

    exit 0
    ------------------------------------

    Using the script:
    I use and have developed this method for Mystic BBS. You will need to make
    appropriate adjustments if you use a different BBS package.

    The script is called from a menu option. At the time of this writing,
    Mystic BBS is currently at 1.12a4. At this time, each door menu option
    generates a specific dropfile. Later versions of Mystic (I'm told) will
    have it so there is only one doorgame menu option, and it will generate
    every known dropfile in the user's temp directory.

    For now, you will need to call the proper doorgame menu option for the
    doorgame it is intending to launch. I try to use the DOOR.SYS dropfile
    whereever possible. That Mystic Menu Option is DG.

    The parameters for the script are:

    doors.sh DOOR NODE# /DOS

    The /DOS switch is used to create a DOS version of the drop file. That way
    there is no need to run todos on the dropfile before calling the door.

    Use %3 of course, as the MCI macro to pass the users' node number.

    Menu: DG
    Data: /home/bbs/doors/qemu/doors.sh LORD %3 /DOS

    Conclusion:

    That's all there is to it. Your milage may vary.
    Darryl Perry
    Gryphon @ Cyberia BBS
    telnet://cyberia.darktech.org
    [snip]
    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Windows)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | telnet://agency.bbs.geek.nz (21:1/101)

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A35 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (21:1/105)
  • From Gryphon@21:1/120 to Skuz on Saturday, September 09, 2017 11:04:50
    On 09/09/17, Skuz said the following...

    = FSX_MYS (21:1/105)========================================================== Msg
    : 1815 of 1822 From : Avon 21:1/101 09 Jan 17 14:12:00 To : All
    Subj : Re: Run DOS BBS DoorGames on the Raspberry Pi ========================================================================== On 12/09/16, Gryphon pondered and said...

    Of course you can run DOS doors on the Pi. I wrote a HOWTO. It uses QEMU.

    For those of you who are looking for info on how to run DOS doors on a Raspberry Pi I am posting the often referred to how-to document that Gryphon has kindly written and published on his website here as well as
    a reference post for others looking for this information. Big thanks to Gryphon for his work in creating this document.

    You can find this document online at http://cyberia.darktech.org:8080/articles/qemu-howto.html


    Thanks Skuz,

    After reading that, I realize that while what I have in that is still valid,
    I have chosen to go a slightyly diffent way. In my case, instead of
    installing the games on the local linux file system, I've started installing them on the DOS VM file system. I forget why I started doing it that way. I suspect I was having issues with the ability of qemu to mount local file systems and wanted to improve performance.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A35 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Cyberia BBS | cyberia.darktech.org | San Jose, CA (21:1/120)