How does one make a hardfile for usage with Bochs, when only MorphOS is available on the Pegasos in question?

Ummm, how about the bximage program which is included in the MorphOS Bochs distribution?

And it's easy as that!
Just fill in how many megabytes this hardfile should be and bximage will produce this file and give the relevant numbers (heads, cylinders...) to put in the .bochsrc

I've got a 512MB file and in mine .bochsrc I've got the following line:

ata0-master: type=disk, path="d.img", cylinders=1040, heads=16, spt=63,

Spidey

Thanks! I've got the hardfile, but Bochs still isn't working correctly for me. I get the bochs window, but it doesn't see the cdrom nor give me anything beyond a grey screen.

Hi targhan,

But the hardfile is recognised now?

To activate the cdrom you need a similar line in .bochsrc. When I'm home I'll post this line too.
Further more, if the cdrom is activated, but you don't have a cd in it Bochs will do nothing for about 45 seconds before proceeding booting up (something to do with recognising old cdrom drives).

Good luck ,

Spidey

If it appears to be locked up ... Bochs has the stupid habit of appearing to hang on startup if you have no CD-ROM in your CD drive (or if you have one in there ... I really haven't used Bochs for some time). The cure is to insert a CD.

Anyway, even with/without a CD, Bochs will come to its senses after quite some time although I agree it very much looks like it has crashed.

If it's not this, then it's probably your config. But I'd check the CD-ROM issue first.

I didn't have the latest version of Bochs. Now, it seems as if the Bochs gui is trashing my config file....

I have one bosch question actually.

I was under the impression that BOCHS will only access the CD drive via an ISO image. (IE: not able to access the physical drive). Is this true?

If so, which software can I use on my MOS system to create an ISO image? Otherwise, I'll tweak MOS so I can access the CDDrive directly.

Is the BOCHS GUI compatible with the latest version of BOCHS?

I figure that I'll invest some time to try and get it to run.

Bochs can see an actual CDRom drive

It's evening and I'm home at last!

Ok, this is what is in mine .bochsrc:

config_interface: textconfig
display_library: amigaos
romimage: file=bios/BIOS-bochs-latest, address=0xf0000
megs: 128
vgaromimage: bios/VGABIOS-lgpl-latest
floppya: 1_44=A.img, status=ejected
floppyb: 1_44=B.img, status=ejected
ata0: enabled=1, ioaddr1=0x1f0, ioaddr2=0x3f0, irq=14
ata1: enabled=1, ioaddr1=0x170, ioaddr2=0x370, irq=15
ata2: enabled=0, ioaddr1=0x1e8, ioaddr2=0x3e8, irq=11
ata3: enabled=0, ioaddr1=0x168, ioaddr2=0x368, irq=9
ata0-master: type=disk, path="d.img", cylinders=1040, heads=16, spt=63,
ata0-slave: type=cdrom, path="ide.device 3", status=inserted
ata1-master: type=disk, path="e.img", cylinders=1040, heads=16, spt=63,
boot: disk
floppy_bootsig_check: disabled=0
log: t:bochsout.txt
panic: action=fatal
error: action=report
info: action=report
debug: action=ignore
debugger_log: t:bochs.debug
com1: enabled=1, dev="--"
parport1: enabled=1, file="--"
vga_update_interval: 1000
keyboard_serial_delay: 250
keyboard_paste_delay: 100000
floppy_command_delay: 500
ips: 18000000
mouse: enabled=0
private_colormap: enabled=0
fullscreen: enabled=0
screenmode: name="--"
keyboard_mapping: enabled=0, map=
i440fxsupport: enabled=0


With this config I have 128 MB in Windows.
I've got a A-drive and a B-drive (2 images of bootable floppies).
I've assigned 2 IDE controllers to be active and have a 512 MB image-file and the CD-ROM on the first controller and also a 512 MB image-file as Master on the second IDE controller.
And finally Bochs starts in a window in Ambient.



I use Bochs V2.0.2 with the newly made GUI from Felix.
This GUI deletes all unnecessary lines in the config-file, perhaps that is the thrashing you were talking about targhan?

About the CDROM:
Like tomjoad said, just place a cd in the drive and Bochs will continue loading (well, if you have a bootable drive ofcourse )
Also to answer td741, I installed Microsoft Office 97 from cd in Windows 95, so it works beautifully

I don't know if the GUI works with the latest Bochs. I guess I'll have to try this.

Spidey

Thanks Spidey! I'll cut, paste, and edit this tonight

Good luck with it targhan.

To be honest, I don't use Bochs much.
I'm waiting for better graphic support and ethernet-connection.

Spidey

Spidey:
How fast is your Bochs setup compared to a real pc? 100mhz Pentium? 200mhz p2? I just want to see if its worthwhile to install.
magnetic

I don't know to which real PC it is comparable, but W95 boots in 80 seconds and Word (95, IIRC, am at work currently) needs about 20 seconds.

> I didn't have the latest version of Bochs.
> Now, it seems as if the Bochs gui is trashing
> my config file....

Sorry that my GUI f*cksup your config file,
i personally haven't found such problems,
that's why it's beta ;)

Ill update it one of these day's, when i
have some spare time..

And yes it's made for Bochs 2.02, and i
don't think a newer version is available.

Bye,
Felix@attention-software.com

Hi Felix,

So, probably no newer version of Bochs....
Do you know or heard anything about continuing Bochs development?

Spidey

@Felix

No worries m8. This was just a fun experiment to try Would have been funny if I could have gooten Amithlon to load on it though!

Hey Spiderman ;),

A few months ago i had some contact with someone
who had acces to the sources, i also asked him
for some things i missed, such as the platform
and version in the titlebar of the window, and
if network/sb16 support is comming, he told me
svb16 was priority, and that he would update
the windowtitle part, no more i realy know for
the morphos port.

The actual bochs project is at sourceforge,
you can check there if there's any news, i
read there a time ago, someone was working
on dynamic translation, wich can boost emulation
2 or 4 or more times, like JIT on MOS :)

If i need any PC emulation today, i use
linux/mol/realpc, wich is very usable
for stuff like web browsing & fileshare..

Hi Felix,

Glad to hear they are still working on improvements!
My problem is that I don't have enough knowledge of Linux or Mac to use those OS's and to be honest; I'm very lazy at the moment with all these high temperatures in Holland!

I'll check their site.

Thanks

Spidey

Okay... Using bochs 2.0.2.

I downloaded the FreeDos 8.1 "h1" iso image. Burned the CD. I could boot the FreeDOS cd from bochs, and do the installation on my "c.img".

Then I restart bochs and boot from harddrive. I get the "bios" output on the bochs window, and then I see some garbage on the screen. I hit a key and it says: "Booting from harddisk..." and redisplays the same garbage.

Anyone have any hints? In short, I don't want to run windows, I'd like to run dos, or perhaps even OS/2. ;)

I also had troubles using FreeDOS with Bochs,
i found some MSDOS floppyimages on www.filemirrors.com, and downloaded them,
and that way i could partition my hd image,
and format it with dos.

Mabe this helps..

Felix.

Okay, so there is software for BOCHS that allows you to read a PC floppy and make an image out of it?

I'll probably try that out then... I'm curious to see if I can load up OS/2.

Right now, I simply booted up on Freedos, formated the drives and now I'm installing up Win98 at home since I can boot off the CD. :P (At least, it started before I head out this morning. :P)

If the booting of HD works, then I will perhaps attempt to install OS/2 from within Windows. :P

I've also been tinkering with PCTask3, and seeing if I can boot off the catweasel... It doesn't quite work. :P

Edit: I've also been having problems getting floppy support to work right. I've tried the floppy images available from the BOCHS website and it seems like BOCHS just freezes when loading floppies. I will attempt to access a floppy once I get Windows loaded up, but it doesn't seem to work for me? Could it be a problem with using BOCHS on an SFS partition like "DosBox"?

Hello td741,

"Okay, so there is software for BOCHS that allows you to read a PC floppy and make an image out of it?"

Well yes, it's a freeware prog called DiskImage or so?! (I forgot the name, I'll check it tomorrow at work)

"Right now, I simply booted up on Freedos, formated the drives and now I'm installing up Win98 at home since I can boot off the CD. :P (At least, it started before I head out this morning. :P)"

So you're able to do more with FreeDos than I
I know I was stuck with formatting the harddrive, but the installation of Win95 was corrupt at the end. That's why I made images of the Win95 recovery floppy at my work and used that instead.

"I've also been tinkering with PCTask3, and seeing if I can boot off the catweasel... It doesn't quite work. :P"

I tried that too (without Catweasel), but PCTask needs the original chipset or so.

"I've also been having problems getting floppy support to work right. I've tried the floppy images available from the BOCHS website and it seems like BOCHS just freezes when loading floppies. I will attempt to access a floppy once I get Windows loaded up, but it doesn't seem to work for me? Could it be a problem with using BOCHS on an SFS partition like "DosBox"?"

This sounds familiar to me (about floppy images and FreeDos). Did you try to boot up with only the floppy image? I know I don't have any problems with the floppy images and I've got everything on a SFS-drive.


Good luck,

Spidey