[offer] clean IBM embOS (Win3.1 "embedded") with PC-DOS2000 (VM)

Hey there,

as some of you may know, the embOS archive on this page contains a dump from a C64-Emu-Machine. This is stuffed with a lot of other things and the parition layout seems to be weird.

I took this image, cleaned out all the non-stock-stuff and made a VM disk with embOS on it.
It includes:

  • PC-DOS 2000 german
  • Norton Commander 5.51 german
  • embOS german

Now everything is on drive C, no need for different parition layout (like the original published archive C-D-E). It includes a FULL PC-DOS. Also NC is very useful.

The archive includes a run_qemu.sh-script, intended for Linux users. The commandline is:
qemu-system-i386 -M isapc -m 32 -hda embos-pcdos2k-dist.qcow2

This emulates an ISA-only PC with 32MB ram. On windows it is the same command line. Just install qemu.

If you need this disk-image in another format (like vmdk, vdi, vhd, ...) I'm happy to convert for you.
If you need the files only, I will make an archive.

Please let me know what i can do on this OS to make it ready for others.

My goal is to run that on an 486 single board computer.

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14n3dgFq2ZMhPDkax219DKfDjhus-WNWk



Comments

  • edited July 2018

    Nice! Are you able to add another hard drive now?

  • One question: Why is the font in Winfile monospace and not the Windows default? That seems a bit odd.

  • I can add other harddrives. Now it's just about placing the embos folder and start win.com

    The font is default on this setup. I already messed around with win.ini/system.ini to change fonts. Later I'm going to show you my notes on "customizing". I don't have em here right now.

  • @sdose said:
    I can add other harddrives. Now it's just about placing the embos folder and start win.com

    The font is default on this setup. I already messed around with win.ini/system.ini to change fonts. Later I'm going to show you my notes on "customizing". I don't have em here right now.

    OK, can you put the image in vhd? Please and thank you!

  • Here it is in different Formats:
    qcow2 (qemu)
    vdi (VirtualBox)
    vhd (MS VPC)
    Files (No Image, File Archive)

    I have added DOSIDLE and WQGHLT.386 to DOS and Windows, to lower CPU usage (100% on host goes down to 0%!) and your PC is still usable while running VM.

    My Notes:
    If i say "copy" i mean take a clean German Win 3.1 installation, and copy from this.

    • copy control.exe, cpwin386.cpl, drivers.cpl, main.cpl to have Windows control panel
    • copy setup.inf, control.inf, setup.exe to have windows setup program
    • copy screensavers (*.scr)
    • copy default fonts: VGA850.FON VGAFIX.FON VGASYS.FON and change win.ini/system.ini
    • change win.ini/system.ini [Desktop] section to have normal fonts on desktop (comment out all font stuff in there)
    • copy msd and checkit for system information tools
    • copy APPS.INF (cant remember why, my notes also dont say)
    • install total commander 16bit (it makes file handling a lot more easier)
    • copy VGALOGO.RLE and VGALOGO.LGO (+make it work) for bootsplash
    • 800x600 vga driver: copy VGA.3GR, WIN.CNF, CGA40850.FON, CGA80850.FON, EGA40850.FON, EGA80850.FON, SUPERVGA.DRV, VGACOLOR.2GR, VGALOGO.LGO (+set it up)
    • set up 32bit disk access in system.ini

    +make it work and +set it up means, i haven't figured out how to up to now.

    I don't know if this works, if you copy english windows files onto that system. I could also upload an archive of files with Windows 3.1 German.

    The files-archive is intended for a "new installation". Set up a DOS-PC, copy the EmbOS-Folder from archive, start EmbOS by \embos\win.com.

    Hope you have fun.

    File-Archive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BiSI6JC2ILYXuGthvTLgAcgYTsHlwL2a
    QCOW2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZOejNDFiYmLkPEIe4yd1xqQLSa_-A-ey
    VDI: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HOEKS09NLtxoUjdrxhzxG46oRZXPDdQA
    VHD: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JoK4kYjZjik8qXO7CnyUEBMrM2ITc3iQ

    And here's how to convert using qemu-img tool:
    qemu-img convert -O vdi inputfile.someformat outputfile.vdi
    qemu-img convert -O vpc inputfile.someformat outputfile.vhd
    qemu-img convert -O raw inputfile.someformat outputfile.raw
    qemu-img convert -O qcow2 inputfile.someformat outputfile.qcow2

  • That's great that you have the EMBOS system in the C:\ drive and everything :D
    BTW, the reason why I'm into this OS is that I'm converting the language to English. Like this....

    Anyways, keep up the good work :D

  • Do you know if there are any occurences of this OS anywhere but here? I couldn't find and I suspect that anyone just used a hex-editor on stock-windows 3.1 to replace all Windows 3.1 strings.

    Maybe someone finds evidence for that or evidence for things are not like this...

  • @sdose said:
    Do you know if there are any occurences of this OS anywhere but here? I couldn't find and I suspect that anyone just used a hex-editor on stock-windows 3.1 to replace all Windows 3.1 strings.

    Maybe someone finds evidence for that or evidence for things are not like this...

    You know, this is probably THE ONLY website with this OS '_'

  • edited July 2018

    There are other sites on the internet, which i don't have access to.

    Maybe someone here has access to betaarchive's ftp. I'm curious if there is embOS.
    Maybe someone has Information about the device this embOS was used, I think it was a german company that produced C64 emulators. If i get a hint where to find anyone related, I'd be happy to try get in touch and get some more information.

    //edit: i also have removed the S3 video driver. It causes not starting windows on all VMs except for MS Virtual PC.

  • You could be right! Maybe the German archive websites have access to this stuff because they own it.

  • The only thing I can find on the internet is a video from this C64-emulator device.

    The device was made by a company "Web-IT", i cant find anything apart that :(

    I already saw people here talking about betaarchive, so I hope someone with access goes for having a look at their FTP, I think this is the most promising download site for finding this...
    Maybe it breaks betaarchive's rules to share with us. I don't want anyone to break their rules and risk his account. I'm after information around this software, that's all. Maybe a README file of the SDK (if available at all...)...

    (I am suprised, something that the internet doesn't have.... :D )

  • I know, right? Maybe there could be an embed version of Windows 95 too. Who know whats on their FTP server!

  • edited July 2018

    It doesn't breaks any rules. I'll check right now and I'll tell you if do I found anything (I have FTP Access)

    Edit: I only found IBM embOS German (WebIT Computer OEM), in a VHD, which is basically the same as the copy found in this site

  • @SistemaRayoXP said:
    It doesn't breaks any rules. I'll check right now and I'll tell you if do I found anything (I have FTP Access)

    Edit: I only found IBM embOS German (WebIT Computer OEM), in a VHD, which is basically the same as the copy found in this site

    Well, thanks anyways :)

  • OK, Thank you for looking.

    I wonder why it is called "IBM embOS". The only reference to IBM I can see is the topic-title and the PC-DOS installed in that vhd.

    I wanted to have access there for so long now, but didn't manage it up to now...

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