DOS to WINDOWS

[zooterman]

Hi.
Is this the right place to ask this question, I have a DOS database program for listing my vinyl collection, which does exactly what I want, and I want to know if it can be rewritten into a program that will work under windows, have I explained it correctly.
thanks.

 

[shortylickens]

I miss QBASIC.

As for your question, I am not sure but I thought Visual Basic used to be able to take stuff from QBASIC.

 

[Ken g6]

Technically, a DOS database program should work under Windows. It'll just be in a small command prompt window.

If you want a GUI database...have you looked at MS Access?

 

[jvroig]

Hi.
Is this the right place to ask this question, I have a DOS database program for listing my vinyl collection, which does exactly what I want, and I want to know if it can be rewritten into a program that will work under windows, have I explained it correctly.
thanks.

Yes. If you were the one who programmed that DOS database program, then you should have no trouble at all doing it for Windows once you get the hang of MS-Access - it will still do exactly what you want, and it will look a heck of a lot better, and you can even make it more user-friendly. If it's just a listing of vinyl collection (add/edit/delete/view, maybe a summary or report or two), that's about under half an hour of work using MS-Access.

Of course, before that happens, you've got to learn MS-Access first, which probably takes only a few hours to learn all the basics you need.

Of course, if you are satisfied with just using it as before and having it run inside a command prompt, no work necessary, then you don't have to rewrite it at all. It should work as is. Double-click the file and a command prompt will open and you treat that command prompt as if it were your whole monitor during your DOS days. At least, this is how it was for all our DOS-based database programs (using FoxPro). They work just fine even in XP, they're just stuck in command prompt land.

 

[Cogman]

Technically, a DOS database program should work under Windows. It'll just be in a small command prompt window.

If you want a GUI database...have you looked at MS Access?

Not true. Since about Windows XP, microsoft has severely reduced the msdos capabilities of each iteration. In vista and win7, it is next to impossible to natively run a dos program. One of the reasons for this is the fact that dos does things that windows doesn't like, for example, using the "int" instruction.

Dos has LOTS of control over the hardware.


I would recommend Dosbox as the best solution to get dos applications running in most versions of windows (and linux!)

Apart from that, moving to a new database system would be recommended.

 

[chronodekar]

Apart from that, moving to a new database system would be recommended.

Perhaps I'm going off-topic, but if the OP were NOT the developer who wrote the original program, how difficult would it be to move to a new database?

Just curious,
chronodekar

 

[HarryLui]

As difficult as hiring somebody else and have it done.

 

[Scali]

Not true. Since about Windows XP, microsoft has severely reduced the msdos capabilities of each iteration.

To be exact: in the Windows NT branch, DOS has always run in a virtual machine, where certain instructions were emulated for obvious reasons (DOS applications would just hook directly into timer interrupts and such, and write directly to hardware I/O ports to reprogram certain hardware, which would destabilize the whole system). It's a sort of sandbox to keep DOS applications from messing up the system.

The other versions of Windows (1 through 3, 9x/ME) were essentially DOS applications themselves (albeit that the DOS version underneath was adapted to Windows since 95).

Since Windows XP, regular consumers also got the NT branch of Windows, and they 'suddenly' found out that DOS was no longer the DOS they knew... but nothing special for people who'd been running NT since day 1.
The advantage was obviously that the entire system was much more stable.

In the 64-bit versions of Windows, this 16-bit VM no longer exists at all (limitation of 64-bit mode), so it is COMPLETELY impossible to run DOS or 16-bit Windows applications...
With one exception: DOSBOX. This emulates a complete 16-bit x86 system from within a 32-bit Windows application, so this works on 64-bit systems as well.

 

[degibson]

Hi.
Is this the right place to ask this question, I have a DOS database program for listing my vinyl collection, which does exactly what I want, and I want to know if it can be rewritten into a program that will work under windows, have I explained it correctly.
thanks.

Realistically, the easiest path forward is DOSBOX, as previously suggested. I don't see any gain to re-writing your program, unless you want to do so for fun.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Realistically, the easiest path forward is DOSBOX, as previously suggested. I don't see any gain to re-writing your program, unless you want to do so for fun.

The only problem with DOSBox is that, while it's likely to work for this application, it's only designed to play games, so it might not work or be the best option. If the original poster is using a 32-bit version of Windows, I'd try just using the built in MS-DOS emulator in Windows. It sucks for games, but for phonograph record database application it should do just fine.

Otherwise if neither of these options work, you can also run MS-DOS in virtual machine, using something like Microsoft's Virtual PC or Oracle's VirtualBox.

 

[Cogman]

The only problem with DOSBox is that, while it's likely to work for this application, it's only designed to play games, so it might not work or be the best option. If the original poster is using a 32-bit version of Windows, I'd try just using the built in MS-DOS emulator in Windows. It sucks for games, but for phonograph record database application it should do just fine.

I disagree with the sentiment. While it is true that dosbox was designed specifically to run games, game usually use just about every piece of hardware and software available to an OS. You'll have a much better shot with Dosbox then you will with just about any other setup.

Barring that, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY6-FbKcgmc , A virtual machine with dos installed on it WILL work for anything. (and work anywhere)

 

[Blazer7]

I also have an old DOS database program written in Pascal for the exact same purpose. The program works fine under XP but it is impossible to make it work under Win7 64 even in XP mode. However it works just fine with DosBox.