Last updated: 2022/02/09 Please check the website at https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io for any edits/updates to this file and files within the LOOKHERE directory and sub directories. .oPYo. 8 ooo. .oPYo. .oPYo. 8 8 8 8 `8. 8 8 8 o8YooP' .oPYo. o o .oPYo. 8oPYo. 8 `8 8 8 `Yooo. 8 Yb.. 8 8 8 ' 8 8 8 8 8 8 `8 8 'Yb. 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 .P 8 8 8 8 `YooP' `YooP8 `YooP' 8 8 8ooo' `YooP' `YooP' :..::::::.....::....8 :.....:..:::.......:::.....::.....: :::::::::::::::::ooP'.:::::::: Version 1.0 :::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::...::::::: by TheOuterLinux :::::::::::: PsychDOS is a desktop environment to be ran on DOS-based operating systems such as FreeDOS or via emulation with programs like DOSBox and DOSEMU. PsychDOS is also part of a project called "PsychOS" in which attempts to target a variety of 32-bit and older hardware for as long as possible. PsychDOS desktop environment license: GPLv3 or higher Included software license information: See LOOKHERE\LICENSES PsychOS Project Website: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io PsychOS Project E-Mail: psychosgnulinux@protonmail.com TheOuterLinux Website: https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io Free space required: 400MB RAM minimum for desktop environment: 640K RAM to run most of the included software: 16M CPU recommended: An 80386 to run all included software without issue; however, you can always add your own using the Programs menu's "Cust0m" option. Some programs require or recommend a Pentium and some only ask for an 80286. INTRODUCTION ------------ PsychDOS is a desktop environment for operating systems such as FreeDOS and emulators such as DOSBox and DOSEMU. If you are currently running this on a live ISO version or pre-installed image (*.img) version of FreeDOS, just know that I have no intention of ever forking FreeDOS beyond making edits to the included software. I have looked into building components from source for the purposes of customizing certain features of FreeDOS itself, such as the FDIMPLES program for package management, but the current instructions for doing such things more often than not assumes Windows as a requirement to build and unless I can do so on W98 or older or maybe ReactOS one of these days, that's not happening. INSTALLATION ------------ After downloading PsychDOS from the PsychOS project website, extract the contents and place the PsychDOS folder on your DOS system as DRIVE:\PSYCHDOS. That's it. Some included software, since PsychDOS is a desktop environment, may require that redistribution be "as is" and therefore you will have to run an installer for that specific program. If so, you will be alerted ahead of time in which directory to use for this. If you do screw this up, however, you can at least add the software to one of PsychDOS's programs categories via the "Cust0m" option. RUNNING PsychDOS ---------------- Change the directory to "DRIVE:\PSYCHDOS" and then run the "RUNME.BAT" file. It may be tempting to run the "PSYCHDOS.EXE" instead and it will work for the most part; however, some programs either use more RAM than usual or just do not play nice with PsychDOS. So, what the RUNME.BAT file does is it launches "PRGMNGR.EXE", which then launches PSYCHDOS.EXE. And when you decide to run an application from the Programs menu or via an option from the Workbench, PsychDOS adds a filepath to "CONFIG\LASTRUN.CFG" and changes the contents of "CONFIG\LOWRAM" from "FALSE" to "TRUE". Afterwards, PsychDOS is told to "END" and then the "PRGMNGR.EXE" finishes the rest of its program in which it looks at the "CONFIG\LASTRUN.CFG" and "CONFIG\LOWRAM.CFG" files for a filepath to the executable and a "TRUE" statement. After you decide to quit whatever program you wanted to use, the "PRGMNGR.EXE" then runs "PSYCHDOS.EXE" all over again, to which most of what makes this whole RAM-saving idea work is via a WHILE-LOOP. And because at the end a program, "PRGMNGR.EXE" is told to change "CONFIG\LOWRAM.CFG" contents from "TRUE" back to "FALSE", PsychDOS can be exited normally without re-running the last program again. Hopefully that made sense; all you really need to know is CD into "C:\PSYCHDOS" and run the "RUNME.BAT" file. I would also like to note that without using the "RUNME.BAT", some features that take advantage of PATH will not work and you will have to then rely on whatever is in your own "C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT" file. When PsychDOS is finished, the PATH is set back to what is was before. KICKING @$$, ONE PROGRAM AT A TIME ---------------------------------- PsychDOS is only a desktop environment for DOS and therefore assumes you are using a system that can only run one program at a time. If you are not aware, this is normal DOS behavior. However, software called "TSR" (Terminal Stay Resident) do exist in which run in the background while other things are going on. But before you go nuts trying to find anything fancy, just know most of them were only designed to do things like display a clock in the top right corner, take screenshots while gaming and if you are lucky, play an audio CD. There are a few other graphical desktop environments that include a windowed WAV/MP3 or MIDI player, but I have more than often found those features to be buggy and often crash the system. ADDING CUST0M SOFTWARE ---------------------- You can add your own software to the Programs menu by using "[Category] --> Cust0m --> Edit". Afterwards, the default text editor (found in "CONFIG\EDIT\DEFDOC.CFG") opens the corresponding "[CATEGORY]\GMENU\GMENU.DAT" file for you to add items and there are some quick-help instructions near the bottom. The reason for the "0" part in the name is because it is much more unlikely a piece of software is going to have a "0" in its name and you would also know to just go to any of the categories to then quickly use "0" and then ENTER (Launch is first item). IMPORTANT!!: Not all software is "smart" enough to know to look at its dependencies in a relative way and PSYCHDOS currently does not CD into a program's directory for you. However, when issues like this arise, create a "RUNME.BAT" file that looks something like this: REM %ROOT% is predefined by the initial RUNME.BAT CD %ROOT%\PROGRAMS\NETWORK\ARACHNE CORE.EXE CLS And then add the "RUNME.BAT" to the GMENU.DAT file instead of the main EXE or COM file. If you are a GNU/Linux user, make sure to not mix-up "\" versus "/"; DOS systems use back-slashes instead of forward-slashes for file-paths. Some attempts were made to add directory paths to files to then have the RUNME.EXE file take care of this issue for you, but too many pieces of software refused to play nice and so every once in a while you may have to get creative and make your own BAT files as workarounds for when faced with similar issues like this. WORKBENCH --------- The Workbench is the dock-looking area at the bottom of the screen. Imagine you have a very important file that needs a lot of editing and reviewing, but potentially with multiple programs and you do not have a lot of time hunting all over your system for various programs to help you out. All you have to do is select an "Active File" via the "Change File" option, decide on whether or not to have only the Workbench ("Bench only") or programs from the Programs menu ("Globally") use the Active File as an argument. WORKBENCH - Preview Button -------------------------- This button may be labeled differently depending on the Active File's file extension, but it is the first button on the Workbench. Clicking this button allows you to quickly use a default program, which can be changed using the "Defaults" button, to view the Active File. WORKBENCH - Edit Button ----------------------- More often than not, other than for images, viewing a file is done using the same program that edits that file. However, DOS by itself has no inuition in regards to these things, hence having both a Preview and an Edit button. The Edit button works the same way as the Preview button but is used to invoke a default editor based on the Active File's file extension. WORKBENCH - Clear Button ------------------------ This button is used to clear the Active File from PsychDOS. It does not delete the file. Think of it as a reset button. WORKBENCH - Notes Button ------------------------ When an Active File is selected, you can use the Workbench's Notes button to open another window in which you can type text as notes unique to the Active File. These notes are stored in a directed created within the same directory as the Active File as "NOTES\FILE.NOT," in which the "FILE" would share the same name as the Active File but with an "NOT" file extension. WORKBENCH - Pastebin Button --------------------------- If your DOS system has Internet setup, you may be in a bit of weird "retro meets modern" sort of luck. Let us say you have been using a paint program to create your "masterpiece" and want to share it with friends. However, your E-Mail client no longer works because of "security" reasons as far as your E-Mail service is concerned and your feature (dumb) phone does not support multimedia messaging. All you have to do is select your "artwork" or perhaps a text file that is too long to send via a text message as the Active File. Click the Pastebin button and then choose one of the pastebin site options. By default, the first two are ix.io and sprunge.us; these are for text files. The last one is 0x0.st, which can be used for images. Please do not abuse them. Worse case scenario, you can use the Edit buttons beside them to change these sites to some other places, but make sure to follow the template (see REM statements) and these sites must use a plain http URL because the included version of cURL does not like modern https. WORKBENCH - Lock Button ----------------------- Though technically inside of the Workbench, it does not affect the Active File in any way. It is used for helping you to do exactly what it sounds like -- locking the screen. However, clicking this button opens another menu so as to have options first, such as "Lock Now", "Public Message", "Friend Message", "Private Message", and "Change Password". WORKBENCH - Exit Button ----------------------- Use this button to exit the PsychDOS desktop environment. This also puts your PATH back to what it was before. WORKBENCH - Defaults -------------------- This button is used to open a large window in which you can change the default programs used for the Workbench's Preview and Edit buttons, as well as what PVIEW.EXE and PEDIT.EXE use while in the Shell. If you get confused, take a look at the tooltip bar at the bottom, as well as use the Help button while at a particular input box. These settings are stored within the "CONFIG\PREVIEW" and "CONFIG\EDIT" directories. You can edit them with the defaults editor or manually, but I would read the "CONFIG\README.TXT" file first. There may also be some extra defaults to edit that are not listed on the main editor. SCREEN LOCKER - Lock Now ------------------------ When referring to the "Screen Locker," I am talking about the window that pops-up after clicking the Workbench's "Lock" button. Using the "Lock Now" option locks the screen immediately. SCREEN LOCKER - Public Message ------------------------------ Have you been working hard for the last few hours and need to take a break? Before you get up from your desk you reach over to where you typically leave a sticky-notepad but it isn't there. But, you need to leave someone a message if they do go to your office while your are not there. No problem. You can use the "Public Message" option to leave people walking by your computer a message. However, as it is currently designed, please keep them short as it is technically a "label" and not a text box to prevent rivals from leaving malicious public messages. SCREEN LOCKER - Friend Message ------------------------------ What if you left your computer and locked the screen, but you want to leave a message only friends with a password can view? That is what this option is for. And if someone tries to access this message from the lock screen and fails, you are notified on the lock screen itself. However, do be careful not to use a password you care too much about as passwords are stored in plain text and I have yet to have figured out a way to have asterisks used while typing passwords. SCREEN LOCKER - Private Message ------------------------------- What if while you are away from your computer, someone wants to leave you a message? From the lock screen, there is an text box people can use just for this. People can type up to 32K file-size worth of text and after using the "Send Message" button, this text is then added to a file which is then accessed from the message checker at the middle-right of PsychDOS's main screen. The typed message also disappears from the text box so that they stay private, or at least reasonably so. If someone has left you a message, the button used to check messages will change colors. Messages are also time/dated. And because of a text box's 32K file-size limit with the possibility of multiple private messages, you can use the Read button on the message checker to open the text file used for this with the default document viewer. FILE MANAGEMENT --------------- By default, when using the top bar's "File Manager" option, "DOS Navigator 1.51", aka DN151, is used and is the best file manager for DOS that I have ever used and is licensed in a way for redistribution. PsychDOS also includes File Maven, but I only like it for its encryption feature. If you have your own preferred file manager that you would like the top bar's "File Manager" option to use instead, you will have to manually edit the "CONFIG\FILEMAN.CFG" file. HELP ---- Clicking the "Help" option on the top bar of PsychDOS's main screen will open the "LOOKHERE\HELP.HTM" file using the same HTMLHELP.EXE program FreeDOS 1.2 uses when typing "help" in the shell. I chose to use this program instead of Links or another HTML viewer because I like the style and color scheme. If you need more than a HELP.HTM file fee free to E-Mail me at psychosgnulinux@protonmail.com. I will try my best, but remember that most of PsychDOS was created using DOSBox, newer hardware, and tested with QEMU. If your questions are too technically, I may not be able to help you all that much. PRIVACY AND SECURITY -------------------- Yeah... I know... but read on anyway... I am not sure why this would be a concern for a DOS-based operating system if you are not running a BBS or something like that, but the only thing that I can think of in which using PsychDOS could be a privacy concern is if you have Internet setup and working and plan to use the Pastebin options as these uploaded files could then be accessed by anyone. This goes for pretty much any pastebin site, whether the connections are encrypted or not. I would not upload anything with private information or something you would not want your grandmother to see. PsychDOS also includes software such as DONTPANIC for more easily connecting to BBS sites using Telnet. These connections are in plain text and therefore you should exercise caution. A lot of the listed servers utilize older hardware and operating systems for authenticity and so do not assume that messages sent and recieved are encrypted. As far as the included web browsers are concerned, Dillo and Links appear to support some https websites but I would still be careful if you manage to figure out how to log in somewhere that only needs Cookies and PHP. PsychDOS does not include a web browser that supports JavaScript. PsychDOS may include software with IRC or the like functionality. These servers tend to keep messages for a good while and SSL versions have not been tested. If you need to encrypt a file, use the encryption features of File Maven. There are much stronger programs for DOS out there, but most of them seem to cause serious issues when typing in the wrong password. REDISTRIBUTION -------------- The desktop environment known as "PsychDOS" is licensed as GPLv3 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html) or higher; however, it includes a variety of software under different, but liberal enough licenses to allow redistribution under certain conditions, such as the possibility of Freeware, Donationware, or Shareware and therefore you must exercise caution when if making edits to PsychDOS+Software with plans for redistribution. Make sure you have read all included documentation before doing anything. REPORTING ISSUES ---------------- Before going into panic mode, take a look at the "LOOKHERE\ISSUES.TXT" file and see if it is already known and if there is a solution. And if not, when in doubt, send an E-Mail to psychosgnulinux.gitlab.io; however, please keep them PsychDOS specific; if a 3rd party program misbehaves, there is nothing that I can do about that. You can also report issues regarding PsychDOS by using https://gitlab.com/PsychOSLinux/psychoslinux.gitlab.io/issues on a more modern system if you want to make things more official. SUPPORTING THEOUTERLINUX, the author of PsychDOS ------------------------------------------------ If you would like to support TheOuterLinux or the PsychOS project, the best way is to snoop around the websites and then send me an E-Mail or submit an Issue. However, if you are feeling generous, you can also visit my "Support Me" page at https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io/Public/Support.html or by using your smart phone to scan the following QRCode (UTF-8): █████████████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████████████ ████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▀ ▄ ▀▄▄ ▀█ ▄██ ▄▄▄▄▄ ████ ████ █ █ █▄▀▄▄██ ██▄▀▄▄█ █ █ ████ ████ █▄▄▄█ █ ▄▀▄█▄ ▄▄▄▀ █ █▄▄▄█ ████ ████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ █ ▀ █ █ ▀ █▄█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████ ████▄ ▀▄█▀▄ █▀█▄▀▄██ ▀▀▄ █ ▄▄▀▄▄▀████ ████ ▀ ██▄▄██▀▀█▄▀█▀ ██ █▄█ ▀▄ █████ ████▄ ▀██▀▄ ▀▀▄▄ █▀██▄█▀▀▄▄██▄█▄▄████ ████ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▀▄█▄ ▀▀▄ ██▀ ▄█▄ ▄ ▄████ ████▄██ █ ▄█▄▀▀ ▄▀█▀ ▄██▄ ▀▀█▀█▄▀████ ████▄█ ▄▀▀▄▄█▀ ▀ █▀██▀ ██▄ ▀ ██ ████ ████▄█▄██▄▄▄ ▀▀▄▀ ▄▄▀█ ▄▄▄ █ ▀▀████ ████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▄ ▄▀▄ █ ▄▄█ █▄█ ▀▀▄▀████ ████ █ █ █▀▄██▀▄▀▄▄▄▄█▄▄ ▀▀█▄████ ████ █▄▄▄█ █▀▄▀▄▀▀█▀█▀█ █▀▄▄▄▀▄████ ████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄█▄▄▄██▄█▄██▄█▄▄▄██▄█████ █████████████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████████████ If you are using DOS to read the file, the QRCode probably looks like garbage and therefore a LOOKHERE\SUPPORT.GIF file has been included and can be opened with PictView. You do not need a PayPal account to donate, only a credit or debit card. Also, feel free to follow me on any of my socials listed on the PsychOS or TheOuterLinux websites. WARRANTY -------- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. PLEASE READ ALL INCLUDED DOCUMENTATION BEFORE USING PSYCHDOS.