---------------------------------------- | |
MS Works 2.0! (and how I did it) | |
August 18th, 2020 | |
---------------------------------------- | |
I have come up with something brilliantly stupid so that I can access | |
Microsoft Works 2.0 via SSH (or mosh), I'm running it on top of MS-DOS | |
6.22 via qemu. Here's how I did it: | |
First I downloaded some prerequisites on my alpine VPS | |
apk add qemu-system-i386 qemu-ui-curses qemu-img | |
(note: they're community packages) | |
Then I downloaded a DOS of my choice, after debating between FreeDOS, | |
MS-DOS, and PC-DOS, I took the lame way out and grabbed an MS-DOS from | |
WinWorld "Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Plus Enhanced Tools (3.5-1.44mb)" | |
As a final prerequisite I downloaded "Microsoft Works 2.0A for DOS (3.5)" | |
I created a 32MB hard disk image for the C: drive of MS-DOS: | |
qemu-img create -f qcow2 MSDOS622.qcow2 32M | |
Now I extract the 7z file containing MS-DOS and stuff the floppy images | |
somewhere, and then I boot them: | |
qemu-system-i386 -curses -HDA MSDOS622.qcow2 -m 1 -fda Disk1.img \ | |
-boot a -rtc base=localtime | |
The -curses flag tells qemu to display the virtual PC's 80x25 text mode | |
as ncurses, -HDA points to your hard disk image, -m determines the | |
amount of RAM (MS Works requires a bit under 700kb), -fda points to your | |
floppy image, -boot determines which DOS drive letter to boot from | |
(typically a {floppy} or c {hard drive}), the -rtc option I give here | |
will match the emulated real time clock to the machine hosting qemu. | |
Booting from the MS-DOS disk one will immediately run the MS-DOS | |
installer, it's very straightforward, if it asks about your hardware, | |
just tell it that you have a good old fashioned IBM PC (PS/2) with an | |
IBM VGA card... When it wants to switch disks, hold the escape key and | |
hit 2, this will dump you into the qemu console, you'll type something | |
like this to change floppy images: "change floppy0 Disk2.img" | |
After the change command succeeds, hold escape again and hit 1, taking | |
you back to the MS-DOS installer... continue swapping disks until the | |
installer tells you to eject all disks, at that step go back to the qemu | |
console and type "eject floppy0". | |
At this point MS-DOS should be installed, lets get that MS Works going! | |
Setup for MS Works will be similar, use the QEMU console to change to | |
your MS Works floppy disk one, then flip back to MS-DOS and run setup, | |
when the installer asks, you again want regular VGA, and you want text | |
mode (graphics mode will not work under qemu -curses!) | |
I have not found a way to get the mouse working in qemu -curses, but | |
MS Works seems to work just fine with only the keyboard, hit alt + F to | |
get the menus at the top to pop up, use they keyboard arrows to select | |
and enter/return to activate a menu entry... If you want to close the | |
menu without selecting anything, just hit escape. All other keyboard | |
shortcuts are in the help menu at the top right (alt + h, alt + k). | |
Screenshot of MS Works inside tmux with putty. | |
Screenshot of MS Works inside tmux with termux. | |
---------------------------------------- | |
Back to phlog index | |
gopher.zcrayfish.soy gopher root | |
This phlog entry has been read 2704 times. | |
Comments are enabled for this post, select here to leave yours | |
Comments have been left on this post: | |
This is great. On mouse support on ncurses based qemu, it may depend on | |
the terminal. | |
Posted Wed Aug 19 23:06:27 UTC 2020 by 92.176.105.30 | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
gr_uid=lJX2 | |
Posted Mon Aug 7 09:03:06 UTC 2023 by 164.90.232.244 | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ |