OSPlus
Introduction
OSPlus is a collection of utilities for DOS (and now other operating systems too). The original OSPlus "bundle" contained a text editor, file viewer, directory browser and a few other utilities, nearly all with a sort of graphical interface (it was actually a text-mode interface but it looked reasonably graphical). The OSPlus Utility Kit contained a smaller, updated version of the Text Editor, and a number of other utilities (such as a Disk Imager).
System Requirements
Version 1.0 of OSPlus requires:
- MS-DOS 3.2 or higher, or FreeDOS. OSPlus should also run under DR-DOS, PC-DOS and so on.
- Around 2.5MB of disk space
- A CGA, EGA, VGA, 8514, 3270 or Hercules video adapter (VGA preferred)
- An 80386 or better processor for ViewPlus. The rest of OSPlus should work on slower machines, although it is recommended that you use a 386 or better.
- At least 1MB of memory (OSPlus should work with no expanded memory and no extended memory, but slowly)
- A mouse is highly recommended. A mouse driver (such as MOUSE.COM, LMOUSE.COM or CuteMouse is required to use a mouse)
- A Sound Blaster-compatible sound card is recommended, but not required
Please note that OSPlus may not run under certain video adapters. OSPlus has only been tested on a VGA card by myself, although the MODE utility has been used to make the display monochrome and so on. The same applies to DOS versions: OSPlus may not run under MS-DOS 3.2 - it has only been tested (by myself) under MS-DOS 6.2, Windows 98 (DOS 7.1), FreeDOS and dosemu under Linux (under FreeDOS and Microsoft WinDOS 98). Some of it works under dosemu under Linux.
OSPlus Utility Kit 1.1 requires:
- MS-DOS 3.2 or higher or compatible (eg DR-DOS, PC-DOS, FreeDOS etc)
- About 500KB of disk space
- An 80386 or better processor for ViewPlus. The rest of Utility Kit should work on an 8086 or better
- At least 512kb of memory
- A mouse is recommended for Text Editor and Disk Imager
- A Sound Blaster-compatible sound card if you want to use sound
Please see the Open Source pages for details of system requirements for the Open Source versions.
You cannot run OSPlus in Windows 3.1 standard mode. It used to run in 386 Enhanced mode and also Windows 3.0 real and 386 enhanced mode, but because of memory problems a Windows stub was created that stopped you from running OSPlus in Windows. You can, of course, run it from DOS.
OSPlus supports playing WAV files and there is a WAV player in every application's system menu. It works with Sound Blaster-compatible cards and the internal speaker. The Sound Blaster drivers were created by Heinz Rath. Please see the included README.TXT for some important information about the sound drivers.
The Utility Kit Text Editor (and Open Source version) supports a play-in-background version of the WAV player. The real-mode DOS version uses Heinz Rath's sound drivers. The DJGPP version uses Allegro (although a version without sound support is available). The Win32 version uses Windows drivers, and the Linux version uses Allegro (again, a version without sound is available).
FreeDOS
OSPlus works virtually perfectly under FreeDOS. It loads, handles the mouse, edits text, views files, produces sounds, and views 256 colour images well. You don't need an XMS manager, but a mouse driver is preferred. The only problem I've found is that the Directory Browser doesn't run from the Control Centre (although you can run it manually by running DIRBROWS drive:), and neither does the DOS Shell or GEM.
Please note that the above information was last checked in 2000, so things may have changed since then!