DESQview/X Software Ports

DESQview/X (a.k.a. desqview/x, dv/x, dvx) is no longer widely available. So, in case that you have not seen it, or are new to DESQview/X, I thought that I would try to give a brief answer to the question "What is DESQview/X?"

DESQview/X was a product of a now-defunct software company called Quarterdeck. Quarterdeck was bought by Symantec, which no longer supports this product. For many people, DESQview/X is simply an X11R5 X-server. It turns any DOS-based 386-or-above PC into an X-terminal. It's more than just an X-terminal, however. As I see it, the most important additional features of DESQview/X are:

djgpp

My port of Mosaic from 1996 (see below) is no longer adequate to view many web sites. (It doesn't support frames, for example!) So I've recently spent some time getting the Arachne web browser to run under DESQview/X. This didn't require any changes to Arachne -- just careful management of conventional memory and proper configuration of the network interfaces. The main difficulties are that Arachne requires 500KB of conventional memory to run and that Arachne cannot share the network interface card and driver that DESQview/X is using. But I got it to work, and thought I would share the steps that I took.

Here's the tricky part, and it was suggested to me by Gary Welles. Install two network cards in your machine rather than just one. The first one will be used by the DV/X network manager as usual. Once you have started DV/X, open a DOS window and load a packet driver for the second card in conventional memory. Then start the Arachne browser from that window. When you configure DV/X and Arachne, select different IP addresses for the two cards. (You'll have to figure out whether you have two IP addresses available. If your machine sits behind a firewall that performs network address translation, this should be no problem.) I found that loading network drivers for both cards before starting DV/X did not work -- in this case Arachne caused the machine to crash when I started it.
Arachne will take over the console when you run it. You can switch back to the DV/X display by pressing ALT twice. I found however, that if I tried to return to the Arachne window, the display was not properly restored. So instead, it's better to press ESC to exit Arachne, and then to restart it using the -r flag (for "resume") from the same DOS window in which you loaded the packet driver. (The -r flag resumes your browsing session at the last page that you visited.)

I've also started running both Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape Navigator Gold 3.04 under Windows 3.1, running in an X window. (I was unable to get Netscape Navigator 4.07 to work.) The trick, as in running Arachne, is to use separate network cards for Windows and DESQview/X. To load the packet drivers for Windows, I modified winx.dvp so that instead of launching winx.exe, it instead launches WINX.BAT. This file first loads a packet driver for the second network card, then loads the Trumpet virtual packet driver for Windows, and finally runs WINX.EXE, as shown below.

C:\3C590\3C59XPD.COM /I=0x66

C:\TRUMPET\WINPKT 0x66

WINX.EXE

The same approach can be used to load a packet driver for Windows 3.1 when run from DESQview/X in "direct" mode.

The hints below may help you get the most out of DESQview/X, Version 2.10 (the most recent version).

The newsgroup for DESQview/X is comp.os.msdos.desqview.
Turn off reverse DNS lookups in the Network Manager. (Go to DESQview/X Setup -> Advanced Network Setup -> Control Network Manager -> Display Host Names, and set the value to "No".) I've found that that the network manager somestimes crashes otherwise. (Ironically, this happens when it attempts to resolve and display Akamai host names!)
Use the right version of go32.exe, Version 1.12special1. (See below.) DESQview/X tends to crash when other versions are used.
If you want to run DESQview/X at a resolution of 1280x1024 with 256 colors, you will have to choose your video card carefully. Cards using the Cirrus Logic CL-GCD5434 chipset don't seem to work in this mode. (These cards include the STB Nitro 64, and the Diamond SpeedStar Graphics 2200.) Cards using the ATI mach64 chipset seem to work. These include the ATI WIN TURBO, GRAPHICS PRO TURBO, and GRAPHICS XPRESSION cards. (It is also likely that cards using the ATI mach32 chipset will work. These cards include the ATI GRAPHICS ULTRA PRO and GRAPHICS ULTRA+.)
Download the patch lpdlpr.zip, which fixes the print manager.
Download the patch qpat3.exe, which updates QEMM from version 7.5 to 7.53.
Consider purchasing Helix's "Multimedia Cloaking" software, which provides very compact replacement TSR's for MOUSE, SMARTDRV, and MSCDEX. Running QEMM Version 7.53 on a 486 DX/2 system, I had to add the options /USEVCPI /USEVDS /NOPENTIUM to the line that loads cloaking.exe. Warning: The cloaked version of the CD-ROM extensions MSCDEX seems to crash DESQview/X.
To save conventional/upper memory, don't load MSCDEX before running DESQview/X. If you need to access a CD-ROM drive while running DV/X, open a new DOS window in DV/X, load MSCDEX into conventional memory, and then launch the program that needs to access the disc from the DOS window. MSCDEX is a particular problem because the "cloaked" MSCDEX driver discussed above does not happily coexist with DV/X.
Here's a more radical step for saving conventional memory suggested in the old DV/X FAQ. The idea will be to load your network drivers only in the memory space of the DOS window that is running the DV/X network manager. Here's what to do. When DV/X starts, it uses C:\DVX\DVPS\NETPTM.DVP to load the network manager, assuming you are using the Novell network stack provided with DV/X. So, edit NETPTM.DVP so that instead of running NETPTM.EXE, it runs NETPTM.BAT (from directory C:\DVX\NETWORK). Also increase the amount of memory allocated to the program from 240KB to 350KB.
Create a new file C:\DVX\NETWORK\NETPTM.BAT. It should load your network drivers, and then execute NETPTM.EXE. Mine looks like this.
Now you can remove the commands that load LSL.COM, 3C509.COM, and TCPIP.EXE from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (and rerun OPTIMIZE). These drivers will no longer occupy any conventional or upper memory in DOS windows that you open inside of DV/X.
I use stacker to compress my hard drives, and the stacker driver can potentially consume a lot of conventional/upper memory. To reduce the amount of memory required, the cluster size for each compressed disk should be kept as small as possible (I use 8K clusters). Also, before loading stacker's "stachigh.sys" driver, a DPMS driver should be loaded. Stacker provides one, but so does the cloaking software. If you load the cloaking software first, you don't need to load stacker's DPMS driver. (In fact it will detect the first driver and not load.) You can tell that you've succeeded in using DPMS if stachigh.sys consumes just 17K of conventional or upper memory (for 8K clusters). The cluster size really matters -- when using 32K clusters stachigh.sys consumes 40K of memory.
Certain Windows programs (like Excel) rely on the DOS share program, which provides file-sharing and locking capabilities. If you want to run these programs while in DESQview/X, you should run C:\DOS\SHARE.EXE before starting DESQview/X. (In order to run Excel, you will also need around 460K of free conventional memory.)
Besides using the Multimedia Cloaking software and QEMM's OPTIMIZE program, conventional memory can be freed through the "Tune Performance" section in DESQview/X setup. (My settings: Common Memory 32K, DOS I/O Buffer 0K, Font Cache Size 16K, Network Buffer 0K, Virtual Memory 5120K, Reserved Memory 0K.)
Allocate plenty of file handles. E.g., put FILES=50 in your config.sys file. I also set STACKS=0,0 BUFFERS=10 FCBS=1.
Remove the line "DOS=HIGH" from config.sys or autoexec.bat.
Use program QSETUP to enable "DOS-UP" (Partial), and then run OPTIMIZE. Note: If you manually make changes to your autoexec.bat and config.sys files (which I sometimes do), you may accidentally make these files inconsistent with file C:\QEMM\DOS-UP.DAT. This can lead to mysterious crashes, whether you are running DOS, Windows, or DESQview/X. Assuming that you specify multiple configurations in your config.sys file, the solution is to delete the corresponding section in C:\QEMM\DOS-UP.DAT, and then rerun OPTIMIZE.
Remove the line that loads QDMPI from config.sys or autoexec.bat.
When running multiple processes, DESQview/X will sometimes temporarily freeze. Wait at least 30 seconds before pressing the reset button on your computer.

DESQview/X Technical Perspective.

The old DESQview and DESQview/X FAQ.

Programs and utilities for DESQview/X in the Simtel.Net MS-DOS Collection.

The following programs all run under DESQview/X Version 2.10.

go32.exe, Version 1.12special1. go32.exe is needed to execute the ssh, Mosaic, Ghostview, Ghostscript, dvix, Emacs, xman, xcalc, and xfig programs listed below. go32 provides a 32-bit runtime system for programs compiled with djgpp, the DOS version of gcc, which was created by D. J. Delorie. The compiler itself can be found at ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v1/. The newsgroup for djgpp is comp.os.msdos.djgpp. This version of go32.exe seems to work particularly well with DESQview/X. I've had trouble with others.
ssh, version 1.2.27. I have recently (May 2000) ported ssh (secure shell) to DESQview/X. This is a cryptographically secure replacement for telnet. For export control reasons, I can't make the source or executable code available on the web. But if you would like a copy and can convince me that you are in the U.S., I'll send you a copy. Please send me email at
bmm@cs.cmu.edu.

To use the port, you would type the following:
C:\> set DISPLAY=10.10.10.1:0
C:\> ssh -v bmm@mycomputer.myschool.edu xterm
In the first line, 10.10.10.1 is the IP address of the local host (the machine running DESQview/X). The DISPLAY environment must be set if you want to enter your passphrase without having it appear in the DOS window, and also if you wish to have the program running on the remote host display any X-windows on the local host.
In the second line both the user name, "bmm", and the command that is to be run on the remote host, "xterm", are required. (-v indicates verbose diagnostic output.) Username is required because the notion of who the current user on a DESQview/X machine is a bit fuzzy to me. The command is required because this port of ssh does not provide TTY emulation. (The reason being that djgpp version 1.12 doesn't have a TTY library.) But running xterm will do what you want it to do: run an xterm on the remote machine, but have it display on the local host. From this xterm you can then launch other programs on the remote machine, and also have them display on the local host.
Not only does ssh make a connection to the remote host without sending your password in the clear, it also cryptographically encodes all of the data that is sent back and forth between the two machines during the session. Furthermore, it automatically "tunnels" X traffic through the connection in a secure fashion.
For all of this to work, you'll need to have sshd running on the remote host. This is pretty standard these days on Unix systems.
A few other remarks: the port assumes that the files containing the list of known hosts, the random seed, etc., are stored in /dot.ssh/ on whatever disk you run ssh from, and will create this directory if it doesn't exist. It also looks for some things in /etc/. It doesn't have to find any files to run successfully, though.
I've noticed that DESQview/X behaves badly when you attempt to open more sockets than the network manager allows. I bumped into the limit because ssh will open two sockets to the local X server for each X window that is displayed on the local host. So don't try to open too many. But I'm able to get three xterms, an xemacs, an ical, and an xbiff (running on two hosts) simultaneously.
Mosaic, Version 2.7b5. Several small problems in the August 1996 port have been corrected (March 23, 1998). Please report any bugs. Mosaic is the hugely successful web browser from NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) at the University of Illinois. This is the final version of Mosaic. It provides several new features including backgrounds and some support for tables. Note: Gary Welles suggests adding the following line to your Xresources file (mosaic.res) for Mosaic: Mosaic*FrameHack: True.
Mosaic, Version 2.5 (with support for in-line JPEG). This was my first port of Mosaic to DESQview/X. This version is newer than the one that Quarterdeck once made available, and several errors have been corrected. In particular it is NOT necessary to place an xv.bat file in your dvx directory. Important: Mosaic hangs on startup if you have removed the line "device=rmgrdv.dvr" from file "dvdriver.lst" (if you've done this to fix the print manager, download the patch qpat3.exe instead).
XEarth 1.0. This is a new (March, 1998) port by Gary Welles of the latest and greatest XEarth. It supersedes a "bogus" version of XEarth once available at Quarterdeck's web site. In this port, the calls to sleep(wait_time) have been replaced with a timer function that allows DV/X to treat XEarth as "waiting" rather than "slicing" between updates. Also, a timeoffset resource has been added so that XEarth gets UTC from the PC's local time.
Ghostview, DV/X Version 1.4.1. This program provides a convenient user interface for viewing postscript files. The version provided here was ported to DESQview/X by David Ronis. It uses another program called Ghostscript to actually display the files. Ghostview can be used as an external viewer for Mosaic. In order to use this version of Ghostview, you will need Ghostscript version 2.5.2, which is available below. More recent versions of Ghostview and Ghostscript (for other platforms), are available at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
Ghostscript, Version 3.53. This is the latest version of Ghostscript. It will work as a stand-alone viewer, but not in conjunction with Ghostview. (Someday I'll get around to fixing this.) I compiled it using a makefile for DESQview/X that was put together by Tom Brosnan. To use Ghostscript, place gs.exe somewhere in your path. I keep my .gsf fonts and the auxiliary postscript files in directory d:\gs, and hence the line "SET GSFONTPATH=d:/gs" is included in my autoexec.bat file.
xv, Version 3.00. This program allows you to view gif and jpeg files and can be used as an external viewer for Mosaic. xv was written by John Bradley. Recreational use of xv is free, but users are encouraged to register. Non-recreational users are required to register. More information about registration can be found by pressing the "About xv" button while running the program. Other versions are available via ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/xv".
dvix. dvix is a program for viewing the .dvi files produced by the TeX and LaTeX document processing programs. The version provided here was ported to DESQview/X by Bruce Pike. I have fixed one or two small bugs and changed the way dvix looks for its fonts. dvix understands pk fonts. They should all be placed in the same directory, and have their normal Unix names, without the final "pk" suffix. In order to use dvix, you should add the following three lines to your autoexec.bat file: "set TMP=c:\tmp", "set GO32TMP=c:/tmp", and "set DVIX_FONTS=d:/texpkfnt". (The xdvi program has two constants, FONT_DIRECTORY and DEFAULT_FONT_PATH, hardcoded to d:/texpkfnt, but they can be overridden by setting DVIX_FONTS to something else.) dvix can be used on its own, or as an external viewer for Mosaic. To use it as an external viewer for Mosaic, change the name of the executable from dvix.exe to xdvi.exe.
mpeg_pla. This program allows you to view mpeg motion video files and can be used as an external viewer for Mosaic.
GNU Emacs, Version 19.30. DOS is now an officially supported platform for Emacs, and so I was able to compile this version "out-of-the-box" using djgpp Version 1.12maint4. Note, that my port runs entirely in a DOS window, without taking advantage of any X-Windows functionality. Complete source for Emacs is available via ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu. Place the following line in your autoexec.bat file: "SET EMACSTOPDIR=C:/EMACS".
OEmacs, Version 4.1. This is a port of GNU Emacs version 19.19 that takes advantage of the X server in DESQview/X. All of the files below should be unzipped from the same directory. Files will be installed in a subdirectory called emacs-19.19. You should set the current working directory to emacs-19.19/bin, and then use emacnote.bat to start emacs. See the roadmap for more detailed descriptions of the files below, and also the installation instructions.
File and directory utilities. Gnu has developed a Unix-like set of utilities for DOS for manipulating files and directories, including programs for the following commands: rm, mv, cp, chmod, ls, sed, df, du, cmp, and touch. Other useful utilities include zip/unzip, gzip/gunzip and compress/uncompress (which Mosaic will invoke automatically), tar, and grep.
xman. xman is a program for viewing Unix-style man pages. Unlike the Unix man command, however, xman is invoked without a file argument. To use this command, add the following line to your autoexec.bat file: "SET MANPATH = C:\USR\MAN". xman will look for man pages in subdirectories of c:\usr\man named man1, man2, etc., so you will need to create at least one of these subdirectories (e.g., c:\usr\man\man1) and place your man pages there. xman comes with a help file named xman.hel, which I placed in c:\usr\man. To use this help file, I invoke xman by typing "xman -helpfile c:\usr\man\xman.hel". You may notice that some man pages contain formatting directives such as ".SH NAME" that don't do anything except to make the page difficult to read. The problem is that these pages are in troff format. On a Unix system, xman would automatically convert the page to man format by invoking a command like: "gtbl sample.man | groff -Tascii -man > temp.man", where sample.man is the page in question. The DESQview/X version of xman won't do this for you, however, and fixing it would require interfacing xman and gtbl and groff, which I didn't think was worth the effort. (At one time ports of these utilities were available on the Quarterdeck ftp server.) If these formatting directives bother you, I suggest that you transfer the man page to a Unix system, convert it to man format, and transfer it back.
xcalc. xcalc is the familiar X calculator. It was ported to DESQview/X by Bruce Pike.
xfig. xfig is a program for drawing figures. It is similar to the Macintosh program MacDraw. Some of the operations in xfig require the use of the middle mouse button. If you don't have a middle button, or your middle button isn't working, try pressing both the left and right buttons simultaneously.
A port of tclsh, tcl, wish, and wishx by Tom Poindexter.
DESQview-aware Video Display Editor.
TeX, LaTeX, BibTeX, and .dvi previewer for DOS.
Adobe Acrobat for DOS (for viewing .pdf files).

Back to my home page.