XCOM vintage gui system

[xdotcom]

XCOM (for DOS)

Xcom (GUI system) has released for DOS. Xcom is a multi-windowed desktop environment with a file manager - it allows you to browse, copy, view and manage your files, start and stop programs, watch and listen basic media content and music. Unlike other windowing systems and protocols, it integrates the basic functionality as a monolithic, cohesive program.

Xcom is a free of charge program. This software is still in pre-alpha stage, but its already functional.
Xcom can run on 386DX based computers (SX is maybe supported as well).
It requires 16 MByte (virtual) memory to run smoothly.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a public pre-alpha test-version.
Use at your own risk. Beware of bugs (there will be).

It should work on DOS and DOS clones, it offers a better alternative against Windows 3.1 on retro machines.
Features:

-Taskbar
-Start menu and right click menus
-File management
-Fast start and boot
-Sound Blaster compatbility for sound
-SVGA (VESA VBE) for high-color and true-color display output
-Keyboard and mouse support
-Viewing and editing text files
-Viewing pictures and listening to audio
-AVI support (YUV)
Features for retro computers:
-Can force-copy files with bad sectors
-Compiled with FPU emulation (untested, needs more testing)
-Can run simple (16 bit) DOS programs and games
-Can exit to dos
-Starts and stops within seconds

Website: xcom.infora.hu/index.html
Download: xcom.infora.hu/xcom.zip

 

[ajacocks]

Wow, that’s impressive, @xdotcom !

How long have you been working on it? What future plans do you have?

Welcome to the forum!

- Alex

 

[xdotcom]

Thankyou. I am working on this gui system for about 2-3 years. It has older code refactored from far older projects of mine, so i was able to develop it relatively quickly. I release 2-3 updates per year, which all containing bugfixes and new features.

 

[Caluser2000]

I remember when you first posted you were doing this project, Well done for following through with it

 

[xdotcom]

2023, jan 25. - Compression, decompression, bugfix

-Added support for file compression
-Added support for file decompression
-Currently, 7z, zip, arj, rar is supported.
-You must download and install the compressor program separately, as Xcom doesn't have the compressor built in.
Be sure to insert the compressor and decompressor programs in the PATH.
Infozip (zip232x.zip) and unz552x3 are tested and recommended as a compression/decompression program.
-Switching the drive letter now works properly in the terminal.
-Fixed a graphics glitch when opening the exit menu from the start menu.
-File finder now opens properly from the start menu.
-Removed non-working legacy elements from the menu.
-Changed the width of the right-click menu.
-Upper-case dos style CD command now works in the terminal.

 

[Plasma]

This is pretty cool! I have a few suggestions:

1. Plain VGA uses monochrome mode, I guess this is by design? But you could use 16 colors.
2. IMO mono mode would look better if there wasn't dithering for the GUI elements (except maybe button shading)
3. When you run an exe from the file explorer, it should change the DOS directory to match the current folder. That way the exe can find the files it expects.

You should also consider changing the name. XCOM is a popular video game series and it is also trademarked by XCOM Labs.

 

[Caluser2000]

May just add "GUI" to the name?

 

[xdotcom]

This is pretty cool! I have a few suggestions:

1. Plain VGA uses monochrome mode, I guess this is by design? But you could use 16 colors.
2. IMO mono mode would look better if there wasn't dithering for the GUI elements (except maybe button shading)
3. When you run an exe from the file explorer, it should change the DOS directory to match the current folder. That way the exe can find the files it expects.

You should also consider changing the name. XCOM is a popular video game series and it is also trademarked by XCOM Labs.

Thankyou for the feedback, i knew about the third problem, but i simply forgot to fix it in this release, even if i planned to do so, because am an idiot.
Unfortunately i dont have a PC right now for approx week, so i cant do a hotfix for this bug right now. I already ordered the missing parts, but they was not yet delivered to me. If someone feels an urge to send me a donation so i can continue to work on the project more faster, then the crypto addresses are on the website :D

The first point: i can only do linear frame buffers for now, 16 bit VGA video mode is not linear, therefore, 16 color is not supported. I can alternatively suggest to try 320x200 x 8 bit, which going to work with a standard vga adapter. However, the colors are a bit broken there, because none of the 30 year old tutorial code which took me 6 hours of googling actually ever worked properly, due to palette issues, for that few days of attempts i have spent for it, so i dont know if regular vga adapters will work properly beyond monochrome colors, therefore i decided to go with the mono route instead. 16 bit and 32 bit SVGA (vbe) modes should work far better, so if its important for you to use the system with colors, then i suggest you to get a video card with at least 1 mbyte of video ram, and a vesa driver if the ROM doesnt supports it out of the box.

Second: i was fine tuning (and will continue later) the colors on the gui, to look better in monochrome. Without it, nothing would be visible Unfortunately the dithering happens in the final phase of the draw, the rendering is always 32 bit, and scaled down when displaying the picture. This means i cant simply decide what to dither and what not to dither. Unless i am fine tuning the colors specially for mono modes, which i mostly already did. I was very excited about testing the mono modes on a real hardware to check how it looks like, unfortunately, the video card i have dumpster dived for this reason, almost catched fire when i powered it up for the first time due to possibly a faulty capacitor, so this is another upgrade for an unspecified later time in the future.

 

[xdotcom]

16 bit VGA video mode is not linear

(i mean, 16 color vga mode)

 

[xdotcom]

2023, feb 01. - Hotfix release

-When running programs from file browser, the system will properly change the working directory
according to the path of the executable file. (Bug reported by Plasma.)
-Fine-tuned the ALU and FPU benchmarking in the Infoformation panel, which will be more accurate from now on.
-Fixed a bug when pressing buttons on a minimized window - button push events will not be sent.

 

[karletto]

Well done ! Really a small size&clever project !

 

[xdotcom]

2023, march 01. - Big updates

-Left side panel with directory tree structure is now finally implemented and working.
-The GUI system displays the changes in real time, when moving, copying, deleting files and directories around.
-Fixed a bug resulting crash, when pressing cursor keys when the software was loading.
-Image preview sizes are now limited by the RAM size.
-Fixed a bug when pressing cursor keys when the software was loading.
-Fixed a bug when displaying long files names with international letters.
-Directory side panel can be toggled on and off.
-Disk drives can be unmounted and ejected (not in the DOS version).
-Fixed missing icon styles when browsing My Computer.
-Fixed several bugs resulting accidental directory selection.
-Fixed a bug that resulted the file explorer to update even when it shouldn't.
-Fixed a performance related bug when reading large directories from DVD drives. The system now stays more responsive than before.
-The system will now poll for new drives less frequently.
-The preview engine will not engage until a copy to the given directory finishes.
-Added support to detach and eject the disks (not under DOS).
-Fixed a bug causing the preview engine to accidentally activate when selecting files.
-When reading or writing to floppy disk, the system will use smaller data chunks.
-Better detection of auto-opening files with known extensions.
-The program will automatically ask for a program to open files with unknown extensions.
-Directory display area resizer now reacts faster.