[Nuke]

... for dos 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpxplay

so ive been contemplating making an all dos media center out of my old junker with bad ram (all the bad addresses are well above where dos would see without xms). so i put a freedos install on a removeable hd and a backup hd in another hd bay. one problem was that the drive was ntfs, and i dont want to format it with fat 32 (since its my only complete backup) so i found a little util called ntfs4dos, which is quite easy to use. just run it in dos with a single option to set the drive letter and volla, i have ntfs access in dos. set up some batch files and installed mpxplay, tweaked its ini and hooked up a stereo amp+speakers to my old sblive.

i tweaked the freedos fdconfig.sys so that it had a boot option for mp3 mode, which would load the sound drivers (not that their needed since mpxplay accesses the hardware directly), the ntfs driver, and another set of utils to access usb hard drives (such as rockboxed ipods). the setup is almost automatic. other than select the audio option from the freedos menu at boot, all i got to do is confirm im using the ntfs4dos util for personal reasons (which you have to do each time you boot, which sucks), and type in mpx to launch a bat file than launches the program. its pretty damn cool.

[redsniper]

oldschool newschool FTW!

[CP5670]

Does this support midis? This would be cool to play around with if it can play midis with the old OPL2/OPL3 synthesis (in Dosbox if necessary), just like they sounded in the old games.

[Nuke]

looking further this thing has extended support for portable lcd screens and various serial interfaces. so this would be a cool mod for your car. stick an old laptop in you trunk , load the thiing with audio, run a screen and some interfaces to your dash, wire it to an amp, write some config files and boom! tou have a 1337 audio system.

awhile back i was thinking about converting an old '30s-'40's radio that my grandma had into an mp3 jukebox. i couldnt convince my grandma to give me the radio and she sold it to an antiques dealer for a few grand. now with this mpxplay proggie i could probibly do something like that for a couplle hundred, asuming i can find another ancient radio like that.

[jr2]

I thought any ntfs drivers for dos were read-only unless you payed for them?

[Nuke]

so did i. ive been using a shareware tool to be able to read ntfs in win98 (part of the mount anything suite), however you have to buy it to get write access. im not prepared to give anyone money so that i may use obsolete technology in ways it wasnt meant to be used. the reason i keep obsolete junk around is because its cheaper to screw around with than current stuff. i wouldnt swap boards on my new rig on a daily basis, but i have no problems doing that with my old junk.

the ntfs4dos utility comes from i think a german (i think) antivirus company (avira or something) and is supposed to be used mainly to run boot self booting hd diagnostics like defrag, checkdisk and scan for viruses. though the liscense states that the utility may be used by anyonme for private purposes, and i got my copy off their website. and unlike some of the dos usb drivers out there, it doesnt violate any licensing to use. not that i give a crap about that.

the only downsides are that the utility installs in windows and wants to make a boot floppy, thou you can go to the program directory and just copy the ntfs4dos.exe file to any dos drive and reference it in your autoexec. the other problem is you need to confirm that youre using it for personal purposes each time you run it by typing yes or no on viewing of the terms, so you cant autoexec anything after it. which sucks because id like to go sstraight from the freedos boot options menu to mpxplay without any additional user imput. i could just get around the problem by formating the drive to fat32 and not use the util. but i dont want to do that because its my backup drive (dispite my septuple-redundant backup policy ). maybe next time i feel like backing stuff up il format it with fat, then copy all my files to it

[WMCoolmon]

It supports MPC?

[jr2]

Linky please?  Pretty please? 

Is this it?

http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html

http://www.freewarefiles.com/program_9_90_11100.html

http://www.bootdisk.com/ntfs.htm  <-- this one looks to be the handiest... comes with more utils.

[Nuke]

thats the file. id get the offitial one at the bottom of the first linked page.

[jr2]

K, I figured that might be it & got it... what do you think of the unerase util from them?  I've tried Restoration v 2.5.1.4 (REST2514.exe), and Free Undelete.  Those work ok, but not the best.