!usb-dos word-wrap and sound --- agk's diary 28 September 2026 --- Written on HP 200LX (1994) with Memo editor (1993) --- I learned some differences between how I think and how other adult users of usb-dos think this week. As a result, I also learned a little about how several computers handle sound and how several editors handle word-wrapping. It all happened during an 1h30m usb-dos install party I threw at the public library. Three non-techy women brought old laptops and/or a usb drive. It wasn't exclusive to women, but that's who came. The goal was for each woman to download, flash, boot, backup, and customize usb-dos. One woman wants to play King's Quest (1990) with her 4-year-old (and, let's be honest, by herself). A 9-year-old whose mom forgot to bring a computer or flash drive has a similar goal. She wants to play Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (1989). King's Quest mom brought her mac. She downloaded usb-dos and balena etcher, but couldn't flash her usb key. I think it complained the usb-dos image was corrupt? I had no time to troubleshoot an unfamiliar program, so gained no insight. We flashed with Rufus. The third woman is a writer, the actual target for usb-dos. She expects text to wrap when she writes. This is reasonable! It didn't occur to me because my daughter only writes two-sentence diary entries, and I write for gopher, so hit ENTER every 52 characters as if my computer is a typewriter. We were ambitious. Nobody backed up their system before time ran out. Kings Quest mom and writer woman went home with bootable USB keys they flashed themselves and a Dell Latitude each, UEFIs config- ured to boot their usb-dos systems. Sound that blasted ------------------ Kings Quest mom took home a 2-year-old Dell Latitude 5480 with 32 GB of RAM donated by a nearby college. She added King's Quest to her flash drive and config- ured it. A few days later she dropped by and traded it for the precious 20-year-old Core 2 Duo era Dell Latitude I got running during this year's Old Compu- ter Challenge. The problem with the nearly-new Latitude was it sucked at running DOS. It was possible to disable Secure Boot and turn on BIOS Legacy Mode in the UEFI, but the screen flashed for a full second any time a program opened or closed, and the volume options were muted or deafening. The headphone jack doesn't redirect the sound, so the problem can't be fixed by external speakers. f6k sent me a fix he cooked up on his ThinkPad that puts DOS in Protected Mode with a DPMI server so it can run crazii's SBEMU SoundBlaster emulator. This stack supposedly will get me volume control. I haven't tried it yet, but it may make the nearly- new Latitudes good for something more than a modern OS. I don't have more Core 2 Duos or netbooks in good repair, so unless something comes in, this may be the only way to get an acceptable Carmen Sandiego game to the 9-year-old. Seems crazy to run an OS that expects 1MB of RAM on something with 32,768MB of RAM. The smallest USB key anybody could find abandoned in a desk drawer was 64GB or 128GB. The DOS partition is 2GB (mostly un- used), the whole image 4GB. 60-124GB doesn't even get a filesystem unless someone resizes the storage partition. I'm trying to consume the waste stream. But sometimes even the waste is so, so, wasteful! The Core 2 Duo Latitude just worked of course. Like the HP netbooks from the same 2006-2012 era, volume was already set at a reasonable level. Launching and closing programs is instantaneous. The woman got the first of three treasures in King's Quest while testing the Core 2 Duo Latitude in my garage: the magic mirror guarded by the dragon. Her save files were on her USB flash disk. They don't concern themselves with what computer she uses. We also made her a FUZOMA bootable USB, because her 4- year-old is new to keyboards and not ready for any- thing on usb-dos yet. She has learned a lot about disk portability and lateral thinking with withered tech. PaRappa the word wrapper ------------------------ The writer brought in three of her parents' old computers: - an ultraportable 2-in-1 Dell Latitude I guess is about 10 years old (didn't get the model number), - a post-netbook netbook from 2013, the HP Pavilion 10 TouchScreen Notebook PC, - a 1993 Toshiba Satellite T1900C with a color display and WordPerfect quick reference velcro'd above the keyboard, but no power supply. All blessings and honor on parents like hers. The reason King's Quest mom didn't have an old computer to bring in is because her dad smashes his previous computer up with a hammer when he upgrades. The writer could only get the 2-1n-1 ultraportable Latitude to turn on, so that was her box. As for King's Quest mom and me, the DosShell interface was a learning curve. Unlike our computers, hers suffers from some weird glitchy display noise. She opened Sved, started typing, and the words just kept going in an eternal unwrapped line. On further investigation at home, she discovered that Microsoft Word 5.5 wraps text by default and FreeDOS Editor allows word-wrapping to be enabled in its menu. She also learned, or at least reinforced, the porta- bility of text files between editors. Yes, people of the world, textfiles aren't chained to the program that created them! Also like me, she opened every program included in usb-dos and was dazzled and confused by the variety of program user interfaces pre-CUA (common user interface). Particularly, she had trouble exiting some programs. AsEasyAs presents a menu to /, Sved to ESC, many programs to ALT-F, and vi is vi. I showed her the hints on exiting programs I left in DosShell. I should really make a printed manual, or at least a quick reference. She changed the color scheme in DOSShell to pink, which I didn't even know you could do, and got started on some writing. Meanwhile I took home her 1993 Satellite and 2013 HP post-netbook Pavilion 10. I haven't done more than admire the Satellite and explore floppy disk sources, but I found that one of her power supplies fits the Pavilion 10. It's pretty great, probably better than her 2-in-1 ultraportable Latitude, but not perfect. Its pluses include a full laptop UEFI, sound that just works for Kings Quest, Carmen Sandiego, and most FUZOMA games, and that sweet netbook form- factor. Things I don't like: - My daughter's keyboardless 2010 HP Mini netbook is easy to open up to remove the hard drive. I have gotten 90% of the tabs holding the Pavilion 10 together released, but hours of struggle and I still can't see a way to release whatever holds it together near the hinges without cracking the plastic. So I haven't been able to pull the hard drive. - This matters because the UEFI won't let me put usb-dos first in boot order. It gets old hitting F1 before it boots into the Windows login and selecting usb-dos every time you turn it on. - A few FUZOMA games have weird timing (Animal Math music, Number Munchers and Matey chess gameplay), and a few fail to load (Dragon's Keep, Donald Duck). But all the School Mom subprograms work! That's it. It will be a perfect writer's rig if I get the dadblamed hard drive out of it. I remain convinced netbooks are nearly perfect DOS machines. Aspirations, regrets -------------------- I keep thinking about the lot of 20 Core 2 Duo Panasonic Toughbooks the Bluegrass Army Depot auctioned off for $200 for the lot two months back. I had nowhere to put them, but I really missed out on some presumably kid-friendly and DOS-friendly hardware. I ordered more low-profile 4GB usb flash drives because I went through my whole last lot. The prices remain affordable. I wish I had a "just works" computer for the 9-year- old who is going to be Carmen Sandiego for Halloween. I know I have f6k's fix, but the more complicated the system gets, the less fun I have. There's a possibility her mom has an old enough, good enough laptop, and a retired professor the public library referred to me plans to donate two or three of her retired laptops next month. We'll see what they are. The college has 90 more of the nearly-new Latitudes to donate somewhere, but what I'm doing doesn't fit. I'm tired of putting Linux on something so someone can look at the world through a web browser. I want new worlds, personal computers lovingly crafted from salvage by their users, something magical rather than mystifyingly indistinguishable from magic. It's fun to watch computers boot for the first time in years, find a new use, and become Personal.