[GEM Development] GEMini - a GUI file commander for FreeDOS

[Shane M. Coughlan]

> Hmm.  I just tried it here (was wondering why it was so large, actually,
but
> more on that in a moment).  Under Windows 2000 it crashes, with an error
> from Windows about not being able to open COM3.  Before you say it's a
> Windows problem, it isn't because this is the first time I've had problems
> starting GEM on this setup.
> On closer inspection, you're trying to load the mouse driver you bundled
> with it.  You appear to check for various Win9x modules to stop that but
> nothing for Win2k.  For reference, MEM /C on a fresh CMD.EXE session here
> reads:

Good point!  I will fix that, or perhaps disable the mouse.

> Now then, about the size.  580KB seems a lot for a simple Desktop-only
> setup, even allowing for a bit of growth from GEM/2 to GEM/3 and FreeGEM.

I did leave output because I had a problem with it remaining on the desktop
menu and failing to start if people called it.  However, I am going to chop
out all these files you mention.  A lot of reduction would be nice.

> Now then, that gets us down to 343KB.  Not too shabby.  The VDI+AES here
> amount to 182.3KB in RAM, and I don't use LHGEM -- I can see why you might
> leave that in, though.  The LHCONFIG program is nearly 10 times the size
of
> LHGEM itself, though, so you could replace that with two copies of
LHGEM -- 
> one for DR-DOS, one for MS-DOS.  Call them LHGEM and HIGEM, and then
choose
> the right one in GEM.EXE -- DR-DOS can be spotted through an environment
> variable I believe.  Just a thought, not a biggie though.  That gets it
down
> to 335KB.  Not much smaller it can be got without removing the FAQ, UPXing
> some of the binaries or shaving bits here and there -- 137 bytes off
GEM.BAT
> is one trivial mod (replace the IF %OS%== stuff with a FOR loop over the
> list of OSes), and there are plenty of redundant ECHO OFFs in it.

LHCONFIG is a problem alright, and you are right.  I'll have the two
versions of LH in the next release rather than LHCONFIG.

> Don't take the size criticism too seriously though; it's still pretty
small,
> and my Quick N' Dirty FreeGEM Distribution
> (http://www.deltasoft.com/downloads/qfgdist.zip) was about the same size,
> but did include a full set of screen fonts and the Settings application.

I tried the link for your distro, but it failed.  Are you sure of the URL?
I would like to have a look at it.

Thanks for all the comments.  I'll get a new release version ready shortly.

Regards

Shane :)