[GEM Development] GEM.BAT fails with ChDir under FreeDOS

[John Hupp]

We're working over/tripping over some small details here, but many users 
won't know what to do with an error message like this and will just give up. 
So a little background and a fresh detail or two:

Background:

OpenGEM 4 and 5 used this command in C:\GEM.BAT:
CD\GEMAPPS\GEMSYS\

This worked fine in MS-DOS 6 but the version of FreeDOS COMMAND.COM (aka 
FreeCOM) current at the time failed without a space after CD.

OpenGEM 6 attempted to adjust to FreeCOM by using this command:

CD GEMAPPS\GEMSYS

This executes fine if entered from the command line at C:\ and will make the 
current directory C:\GEMAPPS\GEMSYS.  But if you put that command in a batch 
file at C:\TEST.BAT and then ChDir to C:\FDOS and rely on PATH or native 
ability to find and run TEST.BAT in the root directory, you will generate 
the error "CHDIR failed for 'GEMAPPS\GEMSYS.'"

If you edit TEST.BAT to CD \GEMAPPS\GEMSYS (adding the initial backslash), 
it will run fine.  Contrary to what I said earlier, you do not need to enter 
the full drive:\path to get a successful fix.  In fact, with the current 
version of FreeCOM, you can once again omit the space after CD.

In short, there is still a small deviation from behavior under MS-DOS 6. 
But previously when I entered a program-startup command from an improper 
location (like trying to start DESCENT from C:\FDOS\BIN, to make up an 
example) FreeDOS would tend to run something like C:\SETUP (the GEM setup 
program).  So this may be progress.

I should note that my tests were run on a pure FreeDOS machine, not in an 
emulator or DOS window.

--John Hupp

----- Original Message ----- 
From: John Elliott
To: gem-dev at simpits.org
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: [GEM Development] GEM.BAT fails with ChDir under FreeDOS


:
: according to environment you are still in C:\stuff\files\other
: c:\gem.bat is an absolute address not a relative one
: cd c:\gemapps\gemsys might give you what you want but cd \gemaps\gemsys
: certainly wont

  It should, under a half-decent DOS. For that matter, it does even under
DOS Plus 1.2, which is about as far from being DOS as you can get and still
run GEM:

C:\STUFF\FILES\OTHER>cd \gemapps\gemsys
C:\GEMAPPS\GEMSYS>

  I just did a quick test with the FreeDOS 1.0 boot floppy in VMWare, and
the same command sequence seems to work fine there.

-- 
John Elliott
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