Shared folders or similar functionality?

[ardi]

Is it possible to use a folder in the host as a drive in the emulator? I've lots of stuff I'd like to try on PCem, and sending everything through 1.44MB floppies would be an enormous task... Also, I'd like to send back to the host files I create on the emulator...

[SarahWalker]

Given the number of operating systems that PCem can run (this functionality would have to be written for all of them), this feature is unlikely. I'd instead recommend using a disk image utility to read/write files from hard disc images; I use WinImage, though there are several others around.

[SA1988]

not to be offtopic, but given the number of OS guests that PCem can run, is it possible for Ethernet emulation (any ISA one would be good up to Win2000)? I've tried many times porting the NE2000 one from dosbox-x (itself adapted from Bochs), but I have failed badly

[SarahWalker]

It's possible, but not very high priority for me.

[SA1988]

well, multiplayer, for example, for two instances of Doom or WinDoom gameplays

[SarahWalker]

Please refer to my previous post on this subject.

[SA1988]

too bad it isn't of very high priority

[ardi]

Given the number of operating systems that PCem can run (this functionality would have to be written for all of them), this feature is unlikely. I'd instead recommend using a disk image utility to read/write files from hard disc images; I use WinImage, though there are several others around.

AFAIK PCem is the only PC emulator that tries to emulate the real machine speed. The rest of emulators aim to run as fast as possible, but I need an emulator with (more or less) accurate speed of old systems because I need to test how my code would perform on older machines. That's my reason for considering PCem. However, I develop on the host system, so that's why a shared folders mechanism would be very convenient for me: if I'm writing code on the host, within a shared folder with PCem, I'd just need to switch to PCem, compile from the guest OS, and test the resulting code there.

Using virtual disk images should work, but I believe it would be uncomfortable...

[truth]

if I'm writing code on the host ... compile from the guest OS, and test the resulting code there.

WinImage works fine for others. Otherwise, since you're a programmer, do you have a suggestion of a host OS and library which you'd like to propose as a base for shared folders? Have you experience in writing file transfer programs?

[ardi]

if I'm writing code on the host ... compile from the guest OS, and test the resulting code there.

WinImage works fine for others. Otherwise, since you're a programmer, do you have a suggestion of a host OS and library which you'd like to propose as a base for shared folders? Have you experience in writing file transfer programs?

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately, my area is GUI, graphics, math, etc, but not filesystems nor networks, so it would have some level of difficulty for me to implement a protocol for shared folders. Anyway, you gave me an idea: if I can generate disk images from the command line, and if I could extract them from the command line too, I could automate the process from my automated build system. It would have some time overhead (my source tree is big), but it would be automatic.

Are there command line tools for generating and extracting the images that PCem can use?

[truth]

Perhaps qemu-img will work?