DispDump - The Display Dumper (an Open Source project)

What and why? 

In all normal 32-bit operating systems users may remotely control a computer, by connecting to a computer through a network, running programs on this PC and see the program's screen, no matter if it is a text mode console (connecting e.g. via Telnet or SSH) or a GUI application (connecting e.g. via VNC, Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol, XWindow protocol). However 16-bit DOS does not support this kind of functionality. That's where my open source utility comes into action.

Example 

The technologies available on all modern 32-bit systems allow you to control computers without being physically next to them and their screen, mouse and keyboard. On some rare occasion you may find yourself in the following situation: you normally use a laptop, but you have a desktop computer or a server and you do not have a monitor screen for it (e.g. because you do not want to take space in your room). You can simply run a VNC connection and on your laptop see what is going on on the "screenless" computer. Unfortunately this is not possible under DOS, because does not have a graphical desktop nor a Telnet/SSH server. At least I haven't found anything free/interesting.

DispDump functionality. 

My utility gives you remote control of a PC running MS-DOS (which e.g. does not have a monitor display attached to it). The screen image (currently text mode only) is taken from the graphics card and transferred to other computer via serial link and displayed there using ANY serial link terminal emulation software. Currently you have to use the keyboard (and optionally mouse - if you want) connected to the DOS computer, as only screen image is transferred over the link.

I use the word currently, because if there will be a strong demand for more functionality (e.g. graphical mode under DOS or emulating remote "keyboard" through the link) I could code it into a new version or software. Or if not me, then anyone can do this, because the project is Open Source.

Project details

My project is Open Source and is hosted at SourceForge.net:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dispdump

The project also has a seperate dedicated website:

http://dispdump.sourceforge.net/

Popularity 

When I released it on SourceForge.net, I just tried to increase the number of my Open Source projects. But I doubted if it will gain popularity, because DOS lost its popularity long time ago, and because a situation of a need to remotely control a DOS machine was not to probable.

But when I look on project statistics on SourceForge.net, it looks realy nice all the time! On avarage there is a couple of visits almost each day and a download once per 2-3 days.