Mateusz has released FDNPKG v0.99.2. "The biggest improvement is that there is now a 16-bit companion tool called FDINST. It's a very stripped-down version of FDNPKG: - no networking - no repositories support - no internationalization - no LZMA support - real mode, 8086 compatible. FDINST borrows most of its code from FDNPKG, to make sure that both tools behave exactly the same way, hence it doesn't matter whether you install something via FDNPKG or FDINST. Should be useful for people wishing to install packages on their 8086 machines. This could also be used by some future FreeDOS installer to install an entire system from floppy or CD." You can find FDNPKG 0.99.2 at website.

Wcd is a command-line program to change directory fast. It saves time typing at the keyboard. One needs to type only a part of a directory name and wcd will jump to it. Wcd has a fast selection method in case of multiple matches and allows aliasing and banning of directories. Wcd also includes a full screen interactive directory tree browser with speed search. Erwin Waterlander released wcd 5.3.0. From Erwin's announcement: "It is a minor update. The loading of the graphical tree is faster. For the rest it is minor bug fixes." Download at Wcd website.

Mateusz released a new version of DOSMid, an open-source MIDI/MUS player for DOS. This version added support for additional hardware, fixed a few minor bugs, and optimized the code so DOSMid runs comfortably on an 8086. If you want to see the new DOSMid in action, see this YouTube video. To download the new DOSMid, visit dosmid.sourceforge.net.

It has been a few years now that the HIMEMXextended memory manager was abandoned. There were a few very valuable community patches floating around though, sadly never really applied to any "official" release. Mateusz has created a new project website for HIMEMX at SourceForge. Mateusz also cleaned up the code formatting and removed the "TESTMEM" switch, because it was never implemented. HIMEMX is under the Artistic License.

On Aug. 31, Mateusz Viste updated FDNPKG, his versatile package manager, to 0.99. Changes: -- support for "link" files to include third-party apps into %PATH%, -- compiled FDNPKG with -lemu for 387 emu, so it runs on a 386 w/o FPU, -- during download, progress is shown on a single line (with refresh), -- version string parser recognizes v1.0.2 as being newer than v1.01, -- support for ZIP files that do not contain directory entries (zip -D), -- FDNPKG is not UPXed with LZMA anymore, loads 10x faster on my 386SX, -- added repositories 'SOUND' and 'EDIT' to the default cfg file, -- sources install switched OFF by default. You can grab binaries and sources at SourceForge or iBiblio or just type FDNPKG UPDATE FDNPKG. Thanks, Fox!