computer setup

Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:07 am   

I'm putting together a Pentium 233 to run some old programs I still
use. The computer will have two floppy drives. A is a 1.44 and B is a
1.2 meg. There are two hard drives. C and D are on one physical drive
and E is on the second drive. Win 98, a few programs and Dos 6.2 is on
C. This is the weird thing. I set this all up in bios and when I boot
from Dos both A and B are both accessible, however D and E come up as
"invalid drive specification". When I boot from windows the hard
drives are accessible but B is no where to be found. Bios does say
that everything is there, but depending on which operating system I
decide to use it isn't. Does anyone have a clue as to what could be
happening here? Thanks, Lenny

Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:07 am   

klem kedidelhopper <captainvideo462009_at_gmail.com> wrote in news:6a53b993-
1f6b-4b9e-8e1b-75f5f86dc8a9_at_y12g2000vba.googlegroups.com:


Extract dos 7 form the install floppy of win98SE,
and away you go, edit autoexec and config to get rid of
unwanted stuf.
I have used that for years at work.
On the net and on the install cd you can find dos utils
for wim98, including ansy.sys and such.
You might search at M$ site for a new FDISK.EXE, which
can format the current harddisks.
Yell here if you still miss pieces.

Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:09 am   

klem kedidelhopper wrote:

compared to what else is available--for free.
http://google.com/search?q=FreeDOS+FAT32
....really sucks.
http://google.com/search?q=FreeDOS+USB-drivers

Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:39 am   

JeffM wrote:

BUT, it's not 100% compatible. Maybe 99.99999% but not 100%. I made the
mistake of using it for a laptop to run programs from "the big M"
if you know what I mean (not Microsoft) and occasionaly they crash,
where they don't with DOS.

I expect that if you don't know what I am talking about, it won't matter,
and FreeDos is a lot easier to use as it includes many utilities and features
that Microsoft DOS does not.

Drive letters BTW, are not C and D on the same drive if there is more than one
drive, it's C is the boot drive, D is the first partition on the second drive,
E is the second partition on the second drive and so on........

You may also want to use Windows 95 or 98 instead of DOS. They both include
FAT32 disk support and when they are running in Windows mode include support
for network cards and Windows 98 second edition inlcudes some USB support.

Both can be run in "DOS" mode where they boot the base operating system,
which is really DOS 7, and not the GUI.

You can get drivers for some network cards for DOS, but they eat up too
much memory to run the big M programs.

There is a program from the early days of DOS caled prn2file, which lets you
save print data in a file instead of printing it. So when I need a record
of what's been done, I run it to redirect the printout to a file, start my
DOS program, print the reports and then run the program with no parameters
to close out the file.

Then I reboot in Windows with the GUI, and connect to a networked printer.

On one laptop I have, I do the same thing with DOS in one partition (installed
first) and then Windows XP in the second partition. Windows boots and gives
me a choice of booting DOS or XP. I then have a wifi card in the PCMCIA slot,
and use XP SP3, as it has good wifi support. You can get drivers for some cards
(usually 802.1b) for Win98 but the connection utilities suck.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count.

Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:24 pm   

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Seriously, am I missing something, or is this software running for the
sake of some old software that won't run on anything else?

I went so far as re-writing some very fussy VB Win16 software that
flatly refused to run on anything other than Win3.1 (this was in the
Win'98 era, and we didn't have any 3.1 boxes left).
Ironically, I wrote the "new" code in pascal (DOS based software),
which in all likelyhood pre-dated that VB compiler) AND I had to reverse
engineer the RS232 communications protocols (the hard way) even though
the original software came from the company I was working for anyway.
(obsolete product, and couldn't find the source backups).

*That's* how far I'd go before trying to bring old hardware back to life.
--
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.

Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:32 pm   

On Nov 23, 6:24 am, John Tserkezis
<j...@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> wrote:

This incompatibility issue between one era and another really pisses
me off. Some of us just live a simple life and really only just need
the basics for certain things. But they've managed to engineer it so
that nothing old will work with anything new anymore. This is no
accident I'm convinced. What puzzles me though is that It seems like
I've done this before. I know that I've used 98 with 6.2 on the same
computer, (well different computers when one crapped out), for years.
Some of them were smaller hard drives like a few hundred meg or so.
Could that have changed anything? I may not have ever noticed this
discrepancy between what Bios is saying is there and what "My
Computer" actually shows. And this other issue. I can never get to my
D or my E drive in Dos. I really don't want to have to access my Dos
programs through Windows however if I'm running a Dos program would I
be able to see everything and get to them if I went to a Dos prompt
from 98? Thanks, Lenny

Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:44 pm   

John Tserkezis wrote:

If you removed everything else I wrote, why did you leave my name?



I have no idea what the original poster wanted to do, but that's what I use it
for.

The software is for programing devices where the protocol is not published,
nor has ever been reverse engineered so writing a replacement is not possible.

The software will not run on a fast computer, nor will it run in a DOS box,
DOS emulator, etc.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count.

Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:38 pm   

klem kedidelhopper wrote:


In all honesty, from my experience, this is not the case. To be fair,
it certainly *LOOKS* like engineered obsolescence, but as far as I can
see, it's short-sightedness, incompetency, bad choices, miss-management,
or a combination of the above.

In our case, it would be easy for me to blame Microsoft for the more
than crappy compiler (and boy, was it ever a POS) however, at least part
of the blame has to go towards the guy who chose and bought it in the
first place.

And sure, you could blame me too for using an ancient compiler that
used *hardware* calls to access the RS232 com ports. That said, I had
been using and testing it on windows 2000, which *properly* did not like
software going behind its back and talking to hardware directly. And it
STILL worked. My guess, was it was going to continue to work.
Actually, I have another piece of software that used the same RS232
hardware routines to talk to another device, and that one I use now.
Under win7, and it still works, so that other software would probably
work. If the hardware still existed of course...
So in my defence, at least I tested forward compatibility.


Don't think so. The FAT32 thing was mentioned in this thread, and it's
quite plausible.
It had support under 95 and 98, though with 95 you had to format the
drive from the start. 98 came with a utility that "converted" your
partition to FAT32. And it had to be specially selected for smaller
drives because by default it would not let you choose FAT32 if your
drive was smaller than a certain size.


I can agree with the other posters about the FAT32 thing. It's a very
plausible theory without actually checking. So it would be well worth
checking while booted in 98.
Run "FDISK /STATUS" from a dos prompt. Note, I had to get that from
google, as I've LONG since forgotten how to use fdisk.

I have no idea about the missing B: floppy under 98. Drive letter
assignments are not flexible on floppy drives, so it *should* see it
just fine (considering it works under dos).
--
Women get minks the same way minks get minks.

Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:18 pm   

klem kedidelhopper wrote:

It's a fact of life if you choose to live in M$'s realm.


where M$ has gone thru multiple scripting memes over the years
(batch files, VisualBasic, PowerScript),
bash (Bourne Again SHell) has remained consistent since 1979.


MSFT is run by salesmen.


How will Redmond make **more** money
if you don't buy their latest craptastic wares?




I'll bet that was what was on that setup (FAT16).


If you're going to run a DOS app, run it under *real* DOS:
**Start** in DOS (Don't allow WIN.COM to run).

Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:18 am   

On 11/23/2011 9:38 AM, John Tserkezis wrote:


Yuppers, As that midget Napoleon said, "Never ascribe malice to that
which can be attributed to incompetency."

Jeff


--
"Everything from Crackers to Coffins"

Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:57 am   

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:39:04 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
<gsm_at_mendelson.com> wrote:


Not quite the case. After C: and D: as above, E: (F:, G: etc) will be
the partitions on the first HD and THEN follow the partitions on the
second HD.

Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:54 pm   

On Nov 23, 7:57 pm, who where <no...@home.net> wrote:

So at the risk of sounding like a dummy, is the FAT a function of the
particular hard drive or is it a function of the operating system? And
in my previous question, would a much smaller drive have a FAT 16
system that would be happy in the same bed as DOS 6.2? I need to run
6.2 as my programs run under that. I don't absolutely need to run
Windows on that computer. I have others, however it is handy at times
as some of my DOS documents occasionally are copied, pasted, and then
go out as emails.

If someone could please explain the FAT system with respect to Windows
and DOS I would be very grateful. Lenny

Thu Nov 24, 2011 4:47 pm   

klem kedidelhopper wrote:


FAT is the 'File Allocation Table', and it tells the OS where files
are stored.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table>


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:17 pm   

On 11/23/2011 12:07 AM, klem kedidelhopper wrote:

an AMD Athlon 500Mhz processor and setting the multiplier to 2.
With an AMD when the multiplier is set at 2 it is automatically
recognized as 6 by the processor. Set the clock speed at 83Mhz.
Multiply 83 X 6 = 498. Speed test software will usually show 501Mhz.

I just happen to have a new processor I can let you have for $15.00
American and $5.00 shipping in the U.S., if you're interested.

What kind of MB do you have?
Do you have the manual?
Some MB are configurable through the BIOS.

You can usually download a manual from the internet if you know
the exact type of MB.

Post a reply if you're interested and we'll work out communications.
--

Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:35 pm   

"klem kedidelhopper" <captainvideo462009_at_gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7f09fab6-5b3e-4847-bf89-49c2d8cbace6_at_v5g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...


Strictly speaking, neither. When the drive is formatted under a particular
operating system, the formatting is one the OS recognizes, such as FAT16 for
DOS, NTFS for NT-based systems, etc.