Well, none of the bubble cartridges has a FORMAT.COM. There is MODE.COM, CHKDSK.COM, EDLIN.COM, and then SYS.COM . And trying to run FORMAT.COM from another DOS 3.30 on the PC-5000, it actually does try to run, but then says "Incorrect DOS version"
We're trying another cut of the Sharp MS-DOS 2.11 image (the first one had some issues). It has a FORMAT.COM, so hopefully that will just work. If not, then maybe trying to extract an older FORMAT.COM from a DOS 1.X image might be worth a try? I'm not too savvy about boot sector stuff and DOS interrupts - maybe there is some DEBUG.COM stuff that can help probe boot sectors of these bubble cartridges? I'm not sure if I can borrow a DEBUG.COM from another DOS disks, will try that also over the weekend. -SteveL On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM Sellam Abraham via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 10:31 PM Steve Lewis via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > > All my bubble cartridges have MS-DOS 2.00, and one of the cartridges has > > SYS.COM. So... I did a FORMAT /8 on another x86 system and formatted a > > 320KB disks. Then I put that disk into the PC-5000, then did a SYS C: > from > > the bubble cartridge that has SYS.COM, and it said "System transferred" > > (and CHKDSK.COM agrees, there are 2 hidden files). I added COMMAND.COM > to > > the disk, but it (the PC-5000) still won't boot from that disk. I turn > > the system off, remove the bubble cartridge, power on the system with > this > > "new" 320KB disk inserted... and it says WARNING: NON-SYSTEM DISK. > > > > Is it possible to try formatting the disk from the Sharp PC-5000 itself? > > It's possible there's something special about the boot sector on the bubble > carts. You might try reading the raw sectors off of it and examining the > boot sector to see if it's doing something special to allow it to boot, > then maybe copy that code into the boot sector on the floppy. > > Sellam >
