Some interesting things (on PC-5000): - I copied over QMATH, and old command line "parsing-calculator" I did in Turbo Pascal decades ago (probably about 1992, so post MSDOS5 at least), and it runs on the PC-5000! It's packaged in my "VUC" tools here (along with CDIR) voidstar78/VUC4DOS: voidstar Utility Collection for (MS/DR/PC) DOS (github.com) <https://github.com/voidstar78/VUC4DOS> That just speaks well to the PC-5000 really being MS-DOS compatible (and that it ran an executable from a much later generation of MS-DOS). Note that CDIR itself doesn't run on that MS-DOS 2.00 system (I suspect anything that "touches color" won't run, based on trying to run a few other similar type things)
- VER is saying MS-DOS 2.00, same as the startup/bootup note. Though it does say the "Command v2.02" shortly after (I suspect as it is loading the command.com, or in any case just prior to invoking autoexec.bat) - I don't have a "native" DEBUG.COM for 2.X yet (and ended up in a bad time that archive.org is majorly down again). And trying to run DEBUG.COM from 3.30 disks on the PC-5000 just says "Incorrect DOS version" (was we've discussed, which as mentioned I'll have to debug the debug.com on another system first to patch it) I'll dig into the .COM patching later, have some errands this weekend first. Plus, it turns out I "blew up" my parallel port *again*. Modern day, we take it for granted about USB being hot-swappable. Well, parallel-ports apparently aren't that forgiving - and I keep forgetting that. I've zapped two parallel cards now while swapping between parallel devices. (which I'm making good progress figuring out the "retro printer" that will emulator old printers and let us print from old software and go straight to a PDF, but still working on it) The LPT devices themselves are fine, just I really heard the electrical pop and just the parallel port is absolutely dead (everything else seems fine though) More to report later, but was excited that "something from the future" (qmath.exe built almost a decade after the PC-5000 was sold) worked. -SteveL On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 6:35 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Thu, 17 Oct 2024, Steve Lewis wrote: > > > I follow all that (on the DEBUG.COM notes) and appreciate the notes - > that > > will save some time, I look forward to trying a few things out tomorrow. > > > > I forgot to do VER explicitly, but on boot up it is saying MS-DOS 2.00. > > > > And just now, I recalled that on github there is MS-DOS source (and > bins) - > > I think Dave's Garage, he recently did a video on building and booting > > MS-DOS 4.0 from that source. Maybe I should use this as an excuse to > try > > a 2.0 build? Or least, reading through the FORMAT.ASM, I see all the > > DOSVER checking stuff - helps confirm patch addresses, or maybe try just > > recompiling that one utility without this check. > > > > > > Reading through the CONFIG.txt in the MS-DOS 2.0 github repo, it's > > interesting near the end: (the use of forward slash instead of > backslash, > > ha! and just above this, the comments mention /dev/<dev>) > > > > "A typical configuration file might look like this: > > > > BUFFERS = 10 > > FILES = 10 > > DEVICE = /bin/network.sys > > BREAK = ON > > SWITCHAR = - > > SHELL = a:/bin/command.com a:/bin -p" > > GOOD > So, you should be able to patch FORMAT 2.11 ti work on the DOS version > that is running. > > BUT, whether Format /S or SYS will work remains to be seen. > > > I have seen cases where the opening banner does not quite match the stored > version number, such as 4.01 V 4.00 > and a conditional jmp needs an exact match. > > > So, definitely run VER > > and/or > in debug A(Assemble) > > MOV AH,30 > INT 21 > INT 3 ; ends program and displays registers > > and see what it shows in AX > (running that in CMD of my Windows 7 gives 0005 (5.00)!) > > > One of the early homework assignments when I taught PC Assembly was to go > into DEBUG and patch LINK.EXE and EXE2BIN.EXE to eliminate DOD version > checking. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com >
