Great to see my old PC5000 receiving so much loving attention; thanks Steve!
FWIW, related to the discussion elsewhere about BBSs, that PC5000 was originally owned by Canada Remote Systems, a smaller Canadian version of Compuserve based here in Toronto, It was a fairly large (by Canadian standards) commercial BBS system of the 80s and 90s, noted primarily for its extensive file collection; I think I still have some of their collection disks on 8" media somewhere. On Sat, Oct 19, 2024 at 10:05 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > 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 > > >
