24 Jan
2016
24 Jan
'16
10:29 p.m.
To my surprise, I found something just barely old enough to interest me on the e-waste
pile at work: An IBM PS/2 85 from around 1993 or so. The hard drive is long gone and it
didn't include a keyboard, but it did come with a model 8516 touch screen display and
original mouse. I already had a nice Model M to plug into it, plus some scsi2sd adapters
sitting around waiting for projects like this one.
I'm new to the PS/2 line, but after some poking around I found images of the reference
and diagnostic disks necessary to set this machine up. I also found the ADF file needed
for the Cabletron ethernet card in it. The machine has 12M of parity RAM, with one SIMM
slot pair still open. It has a 2.88M 3.5" floppy and a 1.2M 5.25" floppy. The
5.25" floppy is a motor-eject style which I haven't encountered before. This
model has a 486SX 33MHz CPU, and the math coprocessor socket is empty. Aside from a bunch
of dust that I cleaned out, it's in pretty nice cosmetic shape. This particular model
was intended for duty as a server.
I've been posting pictures of the machine on Twitter over the last few days, starting
on 1/21/2016:
https://twitter.com/nf6x/media
I replaced the CMOS battery (conveniently, a CR2032 coin cell, available at the local
supermarket), reconfigured the CMOS settings, set up a scsi2sd as four emulated 512M SCSI
hard drives, milled a pair of generic PC hard drive mounting rails to length for use in a
PS/2, and installed MS-DOS 6.22 on it. OS/2 2.0 would probably be more appropriate for
this machine, but I don't have it. I see original OS/2 2.0 boxes in the shrink wrap on
eBay, but eBay and I are seeing other people at this time.
Well, I seem to have it fully working aside from not having suitable software installed to
test out the touch screen and networking card. The monitor sometimes makes a bit of
high-pitch whine which by some miracle I can still hear. Younger folks might find it
objectionable. I wonder if it would be effective as a child repellant? :) Thankfully, it
doesn't seem to set my dogs to howling.
And now that it is cleaned up and working, I have no clue about what to do with it! I just
didn't want to see it go to the landfill or end up as toxic dust in some poor
guy's lungs in India, so I got permission and then carted it home. I am not normally
interested in PC-family machines, but actual IBM ones interest me a bit. And the countless
ways IBM found to make the PS/2 line incompatible with regular PC lines give me things to
bitch about, and that in turn gives my life purpose. :)
So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting applications for
this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay sources of software that it would
like to run?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
24 Jan
24 Jan
11:54 p.m.
New subject: NEC 8201a
Anyone still messing with the Kyocera machines?
(Radio Shack Model 100, NEC PC-8201A, and a few others were part of the
same series made by Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics))
Somebody just returned one that I loaned out about 30 years ago.
Also the N82 BASIC manual, which gives memory maps, etc. for it.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
25 Jan
25 Jan
7:18 a.m.
New subject: NEC 8201a
Me. I have a pair of model 100s. Unfortunately both with a broken LCD :(
---
Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique)
Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br
Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 5:54 AM
Subject: NEC 8201a
Anyone still messing with the Kyocera machines?
(Radio Shack Model 100, NEC PC-8201A, and a few others were part of the
same series made by Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics))
Somebody just returned one that I loaned out about 30 years ago.
Also the N82 BASIC manual, which gives memory maps, etc. for it.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7:24 a.m.
New subject: NEC 8201a
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 1:54 AM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Anyone still messing with the Kyocera machines?
(Radio Shack Model 100, NEC PC-8201A, and a few others were part of the
same series made by Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics))
I've been tinkering with a Tandy 102 lately. Recently picked up a TPDD2
drive with no cable. I have to construct one so I can use it, and then I
don't have the Utility disk, so I'm not sure how useful it will be.
The one I got needed a new battery backup battery, and I had to repair a
trace. The system would work, but the memory wouldn't retain contents. The
AA batteries leaked on the power supply trace and etched it away in a small
section, enough to sever the NiCad connection to the RAM, but leave the AA
to power the RAM once turned on.
8:59 a.m.
New subject: NEC 8201a
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Evan Koblentz <cctalk at snarc.net> wrote:
(Radio Shack Model 100, NEC PC-8201A, and a few others
were part of the
I have this photo
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/kyotronic/Kyotronic_NEC_Tandy.JPG
--
Bill
same series made by Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics))
The others were the Olivetti M-10 and Kyocera's own Kyotronic KC-85.
8:29 a.m.
If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes. Doubles
your core speed and adds the math co-processor in one go.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:29 AM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
To my surprise, I found something just barely old
enough to interest me on
the e-waste pile at work: An IBM PS/2 85 from around 1993 or so. The hard
drive is long gone and it didn't include a keyboard, but it did come with a
model 8516 touch screen display and original mouse. I already had a nice
Model M to plug into it, plus some scsi2sd adapters sitting around waiting
for projects like this one.
I'm new to the PS/2 line, but after some poking around I found images of
the reference and diagnostic disks necessary to set this machine up. I also
found the ADF file needed for the Cabletron ethernet card in it. The
machine has 12M of parity RAM, with one SIMM slot pair still open. It has a
2.88M 3.5" floppy and a 1.2M 5.25" floppy. The 5.25" floppy is a
motor-eject style which I haven't encountered before. This model has a
486SX 33MHz CPU, and the math coprocessor socket is empty. Aside from a
bunch of dust that I cleaned out, it's in pretty nice cosmetic shape. This
particular model was intended for duty as a server.
I've been posting pictures of the machine on Twitter over the last few
days, starting on 1/21/2016:
https://twitter.com/nf6x/media
I replaced the CMOS battery (conveniently, a CR2032 coin cell, available
at the local supermarket), reconfigured the CMOS settings, set up a scsi2sd
as four emulated 512M SCSI hard drives, milled a pair of generic PC hard
drive mounting rails to length for use in a PS/2, and installed MS-DOS 6.22
on it. OS/2 2.0 would probably be more appropriate for this machine, but I
don't have it. I see original OS/2 2.0 boxes in the shrink wrap on eBay,
but eBay and I are seeing other people at this time.
Well, I seem to have it fully working aside from not having suitable
software installed to test out the touch screen and networking card. The
monitor sometimes makes a bit of high-pitch whine which by some miracle I
can still hear. Younger folks might find it objectionable. I wonder if it
would be effective as a child repellant? :) Thankfully, it doesn't seem to
set my dogs to howling.
And now that it is cleaned up and working, I have no clue about what to do
with it! I just didn't want to see it go to the landfill or end up as toxic
dust in some poor guy's lungs in India, so I got permission and then carted
it home. I am not normally interested in PC-family machines, but actual IBM
ones interest me a bit. And the countless ways IBM found to make the PS/2
line incompatible with regular PC lines give me things to bitch about, and
that in turn gives my life purpose. :)
So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting
applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay
sources of software that it would like to run?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
8:35 a.m.
So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting
applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay
sources of software that it would like to run?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
8:41 a.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:29, drlegendre . <drlegendre
at gmail.com> wrote:
If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes. Doubles
your core speed and adds the math co-processor in one go.
Cool. I didn't know that it would drop in like that.
I found images of OS/2 installation disks on a possibly dodgy "abandonware"
site. 2.0 installation crashed on the second disk. 2.1 made it all the way through the
20th disk, then hung at "Updating the system configuration" (but with mouse
pointer still movable) and yielded a system that doesn't boot past the loading screen.
The system passes its diagnostic tests, but maybe the scsi2sd is incompatible in some way,
or maybe a different distribution is needed for this machine?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
8:44 a.m.
Ugh. Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2. It had more
drivers included.
If you find IBM Visualage software, you'll get C/C++ and with enough
hunting - Smalltalk.
I always wanted to play with that, but couldn't justify the $$$$ needed.
Todd Killingsworth
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:29, drlegendre .
<drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes.
Doubles
your core speed and adds the math co-processor in
one go.
Cool. I didn't know that it would drop in like that.
I found images of OS/2 installation disks on a possibly dodgy
"abandonware" site. 2.0 installation crashed on the second disk. 2.1 made
it all the way through the 20th disk, then hung at "Updating the system
configuration" (but with mouse pointer still movable) and yielded a system
that doesn't boot past the loading screen. The system passes its diagnostic
tests, but maybe the scsi2sd is incompatible in some way, or maybe a
different distribution is needed for this machine?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
9 a.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:44, Todd Killingsworth
<killingsworth.todd at gmail.com> wrote:
Ugh. Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2. It had more
drivers included.
I think I'll give it a try. I had wanted to run whatever OS version would have most
likely shipped with this system originally, but maybe this machine required a special
version of 2.0/2.1 that differs from the shelf versions that got archived online?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
9:11 a.m.
According to the first Google hit, Warp should be really close in time with
your PS/2:
( From http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/ )
*OS/2 Warp*?October 1994?Codename Warp
- Internal revision 8.162 (94/09/19)
- Performance tuned, lower resource requirements
- Compatible with Windows 3.11
- BonusPak (with Internet Access Kit) included
- Improved hardware support
- Updated WPS
This roughly matches up with my memory. I haven't worked OS/2 in a long
while!
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:00 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:44, Todd Killingsworth
<
killingsworth.todd at gmail.com> wrote:
Ugh. Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2. It had more
drivers included.
I think I'll give it a try. I had wanted to run whatever OS version would
have most likely shipped with this system originally, but maybe this
machine required a special version of 2.0/2.1 that differs from the shelf
versions that got archived online?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
9:21 a.m.
On 01/25/2016 09:11 AM, Todd Killingsworth wrote:
According to the first Google hit, Warp should be
really close in
time with your PS/2: ( From
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/ )
*OS/2 Warp*?October 1994?Codename Warp
IBM distributed free CDs with Warp on them about then, publicizing their
"Developer Connection"--something akin to MSDN. The CD included (IIRC)
a C compiler and a few tools as well. I still have my CD; if you want
an ISO of it, I think I can manage.
--Chuck
9:45 a.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 09:21, Chuck Guzis <cclist at
sydex.com> wrote:
IBM distributed free CDs with Warp on them about then, publicizing their "Developer
Connection"--something akin to MSDN. The CD included (IIRC) a C compiler and a few
tools as well. I still have my CD; if you want an ISO of it, I think I can manage.
This machine doesn't have a CD drive, and I don't think it ever did based on there
being no missing bezel filler panels. But I think that the scsi2sd may be able to emulate
a CD drive. I'm off to work now, but this evening I'll poke around to see what
Warp images are out there.
9:46 a.m.
On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, Mark J. Blair wrote:
This machine doesn't have a CD drive, and I don't think it ever did
based on there being no missing bezel filler panels. But I think that
the scsi2sd may be able to emulate a CD drive. I'm off to work now, but
this evening I'll poke around to see what Warp images are out there.
There's a few folks out there running internet-connected BBSes on OS/2.
You might look into that. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
9:52 a.m.
New subject: R: What to Do with a PS/2?
I think part or all the devcon ( developer connection ) is uploaded in the same place the
sgi cds are
https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware?&sort=-publicdate&and[]=S…
just change the search. If not, and a specific devcon number is needed, I should have them
all in storage.
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Chuck Guzis
Inviato: luned? 25 gennaio 2016 18:22
A: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Oggetto: Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 01/25/2016 09:11 AM, Todd Killingsworth wrote:
According to the first Google hit, Warp should be
really close in time
with your PS/2: ( From
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/ )
*OS/2 Warp*?October 1994?Codename Warp
IBM distributed free CDs with Warp on them about then, publicizing their "Developer
Connection"--something akin to MSDN. The CD included (IIRC) a C compiler and a few
tools as well. I still have my CD; if you want an ISO of it, I think I can manage.
--Chuck
10:04 a.m.
New subject: R: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 01/25/2016 09:52 AM, Mazzini Alessandro wrote:
I think part or all the devcon ( developer connection
) is uploaded
in the same place the sgi cds are
https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware?&sort=-publicdate&and[]=S…
just change the search. If not, and a specific devcon number is
needed, I should have them all in storage.
That's good to know. I wondered if anyone kept those.
However, my recollection of Warp is that you need two floppies available
for the "kicker" loader. Given that PS/2 floppy drives seem to have an
unfortunate propensity toward death, you might want to check those out
first. It is possible, IIRC, at least on some of the models to
substitute a commodity DSHD 3.5" drive with a few small modifications.
--Chuck
10:15 a.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:04 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at
sydex.com> wrote:
However, my recollection of Warp is that you need two floppies available for the
"kicker" loader. Given that PS/2 floppy drives seem to have an unfortunate
propensity toward death, you might want to check those out first. It is possible, IIRC,
at least on some of the models to substitute a commodity DSHD 3.5" drive with a few
small modifications.
Luckily, the floppy drives on this machine still seem to be fine.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
10:19 a.m.
You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a device
like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port -to- SCSI adapter built
into a cable. I've used one many times to load OS onto some weird old
machine that lacked any other (easy) options.
There are both DOS and Linux drivers for the Trantor adapters.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:04 , Chuck Guzis
<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
However, my recollection of Warp is that you need two floppies available
for the
"kicker" loader. Given that PS/2 floppy drives seem to have an
unfortunate propensity toward death, you might want to check those out
first. It is possible, IIRC, at least on some of the models to substitute
a commodity DSHD 3.5" drive with a few small modifications.
Luckily, the floppy drives on this machine still seem to be fine.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
10:25 a.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:19, drlegendre . <drlegendre
at gmail.com> wrote:
You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a device
like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port -to- SCSI adapter built
into a cable.
I should also be able to plug one into the system's external SCSI port. I don't
think I still have an external SCSI CD drive, but I could borrow the internal one from my
Sun Ultra 60.
11:11 a.m.
I would second the idea of running OS/2 Warp on it. Though FWIW, I would
recommend Warp Connect (blue spine).
It will give you TCP/IP networking (over Ethernet, and not just dial-up
like the "Internet Connection for OS/2" that shipped
with "vanilla" Warp's Bonus Pak) out of the box. If you get Warp Connect
(or any version of Warp, for that matter)
going, I would strongly recommend applying all of the available FixPaks for
it, which should let you run at least some
version of WarpZilla, and save you a great deal of headaches.
12:58 p.m.
The 'best' 'prepackaged' version of OS/2 to have is probably the one
called 'DemoPkg'. Back in the day it was for IBM and Business Partners
internal use only and - as the name suggests - included an OS/2 system
preconfigured and installed with a whole bunch of interesting
software. Came as a set of several CDs. Not that easy to lay your
hands on these days.
Mike
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:11 AM, John Willis
<chocolatejollis38 at gmail.com> wrote:
I would second the idea of running OS/2 Warp on it.
Though FWIW, I would
recommend Warp Connect (blue spine).
It will give you TCP/IP networking (over Ethernet, and not just dial-up
like the "Internet Connection for OS/2" that shipped
with "vanilla" Warp's Bonus Pak) out of the box. If you get Warp Connect
(or any version of Warp, for that matter)
going, I would strongly recommend applying all of the available FixPaks for
it, which should let you run at least some
version of WarpZilla, and save you a great deal of headaches.
--
http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'
11:57 a.m.
This brings back memories. One place I worked used a IBM "Industrial" PS/2.
It's main board was the same as a regular PS/2 don't remember the model. We
were buying so many of these things IBM set us up as reseller. Still have
the "Authorized Reseller" sign somewhere in the basement. These things were
not cheap, remember something like 3 times the price of the regular model,
but they were all the same parts in
a rack mount case.
But being IBM even though we never needed a keyboard, mouse etc. Everyone
came with one. Still have a couple of the keyboards, the only difference
all the industrial systems were a dark gray.
The big waste was the software, every system came with a PS/2 box with both
a CD and floppies, and an envelope with driver / firmware floppies. For the
longest time we could not throw out the software, we had in dock at one
time the whole top row of pallet racks where PS/2
Floppies, CDs, keyboard, mice, etc etc. And one day PS/2 was updated ...
something like 400 new copies of the O/S showed up on pallets.
I remember at that point the lawyers getting more involved and all the
excess disappeared.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:19, drlegendre .
<drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a
device
like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port
-to- SCSI adapter built
into a cable.
I should also be able to plug one into the system's external SCSI port. I
don't think I still have an external SCSI CD drive, but I could borrow the
internal one from my Sun Ultra 60.
2:03 p.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 12:29 AM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm
about interesting applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay
sources of software that it would like to run?
Great work on the restoration!
Distributed.net?
http://www.distributed.net/Download_clients
?no networking support? on the PC-DOS/MS-DOS client I think means you have to get work
units via email or other means to a net-connected machine, then transfer them to the
MS-DOS machine via kermit or similar, then crunch, then reverse the process to get credit.
However, even at 66 MHz you won?t have to do that very often? my 25 MHz NeXT cube 040 does
a bit less than one work unit per 2 days. Until/unless you get it on Warp/Connect, maybe
that?s OK?
OS/2 clients have done 5.67 million blocks, and MS-DOS 1.31 million blocks so far:
http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=8&view=tco
so you?ll have some company. (But, a lot of those clients have shifted over to working on
OGR-28.)
Yes, that?s mostly me down near the bottom of that list, with my 68k/NeXTStep running for
13 years.
4:33 p.m.
On 01/25/2016 12:29 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
To my surprise, I found something just barely old
enough to interest me
on the e-waste pile at work: An IBM PS/2 85 from around 1993 or so.
Neat. Likewise here, I found a 65sx a couple of years ago and it's just
quirky and old enough to keep around. Surprisingly the right mouse for it
turned up a short while after, and then I found a period model M around 6
months ago.
The machine has 12M of parity RAM, with one SIMM slot
pair still open.
If you ever find any surplus RAM, shout - my system had 6M, but 4 of that
is snafu, and it could really use a little more.
I replaced the CMOS battery (conveniently, a CR2032
coin cell, available
at the local supermarket)
Lucky. Mine head a dead Dallas chip which I had to attack with a dremel to
expose the battery connections. Oh, and a ton of gloopy, decaying black
foam sound-deadening / baffle material.
OS/2 2.0 would probably be more appropriate for this
machine, but I
don't have it.
I was hopeful that mine would, but sadly not - just an MS-DOS system. It
does have a copy of Micro CADAM on there, which I expect was what it spent
its life running.
And now that it is cleaned up and working, I have no
clue about what to
do with it!
Mine just kind of sits around in case I ever *need* an MCA-bus system for
some oddball reason. The copy of CADAM on it is vaguely interesting, but
the UI isn't exactly intuitive and without documentation it's difficult to
make it do anything.
cheers
Jules
9:01 p.m.
I found a floppy-based image set for OS/2 Warp 3 Connect 3.0, but most of the images are
1.8M XDF images which I don't think I can write on my 3.5" USB floppy drive.
I also downloaded an ISO of OS/2 Warp 3 Connect BonusPak 3.0, and I pulled a SCSI CDROM
drive out of a spare Sun Ultra 60 organ donor. I don't have any CDR media, so I have a
spindle on the way from Amazon now.
If my PS/2 can't boot directly from that CDROM, then I'll have more challenges
ahead!
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
9:24 p.m.
Looking at that BonusPak ISO, it doesn't seem to be bootable (I tried booting it in
VMWare), and I think it's just extra software rather than an OS installation disk. So
I think my next challenge is to figure out how to write out 1.8M XDF floppies from the
installation floppy images. Maybe I can find a utility to write them from DOS? I have a
386 clone running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for running ImageDisk. I use a SCSI2SD in it for
its hard drive, and I can pop the MicroSD card into a reader on my Mac to get files on and
off of it.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
11:35 p.m.
On Jan 25, 2016, at 9:24 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
images. Maybe I can find a utility to write them from
DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for running ImageDisk.
There's an LOADDSKF program on the CD that can be used to write the images to
floppies, from DOS. It may even be in the directory with the floppy images. (\DISKIMGS
IIRC. It's been >20 years.)
ok
bear.
--
until further notice
26 Jan
26 Jan
6:30 a.m.
On 26 January 2016 at 06:24, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
So I think my next challenge is to figure out how to
write out 1.8M XDF floppies from the installation floppy images. Maybe I can find a
utility to write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for
running ImageDisk.
Should work. Even a DOS shell under Windows should, I think. They're
just 1.4MB disks with some extra sectors per track and tracks --
pushing the spec a little, not different hardware.
There are lots of disk images of OS/2 out there -- I used to have 1.0,
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5 before I switched countries.
Try VetusWare:
http://vetusware.com/
Or OldDos Ru:
http://old-dos.ru/
However, sorry to say, but I think the 3.x / 4.x timeline will be too
new and require higher-spec hardware than a 486 with 12MB.
I use a SCSI2SD in it for its hard drive, and I can
pop the MicroSD card into a reader on my Mac to get files on and off of it.
Mid-1990s era CDs were usually not bootable media, because the
firmware of the time couldn't do it. You tended to need to boot off a
floppy or 2 and a small setup program ran, then accessed the CD and
bootstrapped the main one off CD.
So don't expect the ISO to be bootable. Look on it for boot floppy
images, in /BOOTDISK/ or something like that.
Another option:
Boot it under DOS. Install MSCDEX and SCSI CD drivers -- and SMARTDRV.
Ensure that DOS can see and read the CD-ROM drive and that it's
cached. (Important -- CDs are very slow without caching.)
Copy the OS/2 files into a subdirectory of the DOS drive, or even into
a whole dedicated partition. (Older versions should be _substantially_
less than a CD-full.)
E.g.:
C: -- MS-DOS
D: -- OS/2 OS
E: -- installer files
F: -- free for data or swap file.
Then hack the config file on the boot CD to read the files from the hard disk.
I've been following your posts on Twitter about this, and enjoying it.
:-) Good work so far!
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8:24 a.m.
On Jan 26, 2016, at 06:30, Liam Proven <lproven at
gmail.com> wrote:
Try VetusWare:
http://vetusware.com/
I have been getting my OS/2 images from there.
Or OldDos Ru:
http://old-dos.ru/
That site looks a bit more challenging for an English-only speaker. :) Maybe google
translate can help me find my way around... yeah, much better now. Thanks for the links!
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
27 Jan
27 Jan
5:39 a.m.
On 26 January 2016 at 17:24, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
That site looks a bit more challenging for an
English-only speaker. :) Maybe google translate can help me find my way around... yeah,
much better now. Thanks for the links!
Yes, it certainly is. I live in the Czech Republic, but I don't speak
Czech worth a damn -- but between that and rudimentary Cyrillic
reading ability, I can handle a little very basic Russian. That site's
still too much for me, but Google Chrome and Google Translate make it
navigable.
I don't normally recommend such things, but for decades-old releases
of an OS, Bittorrent can be your friend, too.
E.g.
https://thepiratebay.se/search/ibm%20os%202/0/99/300
--
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26 Jan
26 Jan
10:09 a.m.
On 01/26/2016 06:30 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 26 January 2016 at 06:24, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at
nf6x.net> wrote:
Just remember that a USB floppy is the wrong kit to use to do this.
They embody firmware that knows only 3 fixed formats: 9x512, 18x512 and
8x1024 (sectors x bytes per sector). You need an honest-to-gosh legacy
floppy and controller. Not as convoluted as MS DMF format, but not
USB-compatible in any case.
--Chuck
So I think my next challenge is to figure out how
to write out 1.8M
XDF floppies from the installation floppy images. Maybe I can find
a utility to write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS
6.22 that I use for running ImageDisk.
Should work. Even a DOS shell under Windows should, I think. They're
just 1.4MB disks with some extra sectors per track and tracks --
pushing the spec a little, not different hardware.
7:48 p.m.
Warp 3 requires a 386SX with 4MB at minimum. Connect will work with a 386
and 8 to 12MB RAM, depending on what LAN services you choose to run.
Here is a link to an IBM Redbook on the subject, covering all of this in
great detail.
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg244552.pdf
No version of OS/2 supplied by IBM has an "El Torito" bootable installation
disc. LOADDSKF should be able to write the installation floppy and disk 1
as required for all versions of the system. I have never successfully done
this on my Sabrent USB floppy, nor any other raw image transfer, due to the
controller issues mentioned earlier in this thread.
Hope this helps.
--
*John P. Willis*
Coherent Logic Development LLC
M: 575.520.9542
O: 575.524.1034
chocolatejollis38 at gmail.com
http://www.coherent-logic.com/
8:50 p.m.
XDFCOPY.EXE from that BonusPak ISO isn't working on my ImageDisk rig; it says it
can't format track 0. I think I'll try reinstalling DOS 6.22 on the PS/2
temporarily to see if I can write out the XDF disks there. Or maybe I'll try PC-DOS 7
if I can find it.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
10:18 p.m.
That XDFCOPY.EXE from the BonusPak ISO also has the same issue under MS-DOS 6.22 on the
PS/2. However, I got an OS/2 prompt from the first two floppies of the OS/2 Warp Connect
3.0 set (which are regular 1.44M floppies), and then I can CD to the DOS 6.22 HD and use
that XDFCOPY.EXE to write the images. Yay!
This is like a text adventure.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
27 Jan
27 Jan
5:42 a.m.
On 27 January 2016 at 07:18, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
That XDFCOPY.EXE from the BonusPak ISO also has the
same issue under MS-DOS 6.22 on the PS/2. However, I got an OS/2 prompt from the first two
floppies of the OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 set (which are regular 1.44M floppies), and then I
can CD to the DOS 6.22 HD and use that XDFCOPY.EXE to write the images. Yay!
This is like a text adventure.
:-D
Yes, it is a bit, isn't it?
I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always extremely
averse to doing that.
It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just
lacking in the UI department.
Win95 brought a better UI. NT 4 combined them and Windows 2000 brought
them together -- NT with Plug&play, power management etc.
I don't like to have to say it, but Windows was better than OS/2. And
Windows drove the rest of the industry onwards, to better it.
Which, now, with Ubuntu and RHEL and Mac OS X and iOS and Android, it
has, I reckon.
Today there is eComStation. I have review copies but I've never got it
100% working. I may need to dedicate a machine to it. :?(
I miss OS/2, just as something genuinely /different/ in the greater
DOS family -- but really, NT was better in almost every way. Less
flexible by far, but also far more polished and stable. (E.g. I could
reliably kernel-trap an OS/2 machine with Fractint, one of my
favourite apps.)
But trying the modern version today brings the bad memories flooding
back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of
juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or
missing hardware support etc.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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9:38 a.m.
On 1/27/2016 8:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always
extremely
averse to doing that.
It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just
lacking in the UI department.
Correct me if I'm remembering
incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT
a descendent of DEC VMS?
- J.
9:51 a.m.
Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly
(probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?
As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10:14 a.m.
Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly
(probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?
As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.
That would be Dave Cutler. You can see his philosophy clearly in both
10:47 a.m.
On 1/27/2016 1:14 PM, John Willis wrote:
That would be Dave Cutler. You can see his
philosophy clearly in both
systems. And he had little respect for Gordon Letwin and the OS/2 architecture, and open
disdain for UNIX and its underlying stream-of-bytes, everything-is-a-file,
everything-is-plaintext philosophy. IMO, NT offers a better kernel than OS/2, but nothing
has ever matched the elegance and sheer power of the Workplace Shell as a graphical
abstraction.
In relation to that, here's something
interesting:
http://toastytech.com/guis/wps.html
- J.
Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly
(probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?
As I understand it - an important caveat here -
Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.
2 p.m.
On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 12:14 PM, John Willis <chocolatejollis38 at gmail.com>
wrote:
everything-is-plaintext philosophy. IMO, NT offers a
better kernel than
OS/2,
but nothing has ever matched the elegance and sheer power of the Workplace
Shell as a graphical abstraction.
Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found the Workplace shell in
OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI
alternatives.
10:29 p.m.
I finally managed to get OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 installed after a few tries. I think that
messing with the SCSI2SD settings fixed things. My best guess is that with the default
settings the BIOS code could access the drive, but once OS/2 switched over to its own
drivers part way through the install, the wheels came off.
I tried enabling the touch display, and it kind of works. Calibration is way off; I saw
something that looked like a calibration program flashing by during the driver
installation, but I got frustrated doing things with a dodgy and uncalibrated screen
before finding it. Switching between touch screen and mouse involved a reboot (at least
the way I found to do it), and when I switched to the touch screen, the mouse quit working
even though it's daisy chained through the monitor. There may be some better way to
configure it that I haven't found yet.
Anyway, now that it's working, I guess I can put it all on a shelf! :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
11:04 p.m.
I tried the touch screen again. This time the mouse remained working, and it's kind of
usable-ish after running the CALIBRAT.EXE utility.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
28 Jan
28 Jan
4:55 a.m.
On 27 January 2016 at 23:00, Geoffrey Oltmans <oltmansg at gmail.com> wrote:
Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found
the Workplace shell in
OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI
alternatives.
I have to agree.
Classic MacOS, particularly in MacOS 8 and 9, was perhaps the most
polished GUI I've ever used.
I also retain great fondness for Acorn's RISC OS desktop, with its
unusual and distinctive elegance:
* "maximise" only makes a window as big as it needs to be to show all
icons without scrolling
* drag-and-drop file saving -- no need for a directory browser in the dialog
* the first GUI with anti-aliasing & full-window moving & resizing (as
opposed to outlines)
* the first Icon Bar, before even the NeXT Dock, AFAIK
WPS was impressively powerful and had an impressive design, but the
actual implementation was a bit patchy and clunky. Sorry to have to
say it, but I found the Windows 9x Explorer more actual /use./ The
idea of the Start menu, implemented as a directory of directories, was
*inspired*. Shortcuts are clunky but they work -- if the
implementation had originated on NT and NTFS, it would have worked
better.
--
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27 Jan
27 Jan
10:43 a.m.
> Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly
(probably am), but wasn't
> NT a descendent of DEC VMS?
On Wed, 27 Jan 2016, Mouse wrote:
As I understand it - an important caveat here -
Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.
Dave Cutler?
It also, of course, used a lot of Gordon Letwin's OS/2 code.
28 Jan
28 Jan
5:01 a.m.
On 27 January 2016 at 18:38, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly
(probably am), but wasn't NT a
descendent of DEC VMS?
Oversimplifying freely:
DEC OS team lead Dave Cutler wanted to take VAX/VMS multi-platform.
DEC rejected this. So he allowed himself and his core team leads to be
headhunted by Microsoft.
Microsoft had recently fallen out with IBM over OS/2. OS/2 1.x was a
joint MS/IBM development. IBM kept the 80386 version, OS/2 2.x. MS got
the portable, CPU-independent version, OS/2 3.x, which was barely more
than a skeleton draft at that point.
MS hired Cutler and gave him the OS/2 3 project. Cutler & his team
retained some of it, but redid a lot, reusing ideas, concepts and even
filenames from VMS -- but no code, obviously.
The result was named "Windows NT".
Entertainingly, WNT is what you get if you shift the letters of 'VMS"
1 position forward in the alphabet.
Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
-- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
marketing retconned it to "New Technology".
--
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5:57 a.m.
tor 2016-01-28 klockan 14:01 +0100 skrev Liam Proven:
The result was named "Windows NT".
Entertainingly, WNT is what you get if you shift the letters of 'VMS"
1 position forward in the alphabet.
Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
-- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
marketing retconned it to "New Technology".
IS the multiplatform aspect one of the reason why the kernel as such
worked so well ?
12 years ago the Gtk/GNOME hackers had a heated discussion about
portability to SPARC64.
I can't help thinking that if they had done the work at that time with
regards to 64bitness and threading the stack today would work much
better in current multicore amd64 cpus.
8:41 a.m.
IS the multiplatform aspect one of the reason why the
kernel as such
worked so well ?
It was designed by a crew of ex DEC people who knew WTF they were doing
after having built a couple of kernels from the ground up.
They did quite well for themselves as a result of being in the right
place at the right time.
The rest of the system is the result of the project management cluster
fsck that is MSFT.
29 Jan
29 Jan
9:18 p.m.
On Jan 28, 2016, at 5:01 AM, Liam Proven <lproven
at gmail.com> wrote:
Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
-- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
marketing retconned it to "New Technology?.
This is exactly correct, although marketing had nothing to do with the ?NT? retcon; we did
it ourselves.
- Rob
ps: the i860 was not a pleasant thing. There was much rejoicing in the halls the day we
decided to drop it as a target architecture.
30 Jan
30 Jan
11:29 a.m.
On 30 January 2016 at 06:18, Robert Ferguson <rob at bitscience.ca> wrote:
This is exactly correct, although marketing had
nothing to do with the ?NT? retcon; we did it ourselves.
- Rob
ps: the i860 was not a pleasant thing. There was much rejoicing in the halls the day we
decided to drop it as a target architecture.
Wow! Thanks for that! My compliments on your work.
--
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28 Jan
28 Jan
5:49 a.m.
ons 2016-01-27 klockan 14:42 +0100 skrev Liam Proven:
But trying the modern version today brings the bad
memories flooding
back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of
juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or
missing hardware support etc.
The previous evening i tried to install vmware esxi 5.5 on an Lenovo
Thinkserver (ts140.)
An exercise in futility trying to install stock esx 5.5 on that thing
(it needs an patched install image of esxi if its inbuilt ethernet is to
work and then it is the question about that software raid which it
has.) ESX doesnt like software raid :-)
ESXi 6 went without an hitch.
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