12 May
2010
12 May
'10
12:37 a.m.
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
- at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in their sleep.
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on a standard 5150
Time to grow up I guess.
Jos
12 May
12 May
12:49 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jos Dreesen" <jdr_use at bluewin.ch>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 12:37 AM
Subject: Sigh, progresss is.....
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2
keyboards
- at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in their sleep.
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on a standard
5150
Time to grow up I guess.
Jos
Its funny that I have a basement full of old PC equipment yet only have a
couple MFM drives (SCSI is my drive of choice for old machines). How do you
have MFM drives and nothing else of that vintage around?
1:03 a.m.
On 12 May 2010 at 6:37, Jos Dreesen wrote:
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2
keyboards - at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in their
sleep. - you don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on
a standard 5150
Aside from the -5 line (which can be gotten with a 7905 voltage
regulator off the -12 (and may not be needed for anything but the
original 16-64K 5150), most ATX supplies can be pressed into service
for AT use, mostly by changing the connector and manually toggling
the "power on" lines. The guts of an ATX should easily fit into an
AT style PSU enclosure.
--Chuck
1:10 a.m.
Grow up? NEVER!
Too bad you're on the other side of the pond from me: I have a bunch of those old AT
supplies that I'm resisting sending to recycling. I'm just done with PC stuff,
but I hate to just dump this stuff because, well, there's always someone like you who
needs it to feed his jones.... -- Ian
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jos
Dreesen [jdr_use at bluewin.ch]
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:37 PM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Sigh, progresss is.....
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
- at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in their sleep.
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on a standard 5150
Time to grow up I guess.
Jos
8:49 a.m.
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
Grow up? ?NEVER!
Too bad you're on the other side of the pond from me: I have a bunch of those old AT
supplies that I'm resisting sending to recycling. ?I'm just done with PC stuff,
but I hate to just dump this stuff because, well, there's always someone like you who
needs it to feed his jones.... ?-- Ian
Same here. Just got offered half a dozen on Freecycle last month, too. :?(
Jos: for my money, MS-DOS 3.3 was the classic version for the original
PC. With <=640K of RAM, no full-function version of DOS offers as much
functionality in as little conventional RAM. All the later versions
are bigger but normally hide bits of themselves in the HMA or UMBs to
maximise free base memory, which is no help if you only have base
memory and nothing else.
DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can find it, but it's obscure.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
5:48 p.m.
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
Jos: for my money, MS-DOS 3.3 was the classic version
for the original
PC. With <=640K of RAM, no full-function version of DOS offers as much
functionality in as little conventional RAM. All the later versions
are bigger but normally hide bits of themselves in the HMA or UMBs to
maximise free base memory, which is no help if you only have base
memory and nothing else.
My personal favorite is MS-DOS 6.2x. "Only version of MS-DOS where the
highest priority in the upgrades was to make it more reliable."
DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can find it,
but it's obscure.
"Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" (OK, common ancestor)
6:56 p.m.
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 10:48 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
[?]
Only inasmuch as Tim Paterson copied CP/M when he wrote SCP QDOS...! :?)
I think the DR-DOS family tree went something like:
CP/M
|
v
CP/M-86 -> Concurrent CP/M -> Concurrent DOS -> CDOS/386 -> Multiuser DOS
etc.
|
v
DOS-Plus
|
v
DR-DOS (which also had some input from CDOS but I'm not going to try
to do it in ASCII!)
DR-DOS released versions went:
3.41, 5, 6 (from Novell), 7 (from Novell, then Caldera, then Lineo,
then DeviceLogics), 8 (from DeviceLogics)
DR-DOS 7.01 or 7.02 was open-sourced. 7.03 was closed again but the
7.01 or so branch begat the OpenDR-DOS Enhancement Project, but that's
now been overtaken by FreeDOS, which in turn has kinda withered on the
vine.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
Jos: for my money, MS-DOS 3.3 was the classic
version for the original
PC. With <=640K of RAM, no full-function version of DOS offers as much
functionality in as little conventional RAM. All the later versions
are bigger but normally hide bits of themselves in the HMA or UMBs to
maximise free base memory, which is no help if you only have base
memory and nothing else.
My personal favorite is MS-DOS 6.2x. ? "Only version of MS-DOS where the
highest priority in the upgrades was to make it more reliable."
DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can find
it, but it's obscure.
"Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" ? (OK, common ancestor)
7:11 p.m.
>> DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can
find it, but it's obscure.
> "Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" ? (OK, common ancestor)
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
[?]
Just kidding!
Only inasmuch as Tim Paterson copied CP/M when he
wrote SCP QDOS...! :?)
Unless he was also working from a time-traveling copy of MS-DOS or DR-DOS.
7:24 p.m.
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Oh gods, I must be /slow/ tonight... 8?)
Sorry!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
>>
DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can find it, but it's obscure.
> "Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" ? (OK, common ancestor)
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
[?]
Just kidding!
Only inasmuch as Tim Paterson copied CP/M when he
wrote SCP QDOS...! :?)
Unless he was also working from a time-traveling copy of MS-DOS or DR-DOS. 
8:35 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
I wonder if OS/8 on a PDP-8 will still be around in +200 years?
Any guesses how long real hardware could last?
Ben.
>> DR-DOS
3.4 might be worth a look if you can find it, but it's obscure.
> "Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" (OK, common ancestor)
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
[?]
Just kidding!
Only inasmuch as Tim Paterson copied CP/M when he
wrote SCP QDOS...! :?)
Unless he was also working from a time-traveling copy of MS-DOS or DR-DOS.
8:43 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: Sigh, progresss is.....
Fred Cisin wrote:
I wonder if OS/8 on a PDP-8 will still be around in +200 years?
Any guesses how long real hardware could last?
Ben.
1000 years easy if kept from the elements. As far as running condition,
capacitors will need to be replaced sooner or later. Who knows what a modern
computer will look like in 200+ years (could be an implant in your brain by
that point), or a C64 running off of a waterwheel after WW3 is over.
>>
DR-DOS 3.4 might be worth a look if you can find it, but it's obscure.
> "Ahh, but that is the predecessor to MS-DOS" (OK, common ancestor)
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
[?]
Just kidding!
Only inasmuch as Tim Paterson copied CP/M when he
wrote SCP QDOS...! :?)
Unless he was also working from a time-traveling copy of MS-DOS or
DR-DOS.
8:57 p.m.
> Any guesses how long real hardware could last?
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Teo Zenios wrote:
1000 years easy if kept from the elements. As far as
running condition,
capacitors will need to be replaced sooner or later. Who knows what a modern
computer will look like in 200+ years (could be an implant in your brain by
that point), or a C64 running off of a waterwheel after WW3 is over.
That issue may depend on whether Gerri Ellsworth is one of the survivors.
11:25 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
That issue may depend on whether Gerri Ellsworth is
one of the survivors.
Jeri.
She missed Notacon this year. I would have loved to hear a presentation
from her. She's given a few talks over the last
four or five years.
Forget meeting the president or favorite sports hero, I'll take lunch
and a technical talk w/ Jeri any day.
Keith
13 May
13 May
12:54 a.m.
Keith M wrote:
Fred Cisin wrote:
She once kicked my ass in an armwrestling match.
Peace... Sridhar
That issue may depend on whether Gerri Ellsworth
is one of the survivors.
Jeri.
She missed Notacon this year. I would have loved to hear a presentation
from her. She's given a few talks over the last four or five years.
Forget meeting the president or favorite sports hero, I'll take lunch
and a technical talk w/ Jeri any day.
12 May
12 May
3:13 p.m.
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
An AT supply isn't a good fit in a 5150 case. Look for a PC or XT supply.
XT supplies have enough power for "medium" size MFM drives.
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10
AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
- at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in their sleep.
The 5150 didn't originally have a "fixed" (veterinary context?) disk.
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version
that runs on a standard 5150
For reviving the machine, any will do.
1.10 or above for double sided drives
2.00 or above if you want 9SPT, subdirectories, hard drive, etc.
2.10 or above if you have a lot of non-standard hardware
(2.11 is MS-DOS only, and often already has weird add-ins)
3.00 or above if you want 1.2M (HD floppy controller
3.10 or above if you want a CDROM with MSCDEX, etc.
3.20 or above if you want built-in support of 720K
3.30 or above if you want support of 1.4M (HD floppy controller!)
3.31 or above if you want a drive larger than 32M
6.00 or above if you want built-in support for compression
Time to grow up I guess.
1:17 a.m.
On 12/05/2010 05:37, Jos Dreesen wrote:
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
Are none of the AT ones switchable ?
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version
that runs on a
standard 5150
Depending on what you mean by 'standard' then everything up to PC-DOS
7/PC-DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 6.x. Both of those need 640K I think, acording
to the box anyways....
Cheers.
Phill.
3:24 p.m.
> when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that
:
> - do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10 AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
Are none of the AT ones switchable ?
some after-market ones; none from IBM (IIRC)
- you
don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on a
standard 5150
Depending on what you mean by 'standard' then everything up
to PC-DOS
7/PC-DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 6.x. Both of those need 640K I think, acording
to the box anyways.... 
3:38 a.m.
On 05/11/2010 09:37 PM, Jos Dreesen wrote:
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
[...]
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version
that runs on a
standard 5150
As far as I know, all releases of IBM PC DOS/IBM DOS through 6.x and
MS-DOS through 6.x work on a 5150. I'm not sure about IBM PC DOS 7, IBM
PC DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 7.x.
Obviously some features of the later versions of DOS aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386.
Eric
4:13 a.m.
On 12/05/2010 08:38, Eric Smith wrote:
On 05/11/2010 09:37 PM, Jos Dreesen wrote:
Well yes, but that's kinda like saying that (for example) fdisk won't
work without a hard disk....because the hardware is not there to use it
:) :)
Phill.
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
[...]
- you don't remember which is the last DOS
version that runs on a
standard 5150
As far as I know, all releases of IBM PC DOS/IBM DOS through 6.x
and
MS-DOS through 6.x work on a 5150. I'm not sure about IBM PC DOS 7, IBM
PC DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 7.x.
Obviously some features of the later versions of DOS aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386. 
11:21 p.m.
Just guessin.
This relates to the A20 switch logic, and access to mem above 1M.
It was eihter switched off and wrapped around, or enabled.
Randy
Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 09:13:02 +0100
From: afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk
To:
Subject: Re: Sigh, progresss is.....
On 12/05/2010 08:38, Eric Smith wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…
On 05/11/2010 09:37 PM, Jos Dreesen wrote:
Well yes, but that's kinda like saying that (for example) fdisk won't
work without a hard disk....because the hardware is not there to use it
:) :)
Phill.
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
[...]
- you don't remember which is the last DOS
version that runs on a
standard 5150
As far as I know, all releases of IBM PC DOS/IBM DOS through 6.x
and
MS-DOS through 6.x work on a 5150. I'm not sure about IBM PC DOS 7, IBM
PC DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 7.x.
Obviously some features of the later versions of DOS aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386. 
4:53 p.m.
On 5/12/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Eric Smith wrote:
I remember debugging a (newer) DOS machine setup with HIMEM.SYS
problems... after much more time spent fiddling around with config
files than I care to confess to, it dawned on me that it's hard to
load DOS HIGH and use extended memory when the machine in question
only has four 256KB SIMMs (i.e. - no physical memory past 1MB).
I suppose it's even harder when the machine only has 20 address lines.
Ah... all those old skills that were once considered absolutely
essential to succeed in the IT biz... rusting away (but I was doing
RT-11, VMS, UNIX, and AmigaDOS when DOS was "king". DOS skills were
for setting up sound blasters and low memory issues in game
machines ;-).
-ethan
Obviously some features of the later versions of
DOS aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386.
. . . and HIMEM.SYS won't work on 5150 or 5160
6:02 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 5/12/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
wrote:
Didn't some 286+ BIOSes have an option to re-locate the memory that was
between 640K and 1024K to above the 1024K barrier so that HIMEM.SYS
could use it ? I believe most 386+ BIOSes could also use it with EMM386.
On Wed, 12 May 2010, Eric Smith wrote:
I remember debugging a (newer) DOS machine setup with HIMEM.SYS
problems... after much more time spent fiddling around with config
files than I care to confess to, it dawned on me that it's hard to
load DOS HIGH and use extended memory when the machine in question
only has four 256KB SIMMs (i.e. - no physical memory past 1MB). Obviously some features of the later versions of
DOS aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386.
. . . and HIMEM.SYS won't work on 5150 or 5160
I suppose it's even harder when the machine only
has 20 address lines.
Indeed, though I guess that's where propper hardware LIM/EMS comes in.
Cheers.
Phill.
--
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !
"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.
11:49 p.m.
On 5/12/2010 2:38 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
As far as I know, all releases of IBM PC DOS/IBM DOS
through 6.x and
MS-DOS through 6.x work on a 5150. I'm not sure about IBM PC DOS 7, IBM
PC DOS 2000, or MS-DOS 7.x.
I run PC DOS 2000 (7.0 with y2k fixes) on my 5160 just fine. It's nice
using 2010 as a date and having it actually work.
Obviously some features of the later versions of DOS
aren't going to
work on the 5150, e.g., EMM386.
No, but QRAM + a real hardware EMS board allows me to load TSRs high
even on my 5160.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2:32 p.m.
when you are trying to revive an IBM 5150, that :
- you do not have a single AT powersupply in the house, just 20 ATX PS
Actually, I thought there was a minor difference between the PC and AT
PSUs...
- do not have a single PC compatible keyboard, but 10
AT & 10 PS2 keyboards
I have the oposite problem. My IBM Type M is playing up (needs taking
apart and the heat-stakes replaced by screws...) and I don't have another
AT or PS/2 keyboard in the house. Got a few XT ones, plenty of HP-HIL
ones, LK201s, etc...
- at least 50% of your MFM drives have passed away in
their sleep.
- you don't remember which is the last DOS version that runs on a standard 5150
at least I know where my 5150 techref is...
-tony
5256
days inactive
5257
days old
24 comments
15 participants
participants (15)
-
afra＠aurigae.demon.co.uk -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
jdr_use＠bluewin.ch -
keithvz＠verizon.net -
lproven＠gmail.com -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
rdawson16＠hotmail.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org