What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

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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