jay@splut.UUCP (Jay Maynard) (08/26/87)
I have on file a couple of questions from netters relating to Compaqs. Since I don't have the original articles on file, I can't follow up on them, so here's hoping the original requesters see this: Randolph Fritz <SQA> at Sun writes: >I'm running pc-dos 3.3 on a Compaq 8088 portable and I'm using driver.sys >to access an external 3 1/2" 720K floppy. This works fine until the first "not >ready" error on any drive. I must then use "int 13" to reset the floppy >controller and manually read a few sectors from the drive. > >Two questions: > > 1. Why? > 2. Anyone got a fix? I asked this one of my buddy at Compaq (he's an engineer in the compatibility testing group). He had two comments to make: 1) How recent is his ROM-BIOS? He should get an upgrade to revision J (the current version). 2) Compaq will have a DOS 3.3 Real Soon Now; it, too, will have the relevant drivers and will support the exact configuration he's using. Clare Chu at the Cornell Theory Center writes: > Hi, I'm thinking about getting a Compaq 286 Deskpro. I've been > reading the ads about its two-way compatibility, but I'm not > really sure what they mean. They say that the Compaqs will be > compatible with the old MS/DOS and also the OS/2 operating systems, > yet I've read that IBM and Microsoft haven't even finalized or > delivered parts of OS/2. So how can Compaq know how to be > compatible with it? My buddy's only comment on this was: "It had better be compatible...there's a Businessland near Microsoft that sold 400 Deskpro 386s to Microsoft to do OS/2 development on, and Microsoft keeps an apartment up there for the Compaq engineer-in-residence of the month." He then went on to add that he personally had been playing with a system that responded "DOS version 5" to a VER command since this past January, and all of the beta-test versions (of which there have apparently been a few) of OS/2 had run on Deskpro 286s and 386s as well as they had on PC/ATs. Apparently, MS-OS/2, at least in the non-IBM label, isn't machine-specific. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC...>splut!< | uucp: hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!nuchat!splut!jay "Don't ask ME about Unix... | (or sun!housun!nuchat) CI$: 71036,1603 I speak SNA!" | internet: beats me GEnie: JAYMAYNARD The opinions herein are shared by neither of my cats, much less anyone else.