revatt@aluxz.UUCP (EVATT) (12/04/86)
Can anyone tell me a workaround to get the transient portion of COMMAND.COM to reload from something beside the A: drive? I have tried COMMAND C:\ /P, but this just gets A: spinning and I have to reboot. Other info: Yes, I know I could upgrade to 3.X. I have a PCjr with 640K, two floppies, Impulse sidecar, and SPC 20M disk. Please respond by mail and I will post if there is interest. Sorry if this is a really ancient question. ******************************************************************************** * Robert Evatt [ihnp4...]!aluxz!revatt * * AT&T Bell Labs (215)770-3570 * * Allentown, PA 18103 * ******************************************************************************** * usual disclaimers apply * ********************************************************************************
madd@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim "Jack" Frost) (12/05/86)
In article <817@aluxz.UUCP> revatt@aluxz.UUCP (EVATT, ROBERT S) writes: > >Can anyone tell me a workaround to get the transient portion of >COMMAND.COM to reload from something beside the A: drive? >I have tried COMMAND C:\ /P, but this just gets A: spinning and I have >to reboot. > >Other info: >Yes, I know I could upgrade to 3.X. >I have a PCjr with 640K, two floppies, Impulse sidecar, and SPC 20M disk. > I would have replied by mail, but out mail seems to hate me. I haven't used version 2.x in awhile, but I would expect it would run like 3.x in this case. The DOS manual points out that there are 2 different commands having to do with the shell. One, in the CONFIG.SYS, is SHELL=. This command is used to tell DOS which shell to load (I have written my own and like to have it loaded by default). Anyway, the manual says to be sure you remember that this command does NOT tell DOS to reload from wherever you told it to load from. Instead, DOS uses the environment variable COMSPEC. I have this set in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Set it like this: SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM This definitely works on 3.x and I'm pretty sure it does on 2.x, since my friend with a Tandy 1000 (DOS 2.11) has his run from C:. Hope this helps, and I'm sorry if I used over-simplistic language. -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% - Jim Frost * The Madd Hacker - UUCP: ..!harvard!bu-cs!bucsb!madd | ARPANET: madd@bucsb.bu.edu CSNET: madd%bucsb@bu-cs | BITNET: cscc71c@bostonu -------------------------------+---+------------------------------------ "Oh beer, oh beer." -- Me | [=(BEER) <- Bud the Beer (cheers!)
revatt@aluxz.UUCP (12/10/86)
> > Can anyone tell me a workaround to get the transient portion of > COMMAND.COM to reload from something beside the A: drive? > I have tried COMMAND C:\ /P, but this just gets A: spinning and I have > to reboot. > > Other info: > I have a PCjr with 640K, two floppies, Impulse sidecar, and SPC 20M disk. > After a little checking [that I should I done earlier] I have determined that the problem is with the memory/clock add-on that I have. I think it has some routines in ROM that load the clock calendar automatically when the machine is booted. I know there is a bug somewhere that hangs the machine when a secondary command processor is loaded. There are programs floating around BBS's to patch things to allow a secondary COMMAND.COM to be loaded. Adding the /P option [i.e. COMMAND C:\ /P] probably wipes out the memory resident patch programs since it is like an original invocation of COMMAND.COM. Perhaps this means that the only fix is to actually replace the ROM with ones without the bug if they exist. If anyone has the details about the bug in the Impulse ROM, please mail me. ******************************************************************************** * Robert Evatt [ihnp4...]!aluxz!revatt * * AT&T Bell Labs (215)770-3570 * * Allentown, PA 18103 * ******************************************************************************** * usual disclaimers apply * ********************************************************************************
bmarsh@cod.UUCP (William C. Marsh) (12/12/86)
In article <821@aluxz.UUCP> revatt@aluxz.UUCP (EVATT) writes: >> >> Can anyone tell me a workaround to get the transient portion of >> COMMAND.COM to reload from something beside the A: drive? >> I have tried COMMAND C:\ /P, but this just gets A: spinning and I have >> to reboot. >> >> Other info: >> I have a PCjr with 640K, two floppies, Impulse sidecar, and SPC 20M disk. >> > >After a little checking [that I should I done earlier] I have determined >that the problem is with the memory/clock add-on that I have. I think >it has some routines in ROM that load the clock calendar automatically when >the machine is booted. I know there is a bug somewhere that >hangs the machine when a secondary command processor is loaded. There >are programs floating around BBS's to patch things to allow a secondary >COMMAND.COM to be loaded. > I don't know about any problems loading a second copy of command.com can have on memory resident programs, but I suppose it could cause many problems. If you didn't load the memory resident programs until after the second copy of command.com is loaded should clear up those problems. But why bother loading a second copy of command.com when you can tell DOS where to load the first (and subsequent transient copies). Put the following line in your config.sys file shell = c:\command.com c:\ /P This tells dos to load command.com from drive C:, and tells command.com to load the transient portions from c:\ whenever it needs to. Note that COMSPEC is set correctly by command.com for this. I have used this for years (since 2.0) just so I could keep command.com out of my root directory. My line looks like this: shell = c:\bin\command.com c:\bin /p Hope this helps.