ZSR@PSUVM.BITNET (10/16/87)
Regarding my posting to the net a few weeks ago about trouble with PC-DITTO
720K disks, I offer the following (tenaciously fought for) solution:
It turns out that my dealer (Computers and Games, Muhlenberg Shopping Plaza,
Reading, PA) received a letter from Soft Logik soon after I bought my copy
of PC-DITTO regarding what else but 720K disks on a 1040ST. It turns out that
>>> IF YOU ARE USING DOS 3.0 OR HIGHER <<< you can include the following line
in the CONFIG.SYS file on your DOS boot disk:
DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /<disk drive letter>:0 /F:2
where <disk drive letter> is the "virtual drive" that you wish your 720K
drive to be named. For example, I use drive D: as my 720K drive so my line
says:
DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /F:2
------> THE CATCH <------
This all seemed too easy, didn't it? Well, there are two catches to this
method. First of all, it assumes that you HAVE DOS 3.x on a 3 1/2" disk
already. This wasn't a problem for me because I "have" a PS/2 Model 30
to play with here at dear 'ole State. The solution to this problem is
either buddy up to someone with a PS/2 (Model 30's are the simplest to use
because their drives don't store more than 720k; other drives may store
1.14 Meg (or whatever) and you'll have to tell the system somehow that you
want *only* 720K :-)) or buy DOS from IBM or MicroSoft.
The second problem is your DOS boot disk *MUST* have the DRIVER.SYS file
on it. This driver is the one that sets up the virtual disk D: and tells
DOS that it is double-sided and 720K.
Just as a side note: Since my ST only has the internal drive, I usually use
a 100K VDISK for copying files and such. I haven't been able to get DOS to
recognize an ATARI ramdisk yet (but then I haven't tried too hard....). The
command I use (for those of you who *love* to read manuals as much as I do):
DEVICE = VDISK.SYS SIZE=<size of ramdisk in kilobytes>
so my line in the CONFIG.SYS file looks like:
DEVICE = VDISK.SYS SIZE=100
PC-DITTO is a neat hack. It is rather slow, but you can't have everything,
I guess. My next project is to get StarFlight and Leather Goddess of Phobos
(don't ask) working on it. Right now they crash the system. I transfer files
from my roommate's PC XT with a null-modem cable at 19.2 kbaud. It takes only
7 minutes to transfer >160K using ProComm (PC XT) and Uniterm V1.8a (God bless
Simon Poole). If there is sufficient interest I'll post my schematics and
experiences getting *that* hack working.
I hope this little note (read dissertation) helps those of you who were cursing
SoftLogik as I was a few weeks ago. In particular, I hope this note gets to
Warner Young (WHY at someplace; I couldn't decipher the 20 lines of BITNET
bullshit at the top of the letter to get your address) and Steve Molin who
also gave a creative solution to the problem (but not as simple as this one;
this one you install the config.sys and forget it). Thanx for the letters.
Christopher D. Johnson
Penn State University
ZSR at PSUVM.bitnet
CDJ at PSUECL.bitnet
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"I hear IBM is trying to register the number '2' as in 'PS/2.' I guess the
rest of us will have to make do with the other nine digits..."
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