GTHEALL@PENNDRLN.BITNET.UUCP (12/06/87)
I am quite interested in the changes Richard Thomsen has made
to his system permitting him to use TEAC drives in place of his
RX50's. I've read his last message, and it sounds like he will be
able to distribute his DIFFERENCE files. Forgive my ignorance,
but what are DIFFERENCE files? How would they be of use to
someone else? If I wanted to make these changes on my machine, would
I have to type in the Rainbow's BIOS code and recompile it? Would
I need an E-PROM to change the Z80 bootstrap loader code?
I understand Suitable Solutions was undertaking a survey to
determine what new products should be introduced for the Rainbow.
One of the items was a 80286 chip replacement for our machines.
Perhaps with the talents of people like Richard Thomsen, such
projects could be realized. Hey, perhaps Richard Thomsen could
join forces with Suitable Solutions to market such Rainbow
improvements or even a new MS-DOS machine! Using DEC as his
guide, he would be certain how NOT to market his machine.
Since Suitable Solutions is already well established, such
a joint venture might provide the best forum for Thomsen to
get his ideas out to the Rainbow community.
GeorgeGTHEALL@PENNDRLN.BITNET (George A. Theall) (01/20/88)
Late last year I read with interest how Richard Thomsen had installed a pair of DS QD floppies in his Rainbow, enabling him to read and write Rainbow and AT floppies. To achieve this, he made extensive changes to the Rainbow BIOS. From his description, the most daunting part of this is typing in the source code for the original BIOS and finding the typos in listings in DEC's technical ref. manual. Is it possible to avoid this step by disassembling the BIOS using something like UASM? With this disassembled code, could I then use Thomsen's DF files to make the required changes? If not, what sort of difficulties and legalities would be involved in distributing/ selling a program that would make the changes itself? Such a program could be like the INSTALL programs used to configure programs. George