fredei@microsoft.UUCP (Fred Einstein) (10/25/87)
I am the author of MS-DOS v3.10 for the Rainbow. I would like to
warn people about certain problems with bootlegged copies of this software.
The software was essentially complete when I left DEC two years ago. The
added features of v3.10 were the following:
-- PrtScr Key support (DO NOT USE PRTSCR.COM with MS-DOS v3.10 -- I wrote
that utility as well). By pressing CTRL/SHIFT/PrtScr,
the current alphanumeric screen will be printed.
-- An FDISK utility which allowed you to partition your hard disk in one
megabyte increments. It had support for disks of up to 67 megabytes.
-- Improved DISKCOPY & FORMAT utilities which would format diskettes and
hard disks more reliably. The DISKCOPY would also format a diskette
while copying
-- Support for hard disk partition sizes of up to 32 megabytes. The previous
limit was 8 megabytes per partition.
I advise against using bootleg copies of this operating system. The
only reliable copies are the ones that say:
MS-DOS v3.10
upon bootup. If your copy says:
MS-DOS v3.10.0xx (where xx is some number)
Preliminary!!! For Internal Use Only!
You will very likely run into a problem with hard disk reads which may
compromise your data, especially with a V20 installed.
I don't believe that DEC will ever release v3.10. It was never
even a project at DEC. I did it after hours just to increase my own
knowledge of MS-DOS internals. I cannot supply copies of v3.10. It is
copyrighted by DEC. I believe that MS-DOS v3.10 could have supplied a lot
of added utility to the Rainbow. The disk partition size limitation alone
crippled the Rainbow under v2.11. It would be nice if DECUS would release
it as an unsupported product. It is not in DEC's best interest to do so
however since Microsoft would still need to be paid a licensing fee for
it. If you are lucky enough to find the final version of v3.10 (the one
without the PRELIMINARY!!! stuff in the bootup message), than I believe
that you'll find it quite useful. Again, I advise against using any version
that has a PRELIMINARY!! message.