cyang%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Cheng Yang) (08/10/90)
Hi, I bought an IBM PC/AT (16MHz 286) compatible last year. It worked fine until I tried to run BASIC on that machine yesterday. I am now runing IBM-DOS 4.00 on my machine and it is always dead when I type "basic" under the directory c:\dos. And even I can't use ctrl-alt-del to reboot that machine. I need to turn the power off the reset it. Obviously the machine goes to some unknown address when I try to run BASIC. I have totally no idea about it. I set up the 2-MByte RAM by myself totally according to the user's manual, which was provided by the manufacturer. I am wondering if something is wrong with BIOS. Does anybody here have the same experience I have got? Or does anybody have any idea of what happened to my PC? I would appreciate if you can give me any hint of solving my problem. Thank you very much for your time. ***************************************************************************** * Ho capito, signor,si!........ * * * *Cheng Yang Home Address: * *Department of Computer Science 808 East, 300 South, #3 * *University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84102 * *E-Mail Address:cyang@peruvian.utah.edu Tel: 801-322-1918 * *****************************************************************************
hillm@aragorn.inmos.co.uk (Mark Hill) (08/18/90)
In article <1990Aug9.235419.3608@hellgate.utah.edu> cyang%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Cheng Yang) writes: > >Hi, I bought an IBM PC/AT (16MHz 286) compatible last year. It worked fine >until I tried to run BASIC on that machine yesterday. I am now runing >IBM-DOS 4.00 on my machine and it is always dead when I type "basic" IBM versions of DOS are well known for using part of the ROM BASIC when running BASIC from disk. Probably a hangover from cassette BASIC (remember '81?) which would speed up operation considerably since most of BASIC would be sitting there in ROM not needing any time to load in from cassette. Compatibles don't have BASIC in ROM since the code is copyright for IBM[tm] and it is a dead giveaway for a clone manufacturer to have IBM copyrighted software sitting on the main board - they just copied the IBM ROMs. Naughty naughty. Hence clones don't tend to run IBM BASIC too well. Just a thought... Why run IBM BASIC? It's horrible! Try QuickBASIC or TurboBASIC or any other sort... bar GW-BASIC or IBM BASIC. Please. Mk Mark Hill, INMOS Limited | uk mail: hillm@inmos.co.uk or ukc!inmos!hillm 1000 Aztec West, Bristol, | us mail: uunet!inmos.com!hillm England BS12 4SQ | Internet: @col.hp.com:hillm@inmos-c +44 454 616616 x525 `Show me an optimist, and I'll show you an aardvark.' DP