DOS / WINDOWS

[gopher]

got old computer goin for old dos serial port CPS.. works great. Would like to install astro saber cps. sys requrements shows windows NT4.0 as minimum. Tried on 95 - no work. I guess this means no 98 or ME. So If i upgrade to NT/2000 i loose my real dos capabilities right?

[wavetar]

Best thing to do is blank out the drive, partition it so you can load DOS onto the 'C' drive, load your desired flavour of Windows on the secondary drive. The native Windows bootloaders will give you a menu choice of which you want to use upon boot up.

[Jim202]

got old computer goin for old dos serial port CPS.. works great. Would like to install astro saber cps. sys requrements shows windows NT4.0 as minimum. Tried on 95 - no work. I guess this means no 98 or ME. So If i upgrade to NT/2000 i loose my real dos capabilities right?

Part of the answer is what format the hard drive is in. If it is a FAT32 and not greater than about the 80 GB size, you can run your Windows and then boot into DOS from a floppy. With the FAT32 formatted hard drive, you can still store and read the files using DOS. I run Win 95 and 98 on different computers and still am able to run the DOS only software for programming by the floppy boot disc.

Depending on the computer clock speed, you may or may not need the program MOSLO DELUX" to slow down the serial bus data transfer. It is available off the Internet for about $29. Then you might also need "CACHEOFF.COM" to take care of the cache of the computer. This is a free download off the Internet.

Jim

[motorola_otaku]

Seconding wavetar's recommendation. Save/back-up anything you want to keep, use a Windows install disk to delete all of the existing partitions, grab the DOS 6.22 bootdisk from bootdisk.com and create a 2 GB FAT (not FAT32, just FAT) partition for your DOS stuff, format c: /s it, then use an XP Pro install disc to format the remaining space as NTFS and let it install there. The XP installer will automatically create a bootloader for you so you can pick DOS or XP on startup, plus the FAT drive will be accessible through XP meaning you can add/delete/move files to and from it while booted in XP.

[Tony.RI]

Astro Saber CPS works on 98SE/ME; I've got it running on an old laptop now, though it barely squeaks by with 32MB of memory...

[Winger2002]

Create a bootable usb stick with dos 6.22, problem solved you can use almost any computer with a serial port, works from an old win2000 laptop p3 to my win 7 dell (with serial port).

[thebigphish]

with the notable exception of any BIOS incapable of booting from USB, which includes most computers slow enough to program the older Jedis...if they even have a USB port.

[Winger2002]

Yea ok, so OP you want astro saber win software on there, whats the low end of the spectrum your trying to maintain the ability to program? Stuff that won't work with a 486 or better?

[gopher]

well i had a few system sabers - but cleared them out - so basically just dos RSS for maxtrac gtx and dos mtsx lab for astro saber and xts3000.

[thebigphish]

you should be fine with anything around the orig. Pentium 75 line and around there, I have an old Toughbook (cf 41 mk3) which does those radios just fine, and that will easily (walk) run win2k, which with an appropriate bootloader still allows a true dos environment.

[Winger2002]

Phish whats holding him up? the lab stuff?