DOS based CD-Writer software ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh. Was that XT, AT or PCI?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Me too, but its seems not

[The Natural Philosopher]

Micosofts stack is about 200K. I posted a link to it earlier. It will need an NDIS driver for the onboard ethernet. I posted a link to that earlier.

I think that is not only doable, but is very much simplest.

Once the machine is set to boot and mount another GUI equipped machine's shared directories, a simple file copy does the transfer and you can archive away to your hearts content from the GUI machine.

[T i m]

Ah, cool. ;-)

Because?

Yup, it can be like that and was for me, especially at the beginning when it rarely worked out of the box. Nowdays though and on everyday kit it can be ok (working with all your PC / internal hardware at least).

It is indeed and I generally carry a bootable USB stick in my pocket and a couple of bootable DVD's in the car.

As a good starting point I'd recommend a Linux Mint. It seems to be targeted at ordinary users (not geeks) and the same image can be burned to DVD or put on a USB drive.

I'd start off with the latest Linux Mint MATE (32 bit) as that has a lightweight desktop:

I'd use Imgburn to put it on a DVD:

And YUMI to put it (and any others you might like to try) on a USB drive.

Check both will boot, work in general and can see the hard drive and the rest should be pretty easy. ;-)

Floppy for the odd file in or out, Linux for yer bigger stuff. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. If you have a stack of spare PC's it might be worth installing Linux (Mint 18 MATE 64 bit) on one of them just for the S&G's. ;-)

[T i m]

I think several things come into play here:

A familiarity with the overall setup.

The ability to read English (yes, you did state all that was needed in your OP).

Not being a left brainer (who can't read between the lines and try to push their weakness on others) and assume that all the key facts had not already been stated or that the poster didn't already have a clue about what they were doing. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Andrew Mawson]

Tim, Very many thanks for those suggestions. I've successfully loaded linux mint mate onto a USB stick - got the PC onto my local network and copied files from the Compaq DC7600 that's going in the lathe onto my desktop PC (confusingly another DC7600!!) I'm a bit shaky on permissions so need to poke about a bit but at the end of the day I have transferred an entire DOS6.22 folder onto my desktop machine.

Now need to see if there is any software that I can load onto the stick mint thingy to burn CD's - the CD drive isn't showing under devices in MINT - sure it must be possible but all suggestions welcome :)

Again many thanks

Andrew

[T i m]

You are welcome (and not the only one to suggest a 'LiveLinux' of course). ;-)

Cool. ;-)

Excellent.

Well,considering how little capacity that takes up and how much capacity is available on most PC's these days that shouldn't be an issue. And whilst the files wouldn't help you restore a broken boot, it would give you a spare set of files to replace a damaged one if required. ;-)

You should just be able to select the files you want, right click on them and send them to the optical drive?

I'm just glad you have found a solution that works. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Bob Eager]

I'm not sure that simple file transfer is what is needed; I think a long term CD writer is more the issue.

But if it were, no need for laplink. INTERLNK ad INTERSVR came with DOS

6.22.

[John Rumm]

My response was assuming the OP wanted a way of recovering stuff from the old machine - I was not suggesting it as an ongoing solution for access to stuff on the replacement.

I realise I was answering the wrong question now.

[Johnny B Good]

Me too! However, between his OP and further follow ups to the group, I gather that what he's after is a means of exchanging data between the SFF upon which he has resurrected the OS and apps that had been running on a dying Viglen, and other more modern PCs via CD-R media.

Intrigued by how he was able to install MSDOS 6.22, which is normally distributed on three 1.44MB floppy disks, onto the SFF which, as I expected, doesn't have a built in FDD, I googled for the specs. Although it lacks most things, it claims to possess a SATA II 16x DVD re-writer/48 speed CD re-writer *and* an IDE CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. Being a SFF, I wouldn't have expected it to sport even an ATA(IDE) connector, let alone an FDD header but, only after scrolling down a very long page of confusing specifications, it appears amazingly enough, to include an ATA (IDE) header (although still no FDD header).

He didn't explain how he managed to install MSDOS 6.22 onto a floppyless PC nor how he transferred the software over, so one is left to assume that he cloned the HDD from the Viglen to the 80GB SATA HDD in the HP/ Compaq SFF machine, relying on the BIOS setting to configure the SATA ports into IDE compatability mode, or else he's just simply moved the drive from out of the old Viglen into the new machine and simply configured it to boot from that.

Without such details, it was all but impossible to properly understand why he needed help in getting a CD Re-writer to function as a writer under MSDOS 6.22 . The CDROM aspect is covered by the basic DOS ATAPI driver files which I think may have been available on the installation floppies by then - it *was* a long time ago since I last used MSDOS 6.22 (and even longer since MSDOS 3.30)!

I can't recall whether CDROM burning software became available before windows 95 arrived on the scene so I can't definitively say that such DOS only CDROM burning software ever existed. A better option might be USB flash media as the basis for his "Sneakernet"(tm) method of data exchange or, better still, and more likely, a network adapter using DOS drivers which were still being supplied even with Fast ethernet PCI adapters.

Although the built in LAN port is Gigabit Ethernet, there might still be DOS driver software available for the ethernet chip used on the MoBo. Failing that, assuming there's a spare PCI slot - the specs fail to say anything about that- he could fit a fast ethernet adapter that still has dos driver support available as pretty well most did.

If he can supply a bit more info on how this PC interfaces to the CNC machine, we might even be able to advise him on setting up virtualisation software[1] running under the SFF's original winXP Host OS (or even under a Linux host), assuming a serial or printer port was used for the CNC interface, which can be passed through[2] to a suitably configured VM clone of the MSDOS 6.22 installation as it was originally set up on the old Viglen.

[1] There was no mention in the specs as to whether or not the 64 bit P4 CPU used in the SFF machine, supported hardware virtualisation with Intel's VT-x feature so he might have to use virtualisation software which, like Oracle's free VirtualBox, isn't reliant on such hardware support. Even without the benefit of such hardware support, I'd expect the SFF hosted VM to still be at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the original Viglen machine so shouldn't suffer 'performance issues' in this application. [2] I'm running VirtualBox which, on checking the stopped VMs' configurations, appears to only support Serial Port pass-through. There wasn't an option for parallel ports. However, it might support this in a DOS VM but not having set such a VM up, I have no simple way to verify this. I'd have to trawl through the comprehensive user guide to dig this sort of arcane information out and I'm not about to do so this at this stage of the proceedings.

[Johnny B Good]

Not clearly enough imo. However, perhaps you can offer a little more info as to how you got from a failing Viglen to a functioning install of DOS 6.22 on a floppyless SFF machine that was originally supplied with winXP as its host OS.

It appears that you're not *just* trying to get CD burning software to run under DOS just for the hell of it so much as to find a pragmatic solution to "Sneakernetting"(tm) data back and forth between other machines and this DOS afflicted SFF machine. The extra details may help us to find you a better 'pragmatic solution' to your problem.

[Johnny B Good]

Nicely said! :-)

Unless Andrew cares to expand a little more on the details, I'm assuming that the CNC interface is either serial port based (or possibly parallel or even SCSI port) since any specialist adapters made when DOS was King, are likely to be ISA cards rather than PCI. However, that is pure, best guess, speculation on my part so we need him to clarify this point before we can start to consider the virtualisation route. n

[Johnny B Good]

Ouch!

How? According to the specs for that machine, it doesn't have a floppy disk drive - please explain.

Ok so far... If there are DOS based versions of CD writing software still available, installing such would be the next step since they often included the necessary dos CD writing driver support files. You might still have a problem finding a dos compatible driver for the existing CD writer though so you might have to resort to locating an older model of writer that does have dos driver support (and that may still leave you having to scrabble around for CD writing software that supports your chosen CD writer). You may yet have a lot more googling to do before you solve that problem (or you just might strike it lucky first go).

That's a curious expression ("embedded into", that is). is that CNC Manufacturer-speak for "Linked up to the PC", via some sort of communication cable that uses an existing serial or parallel port or else a SCSI or proprietary adapter installed into one of the expansion slots in the Viglen?

If the connection is via a standard serial port, that makes the virtual machine option a "No-Brainer"(tm) since, as Dan has pointed out, you can share folders read/write between the VM guest and the host OS which has USB pen drive and CDRW and network support to satisfy your need to transfer data to other machine almost any way you care to choose.

The answer to that question will have a profound effect on your choice of solution. Likewise regarding the basic specs of the original Viglen setup such as ram size etc.

It would be nice if it works but, unfortunately, no guarantees on this. However, since it's such a tiny download, it's worth giving it a shot.

[Johnny B Good]

If I understood that correctly, the machine in question is *not* as most might conclude, the PC but the CNC machine itself. The Viglen PC doesn't seem to require anything more exotic than a couple of com ports (serial) which were standard issue even if extra socket hardware was required to be mounted in knockouts on the back panel or added as backplate slot adapters to connect onto the motherboard headers or else the optional 2nd com port header on an I/O adapter card.

If that's the case, then using virtualisation software would appear to be the most obvious solution to your current dilemma.

[Johnny B Good]

This is what makes virtualisation the winner. If ever there was a case of a "Solution looking for a problem to solve.", virtualisation is that "Solution" and Andrew's problem is that very problem virtualisation was looking to solve. :-)

Oracle's VirtualBox can be installed on either windows or unix hosts (free for personal use - I suspect Andrew might have to pay a licence fee in this commercial usage case though) and although it can benefit from Intel's VT-x processor feature, it isn't reliant upon its presence which might be an important consideration in this case.

[Andrew Mawson]

Johnny,

A/ The original Viglen is fully functional but mechanically a write off

B/ The Viglen runs DOS 6.2 and has a floppy drive and HDD and two serial ports

C/ One serial port is for an operators panel, the other is for the machine CC controller

D/ I took an MSBACKUP of the VIGLEN HDD under DOS6.2 on 13 floppies

E/ The COMPAC DC7600 SFF was running Windows 7 and has floppy, SATA HDD and CD/DVD writer, one serial port and a network 10/100 port and 4 Gb RAM

F/ I Repartitioned and formatted its HDD and loaded DOS 6.22 from the three original Microsoft disks

G/ I copied the full DOS 6.2 MSBACKUP suite to a folder on the DC7600

H/ I ran DOS 6.2 MSBACKUP under DOS 6.22 and restored all the VIGLEN files to the DC7600 EXCEPT the DOS folder

I/ (You need to know the MSBACKUP 6.22 cannot read MSBACKUP 6.2 floppies)

J/ At this stage I had a fully functional DC7600 running DOS 6.22 and the original controller software from the VIGLEN (except it only had one serial port)

K/ Being an SFF I needed a small form factor PCI serial card - the only one I could source with DOS drivers was a StarTech PEX2S5521P

L/ The machine now has three serial ports and I just need to configure the IRQ to match the original

M/ I sourced some DOS drivers for the CR/DVD which allowed me to read but not write CDs

N/ This is when I posted asking for assistance for DOS software to WRITE CDs so that the machine files can easily be transferred in future

O/ I have (Thanks to TIM) loaded a USB stick with Linux MINT and K3B CD software allowing me not only to boot up MINT and generate CD's but also connect to my network and transfer files that way !!!

P/ The only oddity left is that the CDs generated read properly under MINT in the DC7600 and also und WIN7 on another machine but under DOS 6.22 in the DC7600 are rather flaky and rarely read ok.

Q/ I am assuming this is due to the DOS drivers I'm using (can't name them at the moment as I'm on a different PC)

Thank you all for your assistance but I do feel that some are digging deeper than required - all I was asking was to be able to write CDs under DOS 6.22 so perhaps someone may have know of a DOS application to do this Andrew

[Johnny B Good]

[T i m]

Virtualisation != KISS.

For a production machine you need KISS.

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

Well in fact only ESDI might cause me a problem - I have a stash of 8 and 16bit ST-506 cards (both MFM and RLL) in a "might come in handy" box somewhere ;-)

[John Rumm]

The only slight gottcha would be if the DOS code needs to bang the hardware in a particularly unorthodox way, or the code timing is particularly critical.

It also got Day of the Tentacle running nicely on a modern PC ;-)