Linux would be fine, however there doesn't seem to be a DOS emulator
that emulates the ISA bus A: drive. I suppose Linux on a PC with that
hardware might work, however the hardware in question is stuck at the
"need to configure" which does require a DOS disk which can only be
extracted by QRST on a DOS system....
One thought might be:
Install DOS and Format.exe on a 3.5 floppy
Fire it up and when running QRST try selecting the "B" drive.
That used to (on a single disk system) prompt you to switch floppies
back and forth which *might* work, allowing me to write the image on a
second floppy.
Or...
Find a 1.2mb 5.25 floppy in my pile of stuff.
Load DOS on the 3.5.
Put the 5.25 in as drive B:
Format the 5.25 with format b: /s /v to put the system on it.
Boot off B:
Copy the stupid image from A: to B:
Run QRST
Switch A floppy with a new disk and try extracting to it.
We'll see. This is a fun little adventure. Wish I could figure out where
the heck my Toshiba power supply brick is...
C
On 2/26/2023 11:15 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
On Feb 25, 2023, at 5:11 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk <[email protected]>
wrote:
So I'm working on restoring a Compaq DeskPro/XE system to allow me to use the
5.25 floppy to copy files from my 3.5 floppies which will come from my Windows
10 system so that I can extract on the Deskpro/XE using teledisk the .td0 files
that make up a RX50 floppy disk set so I can load POS 3.2 on my Pro/380 and see
if the DECNA card works.
What a pain in the rear.
So far the XE boots but has no setup. Setup requires a special floppy (Diagnostic disk)
which mine was bad after 30 years so I'm trying to create a new one. I have the official
Compaq disk creation thing for a floppy but it's in QRST format and the QRST under DOSBOX
on Windows10 can't properly access a floppy even if "mounted" with a -t floppy
extension.
I run Linux on my old PCs -- the one that has a 5.25 inch floppy is an early
Pentium (Gateway). Linux works just fine, no installation hassles.
paul
