Here's the FreeDOS image. Volume label is FREEDOS2012. Will mount in Quemu as a
RAW image. Can't relocate the site I downloaded it
from.https://anonfile.com/J8sau4d4bc/FreeDOS.rar
The storage is an IDE Flash Disk, AKA Disk On Module. It has a 44 pin female
header connector, same electrical interface as a 2.5" IDE hard drive. They're
available dirt cheap in sizes from 64 megabytes to 2 gigabytes, not so cheap in
4 and 8 gigabytes. They were (possibly still are) made by around a dozen
different companies, or that many put their logos on them. They come in three
form factors. Bare PCB with right angle connector. Bare PCB with connector edge
mounted. Plastic enclosed with connector on one edge. The latter two are easy
to use as laptop hard drive replacements with a male/male pin adapter.
*However*, the chips used on many of these DOM's are not too durable. They may
not withstand the heavy write use of virtual memory or swap files. They're
meant for embedded systems with an OS that does little or no writing to the
storage.
I'd install an actual hard drive if there was enough room inside the thin
client.
DOS or FreeDOS, I just want to get the thing to boot off the IDE flash module
and run with as much EMS memory as it can. The software I need to run is made
to run on anything with DOS, and EMS, and a serial port, all the way back to
the 5150 IBM PC. Don't need any XMS, it loads the G-Code files into EMS, if
available. Otherwise it uses whatever low memory is available and files too
large to fit must be cut up with the spliiter/linker utility.
Hopefully the WYSE Sx0 series thin client's memory map isn't all fragmented up
like circa 1995 and newer laptops. They don't have a large enough contiguous
RAM space to put the 64K EMS paging window. What would be very nice is to be
able to hack the BIOS to either totally remove its tricks with the IDE port, or
add an option to switch it between original and normal operation.
If this can be made to work I'll write up a how-to so other PLM2000 CNC mill
owners can setup a tiny controller box and ditch the big PC. The control
computer does zero computing of things like curves. It just sends G-Code to the
mill and monitors return communications for encoder counts, limit switch
activation and stop messages from exceeding torque limits. The servo controller
in the mill does the heavy lifting.
On Thursday, January 4, 2018, 12:26:17 PM MST, Robert Riebisch
<r...@bttr-software.de> wrote:
Hi Gregg,
> Boot from USB and it's there. I have a FreeDOS image for a 64 megabyte
> module, which someone French setup for these thin clients. It will boot
> just fine, but in French. Somehow it works around or ignores it hiding
> or disabling the IDE controller.
1) Where did you get the FreeDOS image?
2) Can you make it available to us (Dropbox link?), so we can have a look?
3) What do you mean by saying "module"? Is it a CF card connected to the
IDE connector?
> Looks like I may have to use FreeDOS if there's no way to get past that
> with some MS-DOS version. But if there's some special extra
> configuration required for getting FreeDOS to work, I've no idea what it is.
1) Why are you keen on MS-DOS?
2) What's wrong with FreeDOS?
Robert Riebisch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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