Hi Karen, On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 10:18 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > As many may recall I run msdos 7.1 instead of freedos for several personal > reasons.
Do the volunteers (engineers?) who help you set up your systems forcibly demand MS-DOS 7.1 exactly? We've discussed this before, so I'm not really trying to change your mind on it, just curious. (Why specifically MS-DOS? Why not DR-DOS? Or Datalight ROM-DOS?) > I recently had a new machine built, just before Christmas, which also > included my installing an external dectalk card, I have an ISA slot, the > ling kind on this board. > While the synthesizer works well, using it to support my writing this > message, I have an odd problem. > The dectalk software has a conflict that seems to impact cdrom drives, or > the driver provided by Microsoft. Can't you just edit a CONFIG.SYS menu option to let you optionally boot without DecTalk when needing to access a physical CD-ROM? (BTW, dual boot with another OS is another possibility.) > It is more than addresses, dectalk provides a way to locate a free one, > user guides for both dectalk 4.1, what I am running, and 4.2 reference the > driver issue. > The suggested solution did not work..however I need a cd rom drive for > scores of reasons. I assume you mean a modern DVD drive (20x speed or whatever) or possibly DVD-RW or such. > leading to my question. > Often on list I have read that freedos is in many ways better than MS DOS, > with programs able to run under freedos. FreeDOS is strongly compatible and "Free" (libre), but not necessarily "better" in all ways, no. > I now have a chance to test that theory, swapping in the cd rom driver > freedos provides as a test? > my driver again is not specific to my cd rom..never has been. > Instead I use the basic driver supplied with ms dos 7.1, never having a > problem until now. MS-DOS 7.1 was never a standalone product (unlike MS-DOS 6.22). It was bundled as part of Win95 or Win98 or whatever variant. So I don't know what came with it: OAKCDROM.SYS? > What does Freedos provide with that kind of universal flexibility? I can only point you to the FreeDOS mirror on iBiblio: * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/cdrom/ But it's been years since I've bothered with physical CDs. (My 2022 Linux laptop has no optical drive, for instance.) _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
