Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi bret, On Sun, 4 Feb 2024, Bret Johnson wrote: I looked up a little bit about DECtalk. It looks like the earlier versions used a serial port but the later versions plugged directly into an ISA slot. I assume you have one of the later versions? I can't imagine how one that works with a serial port would have a hardware compatibility issue. Hi Bret, Actually you have that information in the wrong order. Portable synthesizers that used serial ports, the dectalk Express for example came after the internal cards. The Isa slot edition, the one I have installed now was followed by a PCI slot edition. Serial port options, the above referenced express, my reading edge, those were next. There is actually currently a Dectalk USB synthesizer as well. Anyway, below is the exact information on the CD rom conflict. There is a utility that shifts the i/a address dectalk uses, but it does not fix the driver problem. Here is what the documentation says: Conflict with DECtalk and EIDE CD-ROM Drivers. We have found that the DECtalk hardware will not work with PCs that have certain EIDE CDROMs intalled. Some of the CDROMs are manufactured by ACER and Mitsumi and one of the driver names in CONFIG.SYS is VIDE_CDD. The problem apparently is caused by the DECtalk and CDROM drivers trying to use the same software interrupt (different than hardware IRQs). Thanks for your ideas, Karen Hardware compatibility issues are usually either with Interrupt (IRQ) or I/O port conflicts, but IDE/ATAPI was such a widespread standard that it's hard to imagine how DECtalk would have a conflict with those. Does the information you've found give any indication as to what the conflict might actually be? -- Bret Johnson It's oft been said that the Devil is in the Details. I disagree completely. I say God is in the Details -- the Devil is in the Fluff. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
> The comparability issue is not in vied_cdd.sys > It is in the dectalk drivers itself. > I have the hardware driver for my cd and DVD rom drives, when > vide_cdd.sys is run, it references the hardware drive in its command. I looked up a little bit about DECtalk. It looks like the earlier versions used a serial port but the later versions plugged directly into an ISA slot. I assume you have one of the later versions? I can't imagine how one that works with a serial port would have a hardware compatibility issue. Hardware compatibility issues are usually either with Interrupt (IRQ) or I/O port conflicts, but IDE/ATAPI was such a widespread standard that it's hard to imagine how DECtalk would have a conflict with those. Does the information you've found give any indication as to what the conflict might actually be? -- Bret Johnson It's oft been said that the Devil is in the Details. I disagree completely. I say God is in the Details -- the Devil is in the Fluff. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi Bret, The comparability issue is not in vied_cdd.sys It is in the dectalk drivers itself. I have the hardware driver for my cd and DVD rom drives, when vide_cdd.sys is run, it references the hardware drive in its command. Will dig up those alternatives, thank you. Kare On Sun, 4 Feb 2024, Bret Johnson wrote: The driver providing an issue is one called vide_cdd I found this reference to the file: https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/VIDE-CDD.SYS It doesn't mention any compatibility issues, but does say it's very small compared to most other drivers which may be why it has problems (there might be something missing that needs to be in there). It also seems to indicate it's a "generic" IDE driver so should work with many CD drives. Do you know of a comparative substitute? I think I would try OAKCDROM.SYS. I see it referenced a lot as a good driver that works with many IDE CD drives. I just looked and the one I use on my desktop computer is called AOATAPI.SYS, but I don't remember how I came to use that one -- I set it up a long time ago and my memory is not that good. I think you should be able to search the Internet and find a way to download both of those. I rarely use CDs myself, but am adding support for USB CD/DVD drives to my USB drivers. Would that substitute have to work with only specific cdrom or dvdrom drives? I think either OAKCDROM or AOATAPI should work with most CD/DVD drives. As I stated earlier, very early CD drives were proprietary and needed hardware-specific drivers, but after IDE & ATAPI became popular things became pretty standardized and generic drivers will work with most hardware. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
> The driver providing an issue is one called vide_cdd I found this reference to the file: https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/VIDE-CDD.SYS It doesn't mention any compatibility issues, but does say it's very small compared to most other drivers which may be why it has problems (there might be something missing that needs to be in there). It also seems to indicate it's a "generic" IDE driver so should work with many CD drives. > Do you know of a comparative substitute? I think I would try OAKCDROM.SYS. I see it referenced a lot as a good driver that works with many IDE CD drives. I just looked and the one I use on my desktop computer is called AOATAPI.SYS, but I don't remember how I came to use that one -- I set it up a long time ago and my memory is not that good. I think you should be able to search the Internet and find a way to download both of those. I rarely use CDs myself, but am adding support for USB CD/DVD drives to my USB drivers. > Would that substitute have to work with only specific cdrom or > dvdrom drives? I think either OAKCDROM or AOATAPI should work with most CD/DVD drives. As I stated earlier, very early CD drives were proprietary and needed hardware-specific drivers, but after IDE & ATAPI became popular things became pretty standardized and generic drivers will work with most hardware. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
The dectalk driver is not loaded from config.sys. Its why finding a substitute is preferred. On Fri, 2 Feb 2024, tauro 111 via Freedos-user wrote: So your DECTalk driver refuses to be installed once the VIDE-CDD driver has been installed, did I understand you correctly? What about changing the order in which your CONFIG.SYS loads the drivers? Load first the DECTalk driver (no conflicts) and after that, VIDE-CDD. If they can't coexist at all that's trickier. You could also do what Rugxulo suggested: 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? About the FreeDOS drivers, as far as I know, FreeDOS uses GCDROM and UDVD2 as CD/DVD drivers. GCDROM was designed for SATA but works with IDE too apparently. You can try them both and see how to it goes, here are some links: GCDROMhttp://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/drivers/gcdrom.zip UDVD2:https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/drivers/udvd2.zip On Friday, February 2, 2024 at 02:01:21 AM GMT-3, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: Humor is an individual thing. The package I use incorporates ms DOS 7.1 with a number of utilities updated?? from 6.22. I have scores of reasons for preferring the package, using a full sized USB keyboard as I am doing now to write this email?? is just one of them. Greater memory and hard drive capacity, at least in my personal experience, 7.1 is the DOS infrastructure under Windows 98 se, even broader processor speed. but that is me. I am a firm believer in the Personal in personal computer, would not expect another person to make choices based on my own..we are different people after all. Kare On Thu, 1 Feb 2024, andrew fabbro wrote: On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 4:29???PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: Forcibly demand? What an interesting choice of term..why not did the job for which i contracted them? He was making a joke as a way of asking why you would want to run MS-DOS 7.1. IIRC it was never intended to be a standalone product.?? I'm curious what the personal reasons are, or what 7.1 gives you that 6.22 (or FreeDOS) can't. -- andrew fabbro and...@fabbro.org ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
So your DECTalk driver refuses to be installed once the VIDE-CDD driver has been installed, did I understand you correctly? What about changing the order in which your CONFIG.SYS loads the drivers? Load first the DECTalk driver (no conflicts) and after that, VIDE-CDD. If they can't coexist at all that's trickier. You could also do what Rugxulo suggested: >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? About the FreeDOS drivers, as far as I know, FreeDOS uses GCDROM and UDVD2 as CD/DVD drivers. GCDROM was designed for SATA but works with IDE too apparently. You can try them both and see how to it goes, here are some links: GCDROMhttp://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/drivers/gcdrom.zip UDVD2:https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/drivers/udvd2.zip On Friday, February 2, 2024 at 02:01:21 AM GMT-3, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote: Humor is an individual thing. The package I use incorporates ms DOS 7.1 with a number of utilities updated from 6.22. I have scores of reasons for preferring the package, using a full sized USB keyboard as I am doing now to write this email is just one of them. Greater memory and hard drive capacity, at least in my personal experience, 7.1 is the DOS infrastructure under Windows 98 se, even broader processor speed. but that is me. I am a firm believer in the Personal in personal computer, would not expect another person to make choices based on my own..we are different people after all. Kare On Thu, 1 Feb 2024, andrew fabbro wrote: > On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 4:29 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < > freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > >> Forcibly demand? >> What an interesting choice of term..why not did the job for which i >> contracted them? >> > > He was making a joke as a way of asking why you would want to run MS-DOS > 7.1. > > IIRC it was never intended to be a standalone product. I'm curious what > the personal reasons are, or what 7.1 gives you that 6.22 (or FreeDOS) > can't. > > -- > andrew fabbro > and...@fabbro.org >___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Humor is an individual thing. The package I use incorporates ms DOS 7.1 with a number of utilities updated from 6.22. I have scores of reasons for preferring the package, using a full sized USB keyboard as I am doing now to write this email is just one of them. Greater memory and hard drive capacity, at least in my personal experience, 7.1 is the DOS infrastructure under Windows 98 se, even broader processor speed. but that is me. I am a firm believer in the Personal in personal computer, would not expect another person to make choices based on my own..we are different people after all. Kare On Thu, 1 Feb 2024, andrew fabbro wrote: On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 4:29???PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: Forcibly demand? What an interesting choice of term..why not did the job for which i contracted them? He was making a joke as a way of asking why you would want to run MS-DOS 7.1. IIRC it was never intended to be a standalone product. I'm curious what the personal reasons are, or what 7.1 gives you that 6.22 (or FreeDOS) can't. -- andrew fabbro and...@fabbro.org ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What cd-rom drivers does FreeDOS use ?
certainly, I use a number of adaptive technology tools due to the experience of sight loss. One of those tools is internal speech synthesizer card built by digital equipment corporation called the dectalk. For some reason developers of the software, the program has drivers to which other screen reading programs communicate, share that those drivers will not load correctly if the driver I referenced is loaded. there is an assumed but not actual, address conflict, between both this driver, and some actual cd rom brands. What results is that you cannot use the cd rom or DVD rom drive and also use the speech. As I require both, I seek an alternative to the referenced vide_cdd driver. Does that help? Karen On Fri, 2 Feb 2024, Jose Senna via Freedos-user wrote: Karen Llewellen said: The driver providing an issue is one called vide_cdd Would you please tell what is the issue ? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 4:29 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Forcibly demand? > What an interesting choice of term..why not did the job for which i > contracted them? > He was making a joke as a way of asking why you would want to run MS-DOS 7.1. IIRC it was never intended to be a standalone product. I'm curious what the personal reasons are, or what 7.1 gives you that 6.22 (or FreeDOS) can't. -- andrew fabbro and...@fabbro.org ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] What cd-rom drivers does FreeDOS use ?
Karen Llewellen said: > The driver providing an issue is one called vide_cdd Would you please tell what is the issue ? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi Bret, Sorry busy hands. The driver providing an issue is one called vide_cdd According to dectalk documentation ide cdroms made by asser and another company had challenges too, but the driver listed above presented the largest challenge. My units are not that old, but I am using this driver with the hardware one for my cdrom. I do have other units here, but only that vide_cdd driver is consistently referenced. Do you know of a comparative substitute? Would that substitute have to work with only specific cdrom or dvdrom drives? Thanks, Karen On Fri, 26 Jan 2024, Bret Johnson via Freedos-user wrote: Karen: Do you know which of the two CD-ROM drivers you are having trouble with? It takes two drivers to install a CD in DOS. One is the hardware-specific driver that may come with the CD hardware itself, but there are also several of them (like OAKCDROM.SYS) that will work with different hardware if they are "standard" enough (early CD hardware was not standard at all). The "output" of this driver is a character device that has a name, and all this driver does is provide access to the sectors on the disk -- it doesn't actually "understand" what the data is (e.g., whether it is a music CD or a data CD or something else). The second driver is usually MSCDEX, but there are also several clones of MSCDEX (e.g., SHSUCDX and NWCDEX). That driver "interfaces" with the first driver (you must tell MSCDEX what the name of the first driver is) and the "output" is a drive letter (a block device instead of a character device) that DOS can use (like D:) to access the files. Just like with floppies and hard drives where you can have different kinds of formatting (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, HPFS, etc.), you can also have different kinds of formatting on CDs, DVDs, and BDs. The second driver is the one that needs to "understand" the different kinds of formatting to be able to turn it into a drive letter. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Forcibly demand? What an interesting choice of term..why not did the job for which i contracted them? On Fri, 26 Jan 2024, Rugxulo via Freedos-user wrote: Hi Karen, On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 10:18 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user 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 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Karen: Do you know which of the two CD-ROM drivers you are having trouble with? It takes two drivers to install a CD in DOS. One is the hardware-specific driver that may come with the CD hardware itself, but there are also several of them (like OAKCDROM.SYS) that will work with different hardware if they are "standard" enough (early CD hardware was not standard at all). The "output" of this driver is a character device that has a name, and all this driver does is provide access to the sectors on the disk -- it doesn't actually "understand" what the data is (e.g., whether it is a music CD or a data CD or something else). The second driver is usually MSCDEX, but there are also several clones of MSCDEX (e.g., SHSUCDX and NWCDEX). That driver "interfaces" with the first driver (you must tell MSCDEX what the name of the first driver is) and the "output" is a drive letter (a block device instead of a character device) that DOS can use (like D:) to access the files. Just like with floppies and hard drives where you can have different kinds of formatting (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, HPFS, etc.), you can also have different kinds of formatting on CDs, DVDs, and BDs. The second driver is the one that needs to "understand" the different kinds of formatting to be able to turn it into a drive letter. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi Karen, On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 10:18 PM Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user 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
[Freedos-user] what cd rom drivers does freedos use?
Hi folks, Here is why I am asking. As many may recall I run msdos 7.1 instead of freedos for several personal reasons. 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. 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. 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. 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. What does Freedos provide with that kind of universal flexibility? Thanks, Kare ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
