I need some help to come to terms with my current affliction, 
upgrade fever.

  Do I or should I buy Dos 6.0? (I have 5.0 installed)
  How do I change the path?
  How do I put a modem into this thing?
  Is it possible to run a CGA monitor on an XT?
    if so, how do I do it.

Thanks for the help... as before the advice that I got for the mac was 
very wise.

164 responses total.

From what I've heard, the differences between DOS 5.0 and 6.0 aren't
very great.  I recently went from DOS 3.3 to 6.0, so I felt like it
was a reasonable improvement.  If you already use a product like Stacker
or SuperStor to compress your harddrive, then you probably won't need
DOS 6.0.  Likewise if you already have a decent disk cache program and
hard disk backup program.  
  You change your path with the 'cd' statement.  If you are used to Unix,
it's very similar in DOS, though the slashes are opposite (Unix's slash
goes Up and DOS's slash goes down -- / vs. \).  So, if you are in your
hard drive's root directory (probably C:\) and want to change to your
dos directory, you type 'cd \dos' and then <enter>.  If you don't already
have it, you might want to add a line in your autoexec.bat file like
'prompt $p$g'.  That way you'll always know what your current path is.
  There is also a PATH statement which you can change (in autoexec.bat).
This statement tells DOS where it should look for a file when it can't
be found in the current directory.  At the very least your path statement
should be PATH C:\;C:\DOS  <---assuming you have a C: drive here...
  If you don't have a DOS manual or book, it sounds like you should get
one.  There are a lot of decent ones to be found.  Also, doesn't DOS 5.0
have on-line help?  DOS 6.0 does.
  If your computer has a serial port, you hook up an external modem.
You can also buy internal modems that will plug into the slots inside
your computer (assuming your computer has slots...).
  I thought CGA was pretty much the default for XT's...  Either that or
Hercules monochrome, which provides a lot better resolution than CGA.
See what kind of graphics adapter card is in your XT.  That will tell
you what kind of monitor you can hook up.  Or if you have, for example,
an EGA monitor but not an EGA graphics card, you might think of getting
the proper card.

 thanks

  Umm... the cd command changes the current directory... path, under DOS, is
something different.  To change your path, try
'SET PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WHATEVER;C:\ETC;'.
To add to your path, I think the way is:
'SET PATH=$PATH+C:\ONEMORE;' but I may be wrong on this... in any case,
you usually just set the path in the autoexec.bat and don't change it again--
adding is mainly useful when you want to add some local paths on, for example,
a Novell network...

You can add to your path by doing something like "set path=%path%;c:\more",
but the "%variable%" notation to refer to an environment variable
only works from batch files, not from the command prompt.  Thanks,
Microsoft.

Yes, power, I mentioned that as well as cd.  I think this guy needs a
book more than anything.  Even with our newly found disk space I don't
think we want to hash over every aspect of MSDOS in this i
  Honestly, in your autoexec.bat file you need a stement like:
  path=c:\;c:\dos   I don't think you need the "set.  I don't have it
in my autoexec.bat and it works fine for me...save keystrokes...

Jim, go down to AfterWords on main street, and browse their computer
books. Many are at 50% off,especially for "obsolete" operating systems,
like DOS 5. Probably the best course would be to grab one of your DOS-

type friends for an hour or so, to go over some basics, and set up your
autoexec.bat. I felt what Kent expressed: giving followable directions
in this medium would probably be confusing if not contradictory..

`  that probably is wise counsel, Rane. I really am considering buying
Dos for Dummies, a series which has answered all my questions about
my Mac, and the PC. I do recall seeing Dos for Dummies at EB and at 
Egghead software. (I even found a copy of the 2nd edition of the Mac
bible) for 10 bucks.
  This help is not only for me, but hopefully a discussion of WHY dos 6
is better or not will develop. I hope that at least *some* understanding
will come out of all this.

 now, how do I unzip zip files??? do I need an unzipper, or are they
self expanding??

Generally, you need PKUNZIP, usually associated with PKZIP, from
PKWARE. You just enter pkunzip <filename.zip>, and BLOOEY. The
newest version comes as pkz204g.exe, a self-exploding file (from it you
get about a dozen files. pkz204g.exe is 203K, which doubles on
expansion, of which 203K is the manual! I printed out the whole thing,
but for most use, it isn't needed (like a lot of software). PKZIP is
shareware and they say "if you use PKZIP regularly we strongly 
encourage you to register it". I downloaded it from the maue archive.
If you provide a diskette, I'll provide pkz204g.exe

The sad thing is, 2.04g is just as buggy on my machine as the earlier
2.04 versions.  Porbably because I'm still on an 8088.

While I have downloaded pkz204g, I have it just sitting there unused.
So, if you'd like to heed robh's "word to the wise", Jim, the old version
is available too. What kind of bugs are you referring to, robh? I had
heard that some earlier versions of 204 had bugs, but thought they 
were resolved in 204g. I'm on an 8088 too, so would like to know what to
look for.

In general it seems wise to avoid any versions of PKZIP after v1.1 and
before 2.04g.  2.04g will handle 1.1 zip archives so no problem that way.
I think some of the 2.0 bugs had to do with the way zip handled volume
names, and the way it handled multi-disk saves.  I haven't seen
any bug reports on 2.04g, though that doesn't mean there aren't any...

There is a *free* unzipper available that will handle 204g files.
I forget the name right now, but I believe it is on HAL 9000.

  I did get pkunzip204g and so far it`s fine, although I didn`t use it but
once. I do plan on registering it just as soon as I find out that it`s
bug free

I checked on MTS Confer (PC1:!conf, Item 44, Res 155ff): pkz204g had
quite of bit of discussion, but no one reported any bugs, including in
compressing across multiple disks (for backups), etc. Those responses
were dates 9 February and later, so the current version should be 
(pretty) clean.

I've noticed a lot of BBS's are switching to 2.04g, refusing to accept
1.10-compressed files.  

Yep.  That's why you want to "upgrade" as soon as you can.

2.04G compresses a lot better than 1.10. 

Yup.  I rezipped all my rarely used files with the maximum compression
option of 2.04g.  Saved 4M on a 32M partition.  And blazingly fast on
on a 486.

Speed is definitely impressive. I guess if Stacker can get a decent ratio
compressing on the fly, speed in data compression is definitely possible.
I remember the old days on a 12MHz 286 (which was pretty cool back then)
when it took 10-15 minutes to compress a 1.2MB floppy disk. Now, the 486
I'm using can probably do it in 30 seconds...(and the bottleneck for that
is the floppy speed).

By the way, is there any utility which will change all .zip files to 2.04g?
If you saved 4MB on 32MB, the server I'm working on has about 500MB of .zip
files, most of which are not 2.04g compressed.

Couldn't you do that with a batch file?

    How do I tell what card I have in my machine? or for that matter what
card is what? (of course we are speaking in terms of video cards) AND,
How do I shut my internal modem up when I power up the machine? I really
hate that whine that it starts out with.

  Just in case ypu wanted to know, leaving the machine on all the time is
not an option at present, unless someone at Edison gave me the Marysville
power generation station for a birthday present... ;)

YOur internal modem makes a noise? Does it have its own speaker, or does
it use the machine's speaker (though I don't see how it can do that).
The video card is the one into which the video plugs ;-). For what its
worth, my CGA card has two output jacks: a coaxial jack for mono, and
a 9-pin DB jack for RGB color. However my 8088 is a Zenith, with its
peculiarities, so for a more advanced treatment, consult an XT guru.

Re #20.  I looked around and couldn't find anything, so I wrote a batch
file to do it.  

   I think that the modem has it's own speaker. And that IS a lot of help,
Rane. Thanks  =|:-{=  (nyh nyh mine's better!!!)

I wanted to do code practice with GGTE's morse tutor on my computer, without
bothering the family, so I rewired the speaker to drive earphones, with
a switch to choose. Is that what you're thinking of? A mute switch?
<d=8|D~

"ATM0" will usually turn the speaker off. 

Not on the computer - but I do use that for the modem (which I forgot,
in my enthusiasm for the hardware solution).

I thought he was asking about the modem. Sorry...

Opening the computer up and ripping the speaker out usually solves the
problem. :-)

  I`ll try giving the command ATM0 before I shut the computer down
hopefully that will be the solution to the problem.

Or, open up the computer and put a switch in series with the speaker leads.
 
However with the way simple things operate these days, thje speaker is
probably a pc-mounted job.

  Here's a new problem... I bought a CGA card and installed it so I
could drive a RGB monitor that I had lying around the house. The problem
is that when I go to turn the computer on, the hard drive whirrs and 
the computer beeps 4 times and then proceeds to sit there looking like
junk. The monochrome card works just fine, with the mono monitor.
and the computer will boot with the mono card. So how come the computer
will not boot with the CGA card. Is there something I'm not doing right?

If this is a XT or PC machine, you will prob. have to flip one of the
DIP switches on the mother board in order for your CGA to work.  I don't
know which one though.

Klaus is correct. The 8 switch DIP is on the motherboard, and *all* of
its functions are:

1. OFF
2. With coprocessor = OFF
3 & 4: Memory on motherboard
  128K  3 OFF   4 ON
  192K  3 ON    4 OFF
  256K  3 OFF   4 OFF
5 & 6: Display type.
  None         5 ON     6 ON
  40X25 Color  5 OFF    6 ON
  80X25 Color  5 ON     6 OFF
  Monochrome   5 OFF    6 OFF

  "WARNING: If an IBM Monochrome Display is connected to your system,
  switches 5 and 6 must always be OFF. Damage to your display can
  result with any other switch settings."

7 & 8: # 5.25 drives installed.
  1 drive   7 ON    8 ON
  2 drives  7 OFF   8 ON

This is for an XT, right?  I remember my PC needed four dipswitches to
set the on-board memory value, from 64K to 640K.

The XT memory extension board (to go from 256K to 640K) has a passle
of DIPS, for various combinations of added memory.

  yes, this is a XT and it sounds like I'm going to need some qualified
pern to visit my XT to flip the right switches. Even though I have a 
Extra class ham license, I still don't know diddily about IBM's and 
the video thang.

 any volunteers??

Qualified?  The only way anyone gets qualified is to just go do it.
So go ahead, pull the cover, find the DIP swicthes and flip them.
The DIP switches are just that.  8 switches on 16 pin chip type
device.  Looks just like 8 mini switches side by side.
Once you've done it, you too will be "qualified"!

  alright already... I've done a card-ectomy and now have CGA.
not too bad. but I see what everybody says now.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss