Looks useful. I consider abandonware to be fair game 😀

I'm kind of a noob when it comes to this stuff,
but using my hex-editor I could only find it at 277h

Akuma wrote on 2020-08-23, 20:53:

I'm kind of a noob when it comes to this stuff,
but using my hex-editor I could only find it at 277h

277H is the correct location in a hex editor. Debug starts all non EXE files at offset 100H, so that is why it is at 377H in debug vs a hex editor.

@jasa1063

they might not be dead

https://web.archive.org/web/20070207231638/ht … /orderpage.html

the link for the software goes here
https://secure.bmtmicro.com/cart?CID=4&PRODUCTID=20013

which is still active for 10 bucks ,they accept paypal and bitcoin

might want to take a look at https://www.bmtmicro.com
they got contact on twitter and facebook, perhaps they can tell you if in fact they still provide the software

looks like they also did some software for zip drives too

Boot from Iomega Zip Drives
As featured in the book Windows 98 Secrets!

This is a range of software/firmware products that allows you to use your Iomega Zip drive like a super large floppy drive. You will be able to boot from a Zip disk. We have successfully installed Windows 95 on a Zip disk and boot from it.

The ZppA Card : BIOS-on-a-card to boot from Parallel Port Zip Drive.
The ZppA : Boot from a Parallel Port Zip Drive
The ZapA : Boot from an IDE/ATAPI Zip Drive
The Z-pA : Boot from an IDE/ATA Zip Drive

SETBLASTER wrote on 2020-08-24, 01:50:

@jasa1063 […]
Show full quote

@jasa1063

they might not be dead

https://web.archive.org/web/20070207231638/ht … /orderpage.html

the link for the software goes here
https://secure.bmtmicro.com/cart?CID=4&PRODUCTID=20013

which is still active for 10 bucks ,they accept paypal and bitcoin

might want to take a look at https://www.bmtmicro.com
they got contact on twitter and facebook, perhaps they can tell you if in fact they still provide the software

The purchase page on bmtmicro.com clearly says in red letters "This product is not available for purchase".

jasa1063 wrote on 2020-08-23, 16:17:

I just put together a K6-2 500 computer and wanted a utility like K6DOS.SYS to set up the CPU. I was able to modify the device driver in debug and bypass the prompts making the program work just like the registered version.

Good work ! But curious who is going to run a K6-2 500 in DOS, and this .SYS actually helps maximize the CPU power. I cannot think of any DOS games that need that much horsepower, let alone a maximized horsepower 😀

Doesn't Quake immensely profit from this ?

held wrote on 2020-08-24, 08:10:

Doesn't Quake immensely profit from this ?

Yes, games such as Quake and Duke Nukem 3D would be helped by this.

what CPU features does this specifically enable?

Probably just sets up some MTRRs or similar?

If I had a K62, I would definitely still try to buy it, if only for curiosity's sake. For 10$, if it ends up being a case of lights are on, but nobody's home, Paypal will likely reimburse . And if you get lucky, the system is automated and will send a license automatically by email .

At worse, it might cue the vendor to cleanup his purchase offerings or maybe motivate him to offer the product again .

Maybe I'm being wishfully naive .

my k62+ has never not booted up with its caches enabled and in 450. i use setmul in my autoexec.bat to go to 500. it has no impact on any memory managers I know off.

even if i disable l1+l2 an set speed to as low as possible (like 66 or 100) and reboot, it always comes back up with caches on at 450.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-08-24, 14:19:

what CPU features does this specifically enable?

As far as I can tell it sets up Write Allocation and Write Combining for the system memory. It should work on all K6 CPUs with the CTX core, but not K6+ CPUs.

Looking at the patch you made, aren't those values already set ?
I think you could break the routine at 377, but I'm no expert.

held wrote on 2020-08-26, 05:21:

Looking at the patch you made, aren't those values already set ?
I think you could break the routine at 377, but I'm no expert.

As far as I can tell, the changes only stop the device driver from waiting for keyboard input, which was built into the shareware version. The rest of the functionality should be intact.