Scandy wrote on 2020-10-10, 05:27:

Hello! after watching Phil's videos, I took a HP T5710 thinclient and installed the MS-DOS 6.22 (boot disk). It's fantastic! :D […]
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Hello!
after watching Phil's videos, I took a HP T5710 thinclient and installed the MS-DOS 6.22 (boot disk). It's fantastic! 😁

But:
1. Lands of Lore does not work due lack of conventional memory when I also run the sound card drivers (VIASBCFG and VIAFMTSR) ... what can I do?

2. Still Lands of Lore: I get a black screen after the intro. I remember reading somewhere that the reason is that the processor is too fast or not recognized as 386. Can I do something with slowdown software?

3. Using the MS-DOS starter pack, what's the best way to run the audio drivers (VIASBCFG and VIAFMTSR) on boot?

4. Can I change the default (preselected) starter pack option to step 4 (I don't have CD-ROM)?

5. I installed MS-DOS from boot disk and therefore I am missing several utilities like memmaker or keyb. Can I copy them directly from the three DOS floppies?

6. Does the USB stick have to be formatted as FAT or FAT32 to be recognized in DOS as D: \? Are other operations necessary? (two of my usb sticks don't work in this way)

Thank you very much!

Oh geez. Phil really "sold" some of those hardware fairly hard, didn't he. Okay, heres some probable answers - keep in mind that I have a similar Wyse WT9450XE (Via Epia/PLE133 based, only commonality is that VIA southbridge with the SB Pro "compatibility"...which really stretches that term).

1. The VIA FM TSR is massive (36k). In some cases you can try using umbpci to free up enough space for it.

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/umbpci_e.html

2. Try setmul or cpuspd- not sure if it'll work - the VIA FM TSR itself is fairly buggy. Even if it's not buggy, the FM support is CPU speed dependent (the sythesis is "hardware assisted" and does not run independently of the host system). If you clock the CPU down too far the audio will sound funny.

3. From what I remember, all you need is call viasbcfg in autoexec.bat as it sets up the hardware registers (so you don't need the VIA sound drivers in config.sys). However, you would need to load the VIA FM TSR if you need FM synthesis. I don't load it on my 9450 unless I need FM in certain games (but then I barely use my 9450 much these days).

4. Probably? Its a default option in the DOS menus Phil put together.

5. Eh, the smarter thing to do is go to WinWorld.com, download the DOS 6.22 installation floppy images, use VMWare Player and/or Virtualbox to do a virtual install onto a virtual HDD, and then mount/copy the files across. That way you can selectively copy over whatever you want.

6. For DOS? FAT12/16 is always the safer bet. Also, either format for less than 2GB or use a small, 2GB or less SD card/thumb drive if you want to be absolutely safe.

I am not familiar with that specific PC, but from my experience throttle has been a very good way to slow down a PC especially when computer has a VIA chipset. Still it is good to check if it supports the chipset your pc has http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/

I thank you very much for your feedback.
Meanwhile I have succeeded in points 3, 4 and 6:

3. I'm loading in high memory (LH) VIASBCFG and VIAFMTSR, I also had to manually set some SET BLASTER parameters to avoid conflicts.
4. I was able to preselect the option that interests me, reduce the countdown and comment/hide some options (prefixing a ";").
6. As described in Phil's video, the system automatically maps FAT32 formatted USB sticks as D: \, but of course this only happens if you install MS-DOS 7.1. It is very comfortable BTW.

I have to admit that I am very satisfied with this thin client.
It has low-power consumption, it's cheap, relatively small and very quiet (in other words it has a high WAF) and yet it's not emulation, with some undeniable comforts (USB above all).
Obviously the Radeon700M does not go well with several side scrolling games, but at worst there is always a PCI slot that I could perhaps connect my S3 Trio 64V+ to.
As for the audio: given the compactness and low cost of everything (I paid 16 euros ...) it's OK, and I surely will test the MT32-Pi via serial port for some improvement.

As for KEYB (to set the keyboard in my language) and memmaker, are there any alternatives beyond a full MS-DOS installation? Also will they work on MS-DOS 7.1 (Win98 boot disk)?
Thank you!