VOGONS


First post, by wildweasel

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It's been a while since I last fiddled with a proper autoexec/config setup on a real DOS machine. So when I dug out my 486 - an IBM Aptiva 330 with some pretty major internal mods, not the least of which was a Roland MT-32 - I was eager to try some of my games on it to relive those old memories of System Shock.

Except evidently, the last time I used this machine, I had disabled the CD-ROM support, and I wasn't smart enough to just REM out the MSCDEX stuff. Starting the MSCDEX essentially from scratch, this is what I came up with:

[AUTOEXEC.BAT]
@ECHO OFF
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS;C:\
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
c:\dos\mouse
REM c:\dos\share.exe /l:500 /f:5100
c:\dos\doskey
REM LH c:\dos\mscdex.exe /V /L:D /D:MSCD0001
REM LH c:\dos\mscdex.exe /E /V /L:D /D:MSCD0001
c:\dos\mscdex.exe /V /L:D /D:MSCD0001

[CONFIG.SYS]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
rem device=C:\dos\emm386.exe highscan noems I=e000-f4ff x=f500-feff
device=C:\dos\emm386.exe highscan I=e000-f4ff x=f500-feff
device=c:\dos\ramboost.exe load
REM LASTDRIVE=G
LASTDRIVE=D
dos=high
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=50
FCBS=4,0
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS /P /E:512
STACKS=9,256
DEVICE=C:\DOS\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD001
rem DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
rem DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS

Yes, I know they're messy. Especially Autoexec: I've got three different MSCDEX strings up there, from previous failed attempts at getting it working (I just REM'ed them out at the moment).

Now, in theory, this should be working - I followed this basic guide to kind of get a feel for what I was doing again - but upon booting, the system spits this out at me:

ATAPI IDE CD-ROM device driver version V 0.01 (04/13/1994) 1 drive(s) detected unit 1, MASTER, IRQ 15, I/O address 0x0170 [...mo […]
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ATAPI IDE CD-ROM device driver version V 0.01 (04/13/1994)
1 drive(s) detected
unit 1, MASTER, IRQ 15, I/O address 0x0170
[...mouse driver stuff...]
Device driver not found: 'MSCD0001'.
No valid CDROM device drivers selected

Now, somehow I'm gathering from this that I can't just call the CDROM device anything I want (i.e. I'm supposed to put some specific thing into autoexec/config other than MSCD0001). This machine does have Windows 3.11 installed on it, if that's of any consequence.

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Reply 1 of 4, by jthieme

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The device name in the MSCDEX needs to match the device name specified by the CD Driver in config.sys. i.e.

This:
c:\dos\mscdex.exe /V /L:D /D:MSCD0001

Needs to match this:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD001

Looks like you just have an extra 0

Reply 4 of 4, by wildweasel

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Yep, it's an alright system, seems like the only real problem with it so far is that it doesn't have quite enough memory (4 MB but a lot of it is taken up on bootup making things run slow or not at all...). I might have to see if I have any old RAM lying around.

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