VOGONS


First post, by EcoPeeko

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First, a little background. I have a Compaq Presario 433. It's from before CD drives were a thing, and it doesn't have a Network Interface Card (only a modem). After struggling for weeks just trying to get files larger than 1.44MB onto the damn thing, I decided to buy a parallel port Compact Flash card reader off eBay. It seemed like the only potentially viable avenue left.

The one I got is a SanDisk ImageMate. It was only stated to be compatible with Windows 9x or NT. It also has a printer/keyboard pass-through, which is nice. I knew it was a risk since the Compaq is running MS DOS 6.22, but it was brand new for a decent asking price and the pickings on eBay were slim at the time. I was desperate and determined to make it work.

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Once it got here, me and another guy on Discord (hi Chris!) went to work. All the SanDisk drivers were indeed only usable on Windows 9x. But then we realized this isn't some proprietary SanDisk thing, it's a rebranded Shuttle device. So perhaps it would work with generic Shuttle-compatible drivers? We ended up finding like a dozen different drivers, and most were duds. They would load, and some would even cause the device to light up, but they wouldn't actually detect it. Finally, one called Power Disk actually worked. The card reader showed up as D:\ drive.

Next I had to FDISK and FORMAT the Compact Flash card so DOS could use it. It was a 1GB model. Someone else on a different thread said that their reader only worked up to 512MB, so I worried there might be an issue, but it turned out fine. The whole 990MB showed up.

This is where the mostly in the title comes in. There was a slight issue formatting it. FORMAT would work fine, but then right at the end it would say "Error Writing Directory. Format terminated." I tested the card by transferring a few small files and it seems to work alright still, but larger files cause DOS to say there isn't enough disk space when there definitely is. SCANDISK D: says "the MS-DOS Media Byte is missing." It said it could correct the errors, so I let it. Partway through, it says D: drive has been disconnected and hangs, despite me not touching anything. Not quite sure how to proceed there.

Also, the drivers don't work on a cold boot. They load but don't detect the card reader right away. Only after doing CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart do they detect it properly. Might be a driver thing, might be a bios thing, I dunno. It's a minor inconvenience at worst and something I'll only need to do when I actually intend to use the CF card.

Attached are the generic PowerDSK drivers that work in DOS 6.22, and an official SanDisk program we found that works only in Win 9x (sddr01).

The drivers this thing came with were on a CD and are too big for me to share here directly, so I've uploaded them to MEGA. I hope that's not breaking any rules. I wasn't sure how else to do it.

Although it's not perfect yet, I figure I've made enough progress to share it here. If I'm not mistaken, it was previously thought impossible to get a supposedly Windows-only parallel port CF reader working in DOS. So this is good step in the right direction if nothing else.

Edit: I should also mention, if you want to test the PowerDSK drivers only EPATHD and ASPIHDRM (both the .SYS and .EXE versions work) need to go in config.sys. In mine, EPATHD has /B and /FLASH after it, and ASPIHDRM has /S after it.

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  • Filename
    sddr01_2k_203.7z
    File size
    1.6 MiB
    Downloads
    95 downloads
    File license
    Public domain
  • Filename
    PowerDSK.7z
    File size
    74.72 KiB
    Downloads
    98 downloads
    File license
    Public domain

Reply 1 of 12, by lolo799

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It uses the same driver as the Datafab model.
You can directly load the driver from the .bat file, no need to add them into your config.sys.

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    Mdcfe-sr.zip
    File size
    1.22 MiB
    Downloads
    134 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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Reply 2 of 12, by my03

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Hi,

i just bought the ImageMate and have just installed the drivers that EcoPeeko provided here. It detects a new drive (as D:) and there seems to be no issues, but when i either try to format it (it says "the command FORMAT is not supported for device D:" or use FDISK (it can't create a partition on the CF) on my 512MB SanDisk card. Did you stumble across these problems at any point?

edit. found an old Canon 32MB card that actually seems to work so i guess it is very sensitive regarding the card itself.

Reply 3 of 12, by my03

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Hey, thanks EcoPeeko for that upload. It enabled me to actually scare some life into my lpt CF reader under msdos 6.22 now (on a few machines at least. My Toshiba T5200 did not really want to comply.... IBM L40sx below worked just fine)

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Last edited by my03 on 2020-11-12, 21:39. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 12, by morch

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Hello all, thought i'd add to this conversation, i recently came into possession of one of these sold by camera shop in the UK called Jessops. It is the one in the attachment

No drivers were available anywhere anymore, i gathered from a webarchive hunt they had the name JESDCRFRpurpleW95_98_2K_ME_NT4.zip but it wasn't archived at http://www.jessops.com/downloads/drivers/JESD … 8_2K_ME_NT4.zip

So i downloaded a few from here, and the Datafab ones worked fine and my 64mb cf card i made in my 200LX works in windows 98se on my Toshiba Satellite 4010CDS with this. A 1GB also works in 98se

I have tried it in dos by loading the drivers manually with load.bat, as well as EPATHD and ASPIHDRM and it says it loaded, but dos says there is an error and i need to abort, despite the fact fdisk can see the size of the disk and it works in windows 98 off this parallel adaptor, and on a pcmxia cf adaptor on HP 200LX on Dos 5.0 (and are fussy themselves)

could it just be that this isn't really a dos compatible parallel adaptor?

either way i love it still

edited since im back on my pc:
it looks REALLY similar the microtech one which on web archive has this page for downloads so i might have a look:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020601220204/htt … oads/index.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20020805152728/htt … /dlarchive.html
though this also suggests dos is out of the picture

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Reply 6 of 12, by my03

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morch wrote on 2021-05-01, 20:14:

could it just be that this isn't really a dos compatible parallel adaptor?

One thing i noticed (on my own reader) is that it seems to be very picky about what cards it wants to play nicely with. I basically had issues with 512mb and a 32mb one, but another 32mb card worked great. Could it be that you have the same issue and could try a couple of cards?

Reply 7 of 12, by Pierre32

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Cool to see more of these in action. I use a FilmReader model which uses its own drivers, and it's handy as heck for setting up DOS and 9x systems: Parallel Port Compact Flash card reader for very old PCs

So it looks like the Sandisk, Jessops and also the Sony that appears on page 2 of that thread all use these Datafab drivers?

lolo799 wrote on 2020-04-25, 19:26:

It uses the same driver as the Datafab model.
You can directly load the driver from the .bat file, no need to add them into your config.sys.

If so I'll get that uploaded to Vogons Drivers with the description covering those models, and do a separate entry for the FilmReader PIA2/PIC2 units.

Reply 8 of 12, by BitWrangler

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I have a vague memory of using one of these, back at turn of millennium when I still had a Win95 machine and was intensely suspicious of anything USB. Was probably only using a tiny card too, like a 16MB maybe even a 4MB... which makes me wonder if they worked with much bigger than 32 or 64 out of the box, because any kind of flash was hella expensive then and didn't come much bigger for another couple of years. (Dimly remember 64MB cards coming out and everybody who had a 40MB drive in their 2/386 being amazed) Can't exactly recall why I had it, maybe came with my 320LX.. Got a deal on that off an upgrading yuppie type when palm was hot. I've got a feeling that even under windows I found it such a pig for data transfer that I stuck to serial cable syncing. Not sure I fought with it in DOS. Anyway, mentally bookmarking this thread in case I come across drivers or hardware that lends any insight.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 9 of 12, by matze79

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What’s inside of lpt cf card reader ?
I guess it could not be too complicated ?
To they work with Bidirektional Ports only ? Or also SPP?

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
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Reply 10 of 12, by morch

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an update many years later!

so since then i realised i was missing something with the Jessops one - if i actually formatted one of my 32MB cards inside dos are running load.bat from Mdcfe-sr.zip - it works !

a happy resolution - i now can transfer files to and from all my old dos machines including my 200lx, toshiba satellite 4010cdt (recently found the tft CDT version, not the CDS which hurt my eyes) and my proper PC or pi or amiga!

Reply 11 of 12, by RonA

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morch,
Congrats on getting this to work in DOS. Would you share some specifics?
DOS 6.x ?? (I've head this will not work with DOS 3.x but may work with DOS 5.x)
compact flash card - brand of 32MB card? (again heard that some specific brands work better than others)
Did you make any changes to the standard load.bat:
EPATHD /FLASH /B
ASPIHDRM /S

Thanks, Ron

Reply 12 of 12, by wierd_w

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I am reminded of several "LPT to IDE" solutions in the early to mid 90s.

There was the Paradisk, for instance, that did this (and has DOS realmode drivers)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230604062226/ht … e-printer-port/

the one we had at work (that mom&pop back in the day) was called "Mobiledisk", but I cant seem to find anything on it when searching.

Another product that was available (and hard to find now) was the Backpack HDD. (far more common, was the backpack cdrom.) It too was just an IDE->LPT interface enclosure, with DOS capable drivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTt7y8D_gK0

Seeing as the LPT port is really just a rather slow 8bit wide interface that is agnostic of what you are twiddling on it, a generic adapter and driver could well be doable today with not a great deal of cost for components. (Hell, a stright through cable might be doable for 8bit IDE mode, but don't quote me on that.)

But there are / were quite a few such offerings available back then, as I recall.