Any ideas? Pretty please? Windows 1.x/2.x had something like this way back in the 1980s.. It was called "Medic"..
There must be something similar for PC/GEOS, right? 😥

Does the StarWriter version of GeoWorks 2.0 retain the "Preferences" menu/utility? If so, check the serial port settings under Preferences > Computer. If a serial port has been detected for COM1, it should show an IRQ value, otherwise it will show "Off," and attempting to then set the IRQ value manually will result in an an error about the port not existing.

Cloudschatze wrote on 2022-11-01, 18:47:

Does the StarWriter version of GeoWorks 2.0 retain the "Preferences" menu/utility?

Hi! Thank you for response! 🙂

I'm afraid it doesn't have that.
All it has is a little pull-down menu. Maybe it used to have that on floppies, not sure.

I got the StarWriter without any extras, even had to wire my own transformer.
There's a battery department on the bottom for the Real Time Clock, also. Takes 3x AA.

There was a demonstration diskette once, at least;
the Pro 5000 is resetting if it can't boot from it.
Unless I skip the "Welcome Screen" manually because of this.
Anyway, the internal bare bone OS works.

The file manager can't access an internal "drive", however.
What's seen on the photo is the content of one of my DOS diskettes..

Edit: I've recorded some video clips years ago..
Maybe they're useful, not sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJfjqORA-E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvclU59d-mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjFqEzZ8aPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4L9Qg5Gph0

Couple of questions/thoughts...

As I'm not familar with X-DOS, does holding the left Shift key at boot bypass the processing of the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files?

What is the behavior when attempting to run/launch the built-in COMMAND.COM from GeoWorks?

What happens in response to issuing CTRL-ALT-DEL from within GeoWorks? With a full GW2.0 installation, this will exit to DOS. Does the StarWriter just kick you back to the Welcome screen instead?

Finally, I'm surprised to see that this system includes (and presumably uses?) EMU386S.EXE. Would you mind sharing this version?

Hi Cloudschatze, thanks for asking!

The floppy is just one of my old bootable diskettes.
I had it next to me in my floppy case and used it for testing the file manager.
Anyway, it has X-DOS stored, an ancient OS along with some other files.

The Canon Star Writer PC boots from internal ROM, which is a huge, weird chip.
Otherwise, I'd try to use my TL866 and try to make a backup.

The Disk Manager can only read from diskette, there's no way to see the internal files unfortunately.
Well, at least not without an external application.

More photos attached.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-06, 13:49:

More photos attached.

Where?

@Cloudschatze I've made a copy of the file, it's attached below.

bttr wrote on 2022-11-06, 19:28:

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-06, 13:49:

More photos attached.

Where?

Attachments temporarily unavailable

Update. Cloudschatze's idea with the Preferences application gave me an idea.

So I copied the "WORLD" folder of my GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0 to floppy.
The folder contains some of the GEOS programs, albeit not completely with all files.

Anyway, I got Tetris, Calculator and GeoCalc running already.
The Clock, GeoCom and Preferences applications failed to load.

But the latter two are merely missing extra files, so maybe this can be fixed..

And here are the other programs mentioned.
Interestingly, the complex GeoCalc (an Excel twin) runs just fine!

I've also made a quick video that shows how the file manager loads the icons one by one.

I'll add the link once my main PC has finished uploading to YouTube.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3GuyE8CkQw

Any ideas ?

- I've also copied serial.geo inside the WORLD folder, but GeoComm still can't find a serial driver.
Hm. Maybe that's because GEOS works different from Windows 3.x ?

On Windows 3.x, programs try to load DLLs, INIs etc. inside their directory first.
If that fails, they will check WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories.

Do I need the restore the GeoWorks directory structure on the floppy disk, maybe ?
If so, should I start at root and include the GEOS20 directory or should the GEOS20 directory itself be root ?

Edit: It's just a question, there's no hurry. If everyhting fails, I'll try writing my own GEOS program.
However, should I use the SDK, NewBasic or R-Basic for that purpose ?

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-06, 13:49:

The Disk Manager can only read from diskette, there's no way to see the internal files unfortunately.

Ah, gotcha. I'd completely misunderstood things, that being that case.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-08, 14:52:

The Clock, GeoCom and Preferences applications failed to load.

But the latter two are merely missing extra files, so maybe this can be fixed..

If you want to see if you can get some of these to run...

Solitaire requires the following:
..\world\soli.geo
..\system\geos.geo
..\system\ui.geo
..\system\cards.geo

GeoComm requires the following:
..\world\term.geo
..\system\geos.geo
..\system\ui.geo
..\system\text.geo
..\system\serial.geo

Preferences requires the following:
..\world\prefmgr.geo
..\system\geos.geo
..\system\ui.geo
..\system\spool.geo
..\system\text.geo
..\system\spell.geo
..\system\config.geo
..\system\serial.geo
..\system\parallel.geo

Thank you very much Cloudschatze!

I'll try this soon and write back to you.

Quick update. I had some free time to play around with the StarWriter.
For some reaons, it refuses to load the missing GEOS system files off the floppy.

I'll try to get the GEOS SDK up and running, maybe.
Maybe I can write a little utility which shows the BIOS data.
Or I could try talking directly to the 16450 FiFo that was used in 286 PCs.