Hi all whats the best bootdisk for 286 640k ram
i was using the dos 6.22 install startup disk but im having issues with ram
when the computer boots it sees the 640k ram in the bios but when i startup dos with the boot disk i only get 360k
just looking for the best boot disck that has some sort of ram management
thanks
Look over at bootdisk.com. It also has support for greater than 32meg HDDs and partitions.
Compaq MS Dos 3.31 is great.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
thanks thats where i got the dos 6.22 boot disk that does not seem to work but i think its because dos has to into ram that does not leave much left. cant wait to get the ide drive set up
do you know where i can get MS Dos 3.31 thats site does not have it
It was the first version I used on my 286/16 because I wanted to acces the full 40megs of the hard drive and not partition. Later I bought DRDos 6 and Geoworks Ensemble Pro 1.2 which is a very nice GUI that'll run well on your system. It runs just fine on my XT-Turbo 10Mhz system. Far better than Win 3.0 would. Don't bother with MS Windows 1.x or 2.x they are crap imho. 2.x was used more as a runtime environment for applications like Ventura Publisher than as a daily desktop GUI. Most used some sort of menu or batch files to quick launch their applications.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
vkcpolice wrote on 2021-06-06, 06:44:do you know where i can get MS Dos 3.31 thats site does not have it
You should be able to find images of it remember to put "Compaq" in when you do a search. It was a custom version of MS Dos 3.3 to support bigger disks/partitions.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Have you tried WinWorldPC? They probably have about every version of DOS you might happen to want.
Here's bit more about it https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/dos/c … ms-dos-331-1987
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
awesome thanks guys
Have fun dude.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Poor 286. 😢
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
Jo22 wrote on 2021-06-06, 15:59:Poor 286. 😢
Why, pray tell?
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-06, 20:06:Jo22 wrote on 2021-06-06, 15:59:Poor 286. 😢
Why, pray tell?
Maybe because it only has 640k ram ? Think the lowest on one of mine is 2Mb of dips (no sip or simm sockets), the others have 4Mb.
Just a guess....
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
Horun wrote on 2021-06-06, 20:32:Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-06, 20:06:Jo22 wrote on 2021-06-06, 15:59:Poor 286. 😢
Why, pray tell?
Maybe because it only has 640k ram ? Think the lowest on one of mine is 2Mb of dips (no sip or simm sockets), the others have 4Mb.
Just a guess....
Possibly. Who knows?. My fist 286/16 clone system only had 1meg of ram and did what it had to do untilI upgraded it to 4megs at nz$100 per meg back then. And it is certainly capable of doing what my XT-Turbo does. I even log in to one of my linux boxes over null modem cable , windowed, in the GeoWorks Terminal application on occasion. All with 640k of ram.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Why? 640K ought to be enough for anyone.
Being a 286 it's not like he's likely to be doing a whole lot that needs more, and DOS itself can't use much beyond that either. The only restrictions I can think of off the top of my head would basically be things that you'd really want a 386 for anyways.
FAMICOMASTER wrote on 2021-06-09, 03:25:Why? 640K ought to be enough for anyone.
I see what you did there.
It always breaks my heart when an AT PC is treated like a puny XT on sugar. 😢
- For the record: The 286 is more than a hippster version of an 8086. It's a real CPU with a complex die. *sigh*
Back in the 90s, a 286 PC had the potential as a multimedia machine - on eye level with faster 386/486 PCs.
In fact, the original MPC Level-1 spec was based on a 286, before it was changed to a 386SX.
On Windows 3.1, *for example*, you could run current versions of AutoCAD, AutoSketch on your 286.
You could do MIDI processing with Cubase, attach a modem and go online with AOL, WinCIM or Videotex services. In color with graphics!
A 286 could run Photoshop, Picture Publisher, Graphics Work Shop and many more graphics intensive applications.
You could even watch videos through, say, Video for Windows 1.0.
You could program in Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal for Windows, Delphi, DBFast for Windows, Fox Pro, use GUPTA SQL.
Anyway, each to his own. Perhaps it's just to me. Or maybe it's because of the country I live in, not sure. 😅
In my place, in the 90s, you could get current Windows software to work on a 286 even in the the late 90s.
Because many titles featured Windows 3.1 applications, still.
The 286 platform is (was) not about text-mode dungeon crawlers, annyoing PC speaker music or ugly 4-color CGA graphics for the giggles. 🙄
No. That's not what the daily life of a typical 286 PC user was. We were a bit more demanding. At least in the 90s.
The 286 platform rather is (was) comparable to the 386 platform tinstead of the 8086 platform.
It could be a serious workhorse that could run GUIs in color and high resolutions, but also run graphics adventures in 800x600 resolution.
Edit:
betaporter wrote on 2021-06-09, 03:32:FAMICOMASTER wrote on 2021-06-09, 03:25:Why? 640K ought to be enough for anyone.
I see what you did there.
Me, too. 😁
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
I agree, but unfortunately my souped up Turbo 286 decided to go out with a bang and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.
Thanks for your understanding.👍
I guess I exaggerated a bit, also.
It's just.. I was there in the 90s. And many CD-ROMs had written "MS-DOS 5 or higher, 286 or higher" written on the back.
Which was true and no typo.
Most current programs at the time did run on a 286 with VGA card.
Edit : Some CD-ROMs also said "MS-DOS 3.3 or higher"
I'm not saying that a 808x PC was unable to keep up with that.
If it had a NEC V20/V30 installed, it was half a 286 PC already.
If it was fitted with a VGA card and if its BIOS had enough of compatibility with the AT BIOS, it may had run several of the DOS programs, too.
Next issue would have been the F11/F12 keys missing from most of the XT PCs.
If the programs didn't need them or if the XT was able use an AT style keyboard, that was no issue.
It's just that it makes me sad that in certain forums, the 286 platform is treated as a Turbo XT.
Let's just have a look at vcfed.org, for example.
🙄
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
vcfed is not a go example and I have been a regular contributor there. In that very same category you mentioned. Have been fa member of vcfed for nearly two decades.Those guys know their shit and are very helpful if you have a problem on just about every computer platform you could imagine. Unlike some members here that would be laughed out of the vcfed within a month, that is being generous btw, if they post what they do here....
My XT-Turbo from 1987 has f11 and f12 keys on it's keyboard.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
