|
Installing DOS onto the
|
First, let me point out that there really is little difference between the two main flavours of DOS - MS-DOS and PC-DOS - and that there are other DOS versions available - Caldera's OpenDOS, and 4-DOS, spring to mind. My instructions here revolve around PC-DOS, as that's what I have access to, and it's a personal preference. They should broadly apply to the other DOS versions, but you may hit small syntax differences.
Also, I'm using a version of DOS which comes with power management support, PCMCIA drivers, disk compression, disk caching, and many other things. If you are using earlier versions of DOS, you may find that some of these features are only available as add-ons to what you have. My advice is to use any version of PC-DOS or MS-DOS of version 6 or later, and you should get most, if not all, of these features.
DOS installations are crude - you will find yourself editing CONFIG.SYS files and rebooting many times before you're happy with the end result. Drivers and programs will have obscure, maybe even undocumented, command line switches. Consistency is virtually non-existent in the DOS world. There's no substitute for experience...
Remember that most DOS programs should give you some form of help. Run the program with no command line arguments, or with specific arguments such as /?, -?, HELP, and you should be able to coax some syntax information out of it. Also, some versions of DOS have an on-line command reference, maybe in the form of a HELP comand.
Remember that one of the diskettes supplied with the PC110 will boot to DOS/V and has a menu that allows you to rebuild the 4MB flash drive. The bad news is, it's all in Japanese. However, you can see what I can make of the content of this and the other PC110 diskettes in What's on the diskettes?
Back to the index