| Kevin G. Rhoads 2004-10-20, 4:06 pm |
| >The fundamental problem is that XP does not have DOS. The "dos box" is a
>DOS EMULATOR which does not support extended memory managers such as
>Phar-Lap.
This is not quite true. There is no real DOS, true. The emulator does
support Phar-Lap's TNT-DOS extender. It just doesn't support *some*
older versions of that emulator. SO the Phar-Lap extender that comes
with FPS1 doesn't run under NT/XP, neither the version for the tools
nor the version for the generated EXEs, but you can run both FPS1 tools
and the EXEs it creates under NT/XP with a later version of the PharLap
extender -- I got two different later versions on eBay and it works fine
with both. You can even REBIND the generated EXEs with a later version
of the PharLap 386DOS or TNT-DOS extender. The same is true of MASM
6.11 variants and such -- and VC++ 1.x -- all use versions of the
PharLap 386DOS/TNT-DOS extender, and all can be run under NT/XP with
some zero to some finite amount of fussing. You can also run MASM 6.12
and later under pure DOS using the TNT-DOS extender (I have only tried
a few versions, not an exhaustive list).
The trouble is PharLap's restrictive license policies which disallow
redistribution unless you pay a per copy fee.
Of course, if you really need DOS with XP, you get a partition refrunger,
convert the NTFS partitions to FAT32, and use Win98 DOS boot disks.
THat is how I have this machine here at work set up. A few small
FAT16 partitions, for when I need DOS 6.x; and two FAT32 partitions,
one hosting Win98 and acting as the backup for the other FAT32 partition
which hosts WinXP Pro. Under XP I can "see" all the partitions at once.
Under Win98 (or its DOS) I can see either FAT32 (but not both) and all
the FAT16 partitions. Under true DOS 6.x (0r earlier) I see the FAT16
partitions only.
DOS is useful to read single-sided floppies and to format floppies. XP
is hopeless at floppy formatting and won't "see" single sided formats.
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