MS DOS Emulation

[Hodgkinson]

Hi there,
Im wondering (If it is possible) what would be the best emulator program to emulate MS-DOS on a A1200 with a basic 68020 and 4MB total RAM? Am I asking too much of the A1200 here?

One requirement for some of the software that I have is that the MS-DOS programs must be able (In some cases) to access the serial/parallel ports for interfacing to other devices, as some of the software that I have is control programs for other electronic devices.

Any advice appreciated,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Hi there everyone,
Thanks for all your replies.

Just to clarify things, the reason I’m looking to run dos on the A1200 is because the A1200 is my "shack" computer (See my photos, a HDD and network have been added since that photo was taken) and I really don’t want to have yet another computer filling up my precious bench space. Having said that, I have got an old PC somewhere that would be more than capable of running DOS.

It seems that I already have PC Task v3.1 (The Full version, as on CUCD 17), and I have MS-DOS, albeit v6.21.

Since V6.21 is on HD disks, any suggestions (Before I start installing PC Task) of how to load up DOS? I presume that once PC Task is running it requests a bootable disk?
Being able to load MS-DOS from a HDD partition (Transfer it over the network from a PC first) would also be useful.

One other thing...What exactly is PC-Task (Specifically v3.1) capable of? Is it just text only, or can it do sound? Basic graphics? How about drive and serial / parallel port access?

Thanks,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Hi there again,
Well, I've managed to find PC-Task v3.1 on a cover disk that I have (Totally legit, btw)...But that brings me to another problem.

I dont suppose anyone out there has a electronic version of the PC-Task 3.1 documentation/manual, as supplied normally with the software?

Another point, I see from what documentation that I have that the turbo modes allocate 8MB+ of ram or somthing, so would a 8MB RAM expansion + normal system ram just scrape through here? Or isn't it really sufficient?

Thanks,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

68k Amiga running PC Emulator-Running Amiga Emulator-Running PC Emulator-Running Amiga Emulator-Running PC Emulator...
Why's my system slooooooow? :-?

lololol :idea:

Sorry, it had to be said.
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Thanks for the information!

Since I have just bought a 68882, found that I have a licenced version of PCx in a pile of floppies, and that you suggested that PCx might be better with the port access, does anyone know where I can get the PCx AmigaGuide documentation from, as mentioned on the Floppy disk readme?
Did PCx ever go above V1.1 (01/12/97) and fix PCxAFS? - If so does anyone know where I can get updates from?

Thanks,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

bump

[Hodgkinson]

Thanks for the docs and info!

Hodgkinson.

EDIT summary:
Did PCx ever go above V1.1? Was PCxAFS ever fixed? How about updates...
Im trying to get as much info as I can before I start installing stuff...

[Hodgkinson]

From what I can tell, PCxAFS is a part of PCx that allows MSDOS (Or whatever it is that your trying to run) to see the Amiga partitions/files and allows the Amiga to see the MSDOS partitions/files. It should allow read/write access, but in the version of PCx that I have the PCxAFS has been limited to showing the contents of directories since file access causes problems or somthing.
I was hoping that this might of been fixed by now since I was hoping to be able to use the networking that is set up on the A1200 (AmiTCP, 3C589 3COM card, SMBFS) to try out DOS programs downloaded from the Web (on another machiene) without having to faff around with 720K formatted DD disks.

Regards,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Hmmm. Somewhere I read (Don’t know if this is PCx or PCTask, or even something completely different) that having the hardfile being used at the same time on both the PC Emulation and the Amiga side results in errors if the content of the hardfile is changed due to the cache on one side no longer showing the real contents of the hardfile.

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Just to update the thread (I've been ofline for a while...) i've managed to finially get DOS6.22 from the 3x 1.44MB floppy disk set onto my A1200 with PCx.
The main two things that I had to do was to install DOS from the floppies onto a old blank PC and gradually copy the system off of the old PC onto my work PC via floppies (Yawn...) to create a usable "System" that can be transferred straight over my network and into the hardfile on the amiga; and the other thing is that I had to make a bootable 720K floppy from the DOS 6.22 system on the PC in order to allow me to do all the usual fdisk...format...then importantly use SYS C: to make the partition in PCx bootable (Then copied all the above mentioned DOS system files into the partition) and yey, it works! Also got the mouse to work using some DOS bus mouse driver from driverguide (Never thought i'd be using stuff from driverguide on a amiga...).

Unfortunatly, the serial port doesn't seem to be working correctly with PCx and a communications program I am looking to use within PCx, so i'll have to give PCTask a try one day.

Hodgkinson.