Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> Sindi Keesan wrote:
> >
> > We tested out the new make_fd.zip
> > 
> > 1.  It does not work when you put in a 720K floppy disk 
> 
> Duh. 
> 
> > - did you specify for #1 a 100% good 1.44M floppy disk?  
> 
> Booting Basic Linux from floppies                                           
>    
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                           
>    
> You need two 1.44mb floppy disks.  
> Delete all files from the floppies.         
> 
> > Once you have tried to use a 720K with a disk image twice 
> > the size, there may be no way to repair the disk.
> 
> Why not?  Just fdimage a good image (designed for 720mb).
> 
> > Is there some way for the program to check disk size?
> 
> Is there some way to check that the user has read the
> instructions?
> 
> > 2.  It does not work when there are files on disk #2.  
> 
> See above.


I am the sort who reads instructions.  Jim is dyslexic so he does 
everything else other than read instructions as they are hard to read.  I 
like Sheldon's little modifications to your make-fd.bat file which check 
whether the user actually followed the instructions.  You yourself pointed 
out that users could not even copy himem.sys.

I pointed out what we did wrong not to show how dumb one particular user 
was, but to show what dumb mistakes a user in general can make after not 
reading (or remembering, or understand) the instructions.  

> 
> > Jim suggests adding something to check for this 
> 
> To check whether the user has followed the instructions? 

Yes.  People who are good at instructions could teach themselves linux 
from a book, without needing to use basiclinux.  
 
> I don't think so.  If the user can't understand (or can't 
> be bothered reading) those very simple instructions, then 
> he's on his own.   
> 
> > 3.  It still gives 'Divide overflow'.
> > 
> > This has something to do with vdisk from PCDOS 3.3, which 
> > does not work predictably with newer computers, 
> 
> That's a pity.
> 
> > he used xmsdsk (?) and this needed himem.sys and with these 
> > from DRDOS he put together something similar that works and 
> > we will post this somewhere 
> 
> Probably too big.  I don't want to increase the size of
> make_fd.zip much more than its present size.  DOS 3.3 and
> vimage were relatively small.  Once you move to a more
> up-to-date DOS with HIMEM.SYS, the size nearly doubles.
> That's too much overhead for something most people never
> use.

How about posting an alternate (larger) version of make_fd.zip for people 
that cannot use the current version because it gives a divide overflow?  
If you don't want to post it, we can offer something to James that does 
work for us and does not require making your own DOS boot disk.  But 
people who are new to this might give up before finding that version.

> 
> I'll have to reconsider the whole make_fd method.  I wish
> somebody had told me a year ago that DOS 3.3 doesn't work
> reliably on newer computers.  Since all of my computers 
> were made in the 1990's (and DOS 3.3 works fine on all of 
> them) there is no way I could have know this.  

Our computers are also 1990s, but it does not work on three of them made 
since 1994 or 1995.  Two of them are PI.  Your system worked on other 
people's computers which are newer than ours.  

> 
> It's just as well I am targetting BL3 at 386/486/P1 systems 
> -- apparently I can't rely on my stuff working on anything
> much later than that.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
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