Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/textinfo/dos40doc.arj/COMMENT.TXT

Text File | 1988-09-05 | 6.7 KB | 117 lines

NOTE TO ALL READERS: THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE SOLELY OF THE
AUTHOR THOMAS M. EATON. NO INTENTION OF ENDORSEMENT OF ANY IBM PRODUCT
IS INTENDED.

THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO THE DOCUMENT CONTAINED IN DOS4EVAL.ARC; IT IS
RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DOWNLOAD THAT ARCHIVE IN ADDITION TO THIS ONE FOR
COMPARISION PURPOSES.

This document was created as a response to the file contained in the
archive DOS4EVAL.ARC. It is intended to give another "side" of the
coin to those of you that are considering purchasing the new release
of DOS (4.0), OS2 or just chugging along with what you have. I felt
many of the items described by the author (whose remains unknown to
me) were caused simply by his/her lack of understanding of DOS based
products...the author did state that they worked in a computer store
which bothers me simply because if a computer store worker cannot
understand the manuals provided, that person will pass along that
"mis-information" to their customers. The author did bring up many
good points and I won't rehash them here. I just wish to respond to
those I feel need clarification.

1.)     First about the author's "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!"; DOS is not
creating any damage to the system by adding any mysterious files to
the root directory. As stated in the Getting started w/DOS 4.00 manual
on page 111...this is caused by the /SWAP command which can be turned
off or on by modifying the DOSSHELL.BAT file.

2.)    The author complains of the lack of explanation of the new and
enhanced DOS commands in the basic DOS user manual and the need to
purchase the DOS 4.00 Command reference. I personally installed DOS on
both PS2 machines and a 286 clone using the menu driven startup
without having to reformat drives (still recommend making a backup)
and doing it to diskette (3.5) with no problems at all (these all have
since been reinstalled with the earlier version of DOS since).
In addition, since I purchased a 3.5 version for later usage I was
froced to install the system on my PC without the Aid of the startup
program and just using the basic manuals provided. Although the
additional Command reference manual would be helpful, the basic user
manula is more than adequate to get the system up, running and
operational. Personally my hats off to IBM for coming up with an
installation program that makes use of simplistic commands and prompts
to help a "novice" get there system up and running without the need of
a power user standing over their shoulder.

3.) The author talks about the inability of getting DOS up on a
network file server...the manula describes in detail things needed for
the particular use of 4.0 on a network and although I have not
attempted this type of installation, it probably caused problems due
to a lack of taking these documented special considerations into the
startup process.4.)    The author talks of numerous problems trying to insatll onto an
"no-name" XT-clone...first the author tried to format the hard drive
using the 4.0 format /s command after booting from DOS 3.3...of course
that wouldn't work. You can't reformat using 3.3 format.com after
booting from 3.2 either. What needed to be done was to get a floppy
disk that contained the "system files" for 4.0, 4.0 command.com and
the 4.0 format.com...boot from the floppy and then reformat the drive
using 4.0 after booting 4.0 DOS. The problems encountered prior to
trying to do this probably came from the "clones" ROM or possibly the
need for the configuration of the system with mixed floppies...the
startup program checks all drives connected before actually begining
the installation process, there may have been a conflict but it is
unknown what it actually may have been since the author did not state
which drive (3.5 or 5.25) was the A: drive.
    Next the author, after reformatting and installing the new files
into a \DOS directory restoring all the old files back, the system was
booted with the old CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT files which probably
had a path to the old (3.3) DOS files and each time a call was made
DOS would go thru the path to the old files vs. new ones. Once again
not really sure since the author didn't provide sufficient details.
Also because of many enhancements documented in the basic manuls
commands in the CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT files need to be modified
for those enhancements to work properly (not that difficult though).
 Also with this same system the author talked about numerous drive
assignment problems with the mixing of drives and the inability of the
parameters set up in DOS 3.3 CONFIG.SYS to work properly. Once again,
no need to call IBM was required, the manuals (page 81) document an
almost identical setup in the manuals and give as their example the
necessary information of parameter switches to get it all up and
running. After coreectly configuring the 3.5 drive in config.sys the
actual format command now required to format a 720k disk in it is
easier than in earlier versions since all you need to tell DOS is the
capacity of the disk instead of the # of tracks, sectors...so forth.


IN CONCLUSION:

Not to seem blunt but it seems the author of DOS4EVAL.ARC falls it the
category of many computer users that "do" before they "read". This I'm
not really sure of though since I don't know all the details of the
story. It just seems that all the problems described are documented in
the basic manuals and could be overcome with a little work...my system
for which I currently have DOS 4.0 installed was done manually without
the aid of the DOS startup program (due to 3.5 disks vs 5.25 drives)
in about 1.5 hours (includes reformat and complete restoration of
files) using just the manuals provided and the prior experiance
described earlier. I personally would recommended this enhancement to
all that consider it...the improvements made are a long time coming.
Although there will be bugs that crop up (there always is) this
program will excite both the casual user and everday computer jock.
This will most likely keep DOS alive for a long time even though it still
only runs 1 program at a time but for the cost of a expanded memory
board and a software multitasker; a user can get as much bang for
thier buck out of their old PC/XT/AT as they can for a 7,000 speed
demon.

I would gladly discuss this with anyone who might have a question or
comment by contacting me through the MiniNet BBS at [phone] or
the Golden Springs BBS at [phone].

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and hopefully will be of
use to someone.
               Thomass M. Eaton

[Note:  Comments regarding this can be directed to the author
via RBBS-PC of Chicago, [phone] (290M, 6,000+ files on-line)]