Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/textinfo/dos4eval.arj/DOS4EVAL.TXT

Text File | 1988-09-03 | 12.7 KB | 270 lines

             AN EVALUATION OF PC-DOS 4.0 OR:

          "IT'S A GREAT IMPROVEMENT --- IF YOU CAN INSTALL IT!"


GENERAL

     As you may, or may not, know, IBM has recently released PC-DOS 4.0.

     Since they took a "giant step" by jumping from "3.3" to "4.0" you can
safely assume that there are some major changes in this new version of DOS.

     22 of the "old" DOS commands have been "enhanced" and/or "improved",
while 6 new commands/features have been added --- the most impressive and
usefull of which is "DOSSHELL", a "Windows" type file management environment
with a few "extras" that resemble some of the "Norton Utilities".

     One of the other major changes involves an installation program that
is a "menu driven" selection procedure that is supposed to allow you to easily
replace an older version of DOS on a hard disk without disturbing any other
files on the disk.  (What I mean is that it has (?) the capability of loading
the new system files on a hard disk without performing a "format /s".)


DOSSHELL DESCRIPTION

     If you are able to successfully perform the installation utilizing the
"Install" and "Select" features of DOS 4.0, immediately upon booting up you
are taken into the DOSSHELL environment.

     What you see on the screen is a typical "Windows" or (dare I say it)
Macintosh screen with "pull down menus" on the top and some initial options
on the left of the screen.

     Those initial options consist of "mouse" or "cursor key" selectable
choices which include the ability to return back to the standard DOS prompt,
a file management option, and a DOS utilities option.

     While the DOS utilities option is "nice", offering menu-driven prompts
for performing such tasks as "format", "copy" etc., the "fun" and real
"working tool" exists in the file management option.

     Upon selecting that option you are taken to a similar looking screen with
one major exception --- while the upper pull-down menu section remains similar,
the balance of the screen becomes split down the middle, with a complete "tree"
directory of the drive you're in on the left (showing all subdirectorys
including subdirectories within subdirectories), while the right half of the
screen displays all of the files within the root directory.

     If you highlight and select any of the subdirectories, the right half of
the screen now shows all the files within that subdirectory.

     You can then highlight and select ("enter" or "double click") any ".exe"
or ".com" file on the right.  You will be asked if there are any "options"
you want to include when the selected program is "run" and then DOSSHELL will
start the program.

     Upon exiting that program you will be returned to the DOSSHELL screen.

     Although there are tons of other nifty features, such as the ability to
split your screen horizontally and look at the files within two different
subdirectories at once, or being able to view, move, delete, and rename any
selected file(s), I would essentially have to include most of the DOS manual
(AND MORE!) to describe all of the other features and how they operate.

     Before I get to the real purpose of this "evaluation", which is to warn
you of the difficulties I experienced in trying to load 4.0 on three different
machines, let me explain the "AND MORE!" comment above.

     I find it hard to believe, but the manual that accompanies PC-DOS 4.0
does not give you a full description of the use of the DOS commands.  Such
"minor" items like parameters and options that are needed to utilize the
features and commands are left out of the manual.  If you want that info,
you are told you must purchase an additional book called "Using DOS 4.0
Commands" (or something like that)!

     Oh, and don't kid yourself, the command parameters used in prior versions
of DOS don't work with the new version --- at least in all of the attempts I
made to "guess" the correct formats.  (Since I work for an IBM dealer, I was
able to call them on our dealer support line and get some of the parameters
without buying the book.  In that regard, though, their own people had some
difficulty in figuring out the correct command formats.)


PC-DOS 4.0 INSTALLATION EXPERIENCES

System "A": Brand new IBM System 2/ Model 50Z

     It worked like a "champ".  Everything installed just fine without any
"hitches".


System "B": An IBM Model 80 w/ DOS 3.3 and other programs on the hard disk.

     Just like it said it would, it installed 4.0, removed 3.3, and left
everything else intact!


System "C": An old Epson "Equity I" (non turbo) clone with 3.3 and other files.

     The installation procedure "hung up" and would not allow me to proceed on
two occassions.  On the third try, it made it all the way through and now seems
to be working fine.


System "D": A newer Epson "Equity II+" utilized as a file server on a network.

     While the installation seemed to work fine, upon rebooting as directed by
that procedure, it was found that the keyboard was now totally inoperable.
We eventually had to re-install DOS 3.3 to get our network up and running.


System "E": My "no-name" turbo XT clone with DOS 3.3, a 5 1/4 360K drive,
            a 3 1/2 720K drive, and a 30MB Seagate ST-238 partitioned into
            drives C through F.

     This one was really a "trip"!

     Immediately upon booting up from the PC-DOS 4.0 "Install" disk, was
prompted, as usuall, to insert the "Select" disk and hit a key.

     The "big blue" logo and some text telling me that I was about to install
DOS 4.0 appeared on my screen, and I was told to hit "Esc" to cancel the
installation or to hit "Enter" to continue.

     I tried hitting every key on the keyboard, starting with "Enter" and
"Esc", but nuttin did nuttin!  (I retried the procedure about 5 times with
no change.)

     Then, upon noticing that the "Install" disk seemed to be "polling" my
hard disk for some information at the begining of the procedure, I thought
that the complexity of my "config.sys" and "autoexec.bat" may be causing it
some problems.  I removed both of those files and tried again.  No change!!

     OK, fine, let's boot up on DOS 3.3 then use the "Format /s" command on
one of the disks from 4.0 to reformat drive C: under DOS 4.0 --- wrong!

     "Incorrect Version of DOS" is what it told me!

     I gave up and went back to work.

     While there it dawned on me that if I could get one of the DOS 4.0
"capable" machines to do a "floppy disk installation" of 4.0, I may be able
to use that to boot from and to successfully do the DOS 4.0 re-format of drive
C:!

     To my amazement, it worked!

     I then created a \DOS subdirectory and copied all the files from all 5
original DOS 4.0 disks into that directory.  I then tried to re-boot.

     Now I got a pile of "Incorrect Version of DOS" and "Bad Command or File
Name" messages during initiallization.  I correctly assumed that these were
being generated by my "config.sys" and "autoexec.bat" that I'd re-installed.

     Thank goodness, DOS 4.0 created a "config.400" and "autoexec.400" file
on one of the Hard Disk based machines at work --- done during the installation
on those machines.  I printed those and got some "hints" regarding some of the
new commands and parameters that DOS 4.0 wanted to see in config.sys and
autoexec.bat.  There were also a couple of "sample" versions of those files in
the DOS 4.0 installation manual.

     So, after more "edlins" than you can imagine, and a call to IBM support,
I was finally able to boot-up and enter DOSSHELL without any problems.

     But now I had another problem.  Upon selecting drive F: in the file
management area, I was told that DOS 4.0 could not read the directory of that
drive, nor any of the files within it!

     I then tried "Norton Utilities" to see what the problem was.  It, too,
told me it couldn't read anything in drive F:!

     After trying numerous "tricks", I was finally forced to re-format drive
F: and re-install all of the programs on that drive.

     Finally, DOS 4.0 recognized and worked on that drive --- "Norton" still
wouldn't work though.

     Next, I tried to format a 3 1/2" 720K disk on what was now my B: drive.

     Wrong.  DOS 4.0 didn't recognize the device driver I had to install under
DOS 3.3 to tell it that it was a 720K drive and, since I had to remove it from
my config.sys, it insisted on it being only a 360K drive.

     Since IBM was "nice enough" to supply some of the parameters of the Format
command, I then tried including the correct drive capacity in my Format command.
     "Invalid Format Command", or something like that appeared, basically
telling me that you can't format at 720K on a drive that DOS 4.0 was sure was
only a 360K drive!

     That finally necessitated the last call to IBM, asking them for the
missing device driver parameters that were necessary for me to indicate the
correct configuration of that drive in my config.sys file.

     Thank god there was another "support engineer" sitting next to the one I
was talking to who overheard our conversation.  The fella I was talking to
told me that "I'm sorry, DOS 4.0 won't recognize that drive as anything but
a 360K and there are no parameters available to change that", when he was
interrupted by the guy next to him.  He then passed on the correct parameters.

     In case you need them: "DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /D1 /S:9 /T:80 /H:2"

     Although that now makes my B: drive my G: drive, it was that way with
DOS 3.3 too.  You may also notice why the old DOS 3.3 parameters didn't work.
Previous versions of DOS specified "sectors" using "/N:x" and, from what I can
remember, used "/S:x" to designate the amount of sides (it now uses "/H:x" to
indicate "heads" instead of sides).  So, using the old DOS parameters I ended
up telling DOS that my disk had 9 sides!  No wonder it didn't work!

     So, everything works fine now except for one thing:

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

     Something in my system, possibly PC-DOS 4.0, is generating 31K long files
in the root directory of my drive C:.  They are all the same size and the
prefixes and suffixes are all an assortment of numbers.  I seem to end up
deleting 4 or 5 of these every other day.  I'm in the process of keeping a log
of programs and commands I use, including the time of day I use them, to try to
discover what is creating them.  I can tell you one thing, "FLUSHOT3" isn't
spotting anything unusual.


CONCLUSION

     PC-DOS 4.0 is a definite and worthwhile improvement over previous versions
of DOS, enough so that I'm sure there will be people unable to wait for
Microsoft's version of MS-DOS 4.0 which probably won't be as tough to install
in clones.

     Although I was not personally involved in the one total failure to install
and use DOS 4.0 in the file server I mentioned previously, and was able to
successfully install it in all of my attempts, the expertise of the person
involved in that installation leads me to believe that there may be some cases
where installation of PC-DOS 4.0 may be impossible in some clones.

     After a thorough discussion of all of these cases with some engineers and
fellow "hackers" at work, we are all in agreement that the problem seems to
reside in the ROM BIOS versions.

     I also suggest that if you intend to purchase PC-DOS 4.0, you either buy
the "Using PC-DOS 4.0 Commands" manual, or make sure the dealer has that manual
and is willing to support your effort at installation.  Keep in mind that, if
the dealer has not attempted installing 4.0 on "clones", nor has read the manual
to find out that such an additional book exists and is necessary, he may not
have any idea of what you are talking about!


FINAL NOTE TO ANY IBM PERSONNEL THAT MAY READ THIS

     You are correct in assuming that we didn't open up a new package of
PC-DOS 4.0 for every machine we tried installing it in.

     Unlike previous versions of all of your software, including DOS, you did
not include a "Dealer Evaluation" copy of DOS 4.0 with our order.

     Therefor, we were forced to "purchase" a copy for that purpose and the
instances included in this text describe our efforts to be able to support
those customers who purchase your product.

     After the two successful installation attempts at installing the 5 1/4"
version, one of the systems was "downgraded" back to 3.3.

     The installation on our Model 80 demo machine required the "purchase" of
the 3 1/2" version.  As is our practice, all demo machines have their hard
disk re-formatted if they are sold, and only software purchased by that
customer is installed on the disk prior to delivery.

     No copyright infringements occured or exist.