72 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
72 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
MiniSport Laptop Hacker - Vol 2
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Remember to send me any hacker tips, resources, addresses, etc that you
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have so I can include them in subsequent MLH volumes. One correction from
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Volume 1 has been pointed out to me. The MiniSport is an IBM/XT compati-
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ble, not an IBM/PC compatible
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I. MAXIMIZING BOOTUP CONVENIENCE AND MINIMIZING BOOTUP DISK SPACE
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The bootup sequence on this computer is a little different than you're
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probably used to. Most MS-DOS computers will boot up on hard drive C:,
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looking for the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files in the C: root directory.
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If the CONFIG.SYS isn't there, nothing special happens. If the
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AUTOEXEC.BAT isn't there, you will be prompted for a time and date entry.
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The first, biggest difference on the MiniSport, is that you can choose your
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boot device. Normal MSDOS always tries the first floppy, then goes to hard
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disk. With the MiniSport, you can choose to boot from 2" floppy disk, the
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internal ROM disk C:, the external floppy disk plugged in the back, or ROM
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disk D:. Lots of choices!
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The least used is probably booting from an external drive. I know where
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they are available for about $125, but this price is higher than the street
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price of the entire computer, so not many people have them. Booting from
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the built in 2" disk is similar, and more economical, since these disks are
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available for $4-$6 each. With either selection, the disk must be format-
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ted and prepared with the MSDOS SYS.COM utility.
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Booting from RAM disk D: gives you some flexibility. You can create and
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store CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files in the root directory of D:, and
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they'll be used during bootup. If AUTOEXEC.BAT is not there, you will be
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asked for date and time. The situation involving CONFIG.SYS is a little
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bit more complicated, however. If you boot from D:, the boot routine will
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look for a command processor (COMMAND.COM or one of your choice) on disk
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D:. It's kind of disappointing to have to keep a copy on disk D:, since
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there's one permanently available in ROM on disk C:. To use the one over
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on C:, the non-boot disk, you need to include a SHELL command in
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CONFIG.SYS. It might look like this:
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SHELL = C:\COMMAND.COM /P
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The "P" option tells it to stay permanently in memory; the MSDOS command
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EXIT will not exit from the command processor. This gave me some trouble
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because the COMPSEC variable (type SET at the DOS command line to see all
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variables) was not getting properly set. This may be a bug in the MiniS-
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port firmware. Does anyone else notice that when booting on C: or D:,
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specifying or not specifying a command processor with SHELL, COMPSEC
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doesn't get set correctly?
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My preference is to boot from ROM disk C:. The unpredictable part is that
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when booting from C:, AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS from disk D: are used.
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In this case, no SHELL command is required (hence no CONFIG.SYS file unless
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you need it for other reasons) since COMMAND.COM is already available on
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the default boot disk. The only line "necessary" in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file
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is "d:" to switch over to disk d: for the first command line. Even that is
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only necessary if you *want* to be over on disk D:
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Personally, I use no CONFIG.SYS and the following AUTOEXEC.BAT on D:
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@echo off
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echo BjM (Opus-OVH) P autoexec.bat
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path c:\;d:\util;d:\
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prompt $p$g
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verify on
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d:
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Let me know what parts of the MLH series are useful to you. Pass on your
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hints and pointers so others can benefit.
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73, Brian, ka9snf@wb7nnf.#spokn.wa.usa or Internet ka9snf@jupiter.spk.wa.us
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