I'm computer stupid, and need help

[Jeff Norton]

RE: Compaq Tech Support...

Win98SE WILL support DOS Programs - it might take some work and brain-power on your part. If I can get Aces of the Deep to run, it will support DOS (Working on Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe next...)

I work with exclusive Com(crap) hardware and the tech support is, well, lousy. I helped my father-in-law (who swears by the stuff - I swear at it...) with his Presario desktop trying to install an ATI PCI Vid card. TS told me that the card was not ComPaq standard (but they sell a version of it that is (about 1.5x the regular cost)) and said not to install it. Problem was it did not fit under the power pack. He then told me that he did the same thing, but had to clip off about 1/4" of the card top to make it fit. My skin crawled...

At work, half the drivers that are on the webpage will not work on the hardware they have installed inside the box. I argued with one that I had a S3 video card inside one of my P3-733 boxes. He swore up and down that they only put Intel cards in. I pulled the card, read the maker marks and serial number, and the guy accused me of placing non-OEM hardware inside, thus voiding the warranty... (still had the security seal over the slot screw...)

So, I am not a huge fan of them...
Thats why I build my own...

-Jeff

[mogami]

Hi, Why I build my own...In 1983 I was stationed onboard USS Fahrion FFG-22 all set to go on a 6 month deployment to the Med. The day before we got under way I purchased a C-64 computer, cassette drive, Color TV and 3 programs SSI's War in Russia, Knights of the Desert and Tigers in the Snow. After the ship was out to sea and I had time I set everything up in the armory (I was a Gunnersmate Guns) and after reading everything and connecting every thing I turned it on.....nothing happened. I spent the next 6 months reading the rules books for the games, reading all the tech stuff for the machines and trying over and over to get it to work. When we got back to Mayport Fla after 6 months I took everything back to the exchange, they set it up and it did not work so they gave me a new C-64 that did.
As time progressed I went to Atari's, Laser 128 (apple clone) and then Tandy 1000.
Over and over again when ever I bought a new program that looked good would have problems getting them to run. I built my first machine in 1992, I build a new one about every 2 years. I never have any problems on the machines I build, but have spent thousands of hours fixing other peoples. (Most often where someone changes a setting that locks up the machine)
I keep DOS 6.22 on my machines (but also run windows 98) When all else fails, just run the DOS programs in DOS and by pass all the Windows interferance.

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[LargeSlowTarget]

Sorry for my bad English. I started this thread about the scrambled digits some time ago. I still wasn't able to solve this problem (which also occurs in War in Russia, but not with the dozens of other DOS-based games I downloaded). I'm pretty sure my crate has enough free memory (601k) because there is no carrier-air- group-out-of-memory-bug (which seems to be the case with Gavin's computer). I run Win98 without a config or autoexec. Also tried most of the suggestions on this board, to no avail. When I bought my computer, the advertisement said something about a '1 MB shared-RAM graphics' (didn't care about this, the machine just had to be cheap), and the system control panel shows that there are 63MB RAM available while installed are of course 64MB.

So I'm quite convinced the problem has to do with this shared-RAM 'graphic card' in the Compaq computers, since the scrambled digits all over the game seem to happen only on those crates, regardless of Windows version or memory available on them.


P.S.: To err is human, to really mess things up it requires a computer.

[This message has been edited by LargeSlowTarget (edited January 18, 2001).]

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by GET TRANSPT:
So I called COMPAQ support, and the COMPAQ support tech BLITHELY told me that win SE and ME are "no longer" supporting DOS and DOS is less and less "viable" so tough luck. To change it would cost my old man "special" tech support call and money, not fall under warranty since DOS is no longer "part of the system" what a bunch of creeps.

Tell'em DOS *is* part of Windows 98. Its DOS v7.10.

I want to thank you, MOGAMI, for trying to help. I wanted to pass on that Win 98 SE (second edition, where they screw up DOS) is also useless.

Folks, I'm using Win98 SE, and have no problems. If the problem is memory, then a little optimization could help, however it might very well be a hardware problem. There are a number of old games that won't run on my machine (its new), but the problem isn't a lack of memory.

[GET TRANSPT]

Quote:
Folks, I'm using Win98 SE, and have no problems. If the problem is memory, then a
little optimization could help, however it might very well be a hardware problem.
There are a number of old games that won't run on my machine (its new), but the
problem isn't a lack of memory.
--------------------------

This seems right. When I looked at my dad's win 98SE memory weeks ago it was over the 600K threshold. It appears to be a hardware problem and/or something to do with sound and video drivers (video is garbled, no sound). Compaq told me then during their hand washing session.

I have some DOS 6.22 disks around; should I just install them? Will this cause problems with win 98SE? Or, do I go for that German program mentioned earlier?

It is a Presario, yes.

thanks
Sergio

[grumbler]

You will need to set up a seperate disk partition to run DOS6.22. Its a little complicated, but can be done. You would then get a message at startup asking you whether you want to run Windows or DOS 6.22.

However, a boot disk will do the same thing more easily (although bootup will be significantly slower - several minutes).

I run Win98 SE and have no video/memory problems. However, ComPaq uses thewir own version of Windows, so there may be issues with that. In general, I have found the ComPaq computers at work good mostly as door stops and boat anchors.

[GET TRANSPT]

thanks, grumbler

So, I probably go with a boot disk. I recall partitioning was a pain from my old puter tinkerer days.

Then I will be in a DOS environment. Will it be the DOS from the boot disk or the 7.x DOS from the Compaq? And what about mouse drivers for the games? I recall that Windows mice were not compatible with DOS mice all the time, back in the day.


I sure as heck don't have a Compaq

[mogami]

Hi, Boot disks are also known as system disks
have the files your new config.sys wants right on the boot disk (himem, emm386, the mouse driver, ect ect) then when you start your machine it will load them and presto.
I have a mouse driver folder I use when I am in dos e-mail me and I will send it to you. Along with any dos files you need. The idea is to by pass windows altogether.

OK people I have made a disk (under 1mg) containing all the dos files needed a mouse driver config.sys. All you need do is boot your computer with it (make sure in CMOS your machine will boot from a floppy)
once you get the a: prompt to play pac war do the following
type cd\mouse (enter)
type mouse (enter)
the mouse loads
type c:
your machine changes drives from a: to c:
type cd\matrix~1\pacifi~1 (or whatever the directories are
type pac
and away you go
I did mem check after booting my computer and had 624k conventional
any volunteers want it?

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[This message has been edited by Mogami (edited January 18, 2001).]

[brisd]

My 2 cents - the issue is that Windows ME, not 98 doesn't support DOS. I have had no luck with getting more conventional ram for PACWAR or WIR. I am going to try that german site listed above to build a boot disk. Also this week I tried to install some older Sierra games like Aces of the Deep and the install program locked up in Win ME. Basically ME doesn't support the older Win 95 games either. Something to think about when upgrading. When I build my new 1GHz Athlon power system in a few months I will keep my old reliable K6-200 and reload Win95 to play the classic games of the '90's.

Win98 discussion should be a separate post, we ME users are f*cked when it comes to DOS.

[mogami]

Hi, the disk I just made is for people without dos support (the disk has all the dos you need right on it) just copy it on to a 3.5 and boot your machine from there. It even has a mouse driver on it. and the drivers for cd rom (you'll have to edit the config.sys) the edit command is on the disk as well as the mem command (to check free conventional mem) I tested pacwar it ran fine
with 624k conventional

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[This message has been edited by Mogami (edited January 18, 2001).]

[RickyB]

Originally posted by brisd:
My 2 cents - the issue is that Windows ME, not 98 doesn't support DOS. I have had no luck with getting more conventional ram for PACWAR or WIR. I am going to try that german site listed above to build a boot disk. Also this week I tried to install some older Sierra games like Aces of the Deep and the install program locked up in Win ME. Basically ME doesn't support the older Win 95 games either. Something to think about when upgrading. When I build my new 1GHz Athlon power system in a few months I will keep my old reliable K6-200 and reload Win95 to play the classic games of the '90's.

Win98 discussion should be a separate post, we ME users are f*cked when it comes to DOS.

You can run these games under Win ME, it is just much harder to tweak things because either we haven't figured out how (my guess) or it is just much more difficult or impossible to do. I got a new machine with Win ME on it 3 weeks ago. WIR runs fine (I am a playtester for it and open the game, the editor and other things all at the same time), without any problems, on it without my having to change anything on it. I have also loaded up PacWar and it ran without any noticeable problems, but I did not play it much so I could have had memory problems if I got into the game further. In neither case did I have display problems - it could be for those who had it work fine under Win98 but lost the numbers under ME that the upgrade carried over a setting that causes the problem under ME.

Like someone else said, the numeric problem is probably a hardware problem related to Compaq, or video, or something, or possibly an OS setting that Compaq defaults differently than others in their version. Again, the numbers for PacWar on my WinME machine show fine, and I have tried it on another at work (don't ask, don't tell) without any problems.

If someone with the problem would try Mogami's solution, that would be a great fix if it works on ME/98/95, which it should. Otherwise, those of you with problems will need to wait for someone who has it to solve it, which unfortunately hasn't happened yet. It is hard to troubleshoot for those of us without the problem, as everything is basically guesswork.

Good Luck.

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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by brisd:
When I build my new 1GHz Athlon power system in a few months I will keep my old reliable K6-200 and reload Win95 to play the classic games of the '90's.

Damn, are we twins? We seem to think alike: It just so happens my new machine is an Athlon "Thunderbird" 1Ghz power system. Guess what my old system was .... yep, a K6-200.

In any event, You are going to be happy with that "Thunderbird".

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by RickyB:
You can run these games under Win ME, it is just much harder

Warning: did any of you format your hard drive for the "FAT32" format? If so you are SOOL, as I am. Previous versions of DOS (pre-Win95) can't read a FAT32 hard drive.

[mogami]

Hi, as Ed has just pointed out fat32 is the rock I keep wrecking on.(although the one I made works fine on mine, it is win98 dos) Any system/boot disk has to come off the machine you wish to run it on. The files you need for a bootdisk
are IO.sys, command.com, himem.sys,emm386.exe.
then you need to put a config.sys on the disk
Device=himem.sys
Device=emm386.exe noems
DOS=high,umb
files=20
buffers=20
this should give you a working bootdisk
for a mouse e-mail me and I will send you a driver for dos.

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!



[This message has been edited by Mogami (edited January 19, 2001).]

[grumbler]

Okay, I am convinced! Go to http://www.napoleonmag.com/pacwar/pacwar.html
and follow the link to the boot0 program (which is hard to find on the Underdogs site, now that I look for it again). Download the program, install it onto your C drive, and execute it. It will create a German-language boot disk that will work for all the PC games I have tried it on. It support the mouse included in the Compaq Presario 2200, which is the only compaq I have acces to. It supports the mouse on all the Intell machines at school, so it should work on yours.

This page is not affiliated with Napoleon Magazine (except in that I am their web master). I am essentially "sneaking" it onboard, so grab it while the grabbing is good.

If you are (rightly) worried that there is some virus or trojan horse in the file, a scan with Norton antivirus should satisfy you. If not, then look at the file without opening it and you will see that it has only the normal command.com and drivers files, plus a .bat to make it all work.

If it doesn't work for you, I cannot answer questions about it, as it is not my program. Go to [url="http://www.theunderdogs.com,"]www.theunderdogs.com,[/url] access their discussion forums, go to the technical problems forum, and ask there about "boot0". The guy who wrote this still posts there.