From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Getting the DAK $199 CDROM working with OS/2
Date: 12 Nov 1992 19:28:44 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston


After a bit of hacking, I have gotten my DAK CDROM to run with OS/2 2.0. As
Tim Sipples has said, it will only work in a specific DOS session, set up
properly. Here's how I went about it:

1) I built a bootable DOS floppy by running FORMAT /S on a machine running DOS
5.0. I also copied DOSKEY.EXE, SETVER.EXE and APPEND.EXE from the DOS
directory on that machine to the disk, and then copied
C:\OS2\MDOS\FSFILTER.SYS to it. 
I created a CONFIG.SYS by hand on the floppy, as follows:
DEVICE=FSFILTER.SYS
FILES=50
BUFFERS=4
LASTDRIVE=Z

2) I booted that floppy on the OS/2 system by double-clicking the DOS from
Drive A icon, and was presented with a DOS prompt.

3) I ran the DAK INSTALL program on the CD Launcher customization disk. This
stuck a bunch of files in C:\, and modified C:\CONFIG.SYS and C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT.
(There's no way to tell the program to put the files elsewhere.) I then moved
all the files it added to D:\CDROM (a directory name I fished out of thin
air), moved the modified AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS there, and renamed the
previous files, saved as AUTOEXEC.OLD and CONFIG.OLD, back to the right names.
The install program checks ports 300H, 310H, 320H, 340H, and 380H to see if
there's hardware there before recommending which port address to use; mine
locked up on me until I removed the NE2000 card that was set for port 300H
from the system. Note also that the only possibilitied for the card's
interrupt vector are 2, 3, and 5.

4) I copied all of the DAK-installed files to the floppy. I then used the new
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, as modified by DAK, to build the following
files: 

CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=FSFILTER.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=SETVER.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=MTMCDSA.SYS (parameters as supplied by the INSTALL program)
FILES=50
BUFFERS=4
LASTDRIVE=Z

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
@ECHO OFF
MSCDEX (parameters as supplied by INSTALL)
PATH A:\;(rest of path as supplied by OS/2)
PROMPT (as supplied by OS/2)
LOADHIGH DOSKEY (parameters)
LOADHIGH C:\OS2\MDOS\MOUSE

While arriving at this configuration, I ran into various problems with illegal
instruction traps, bad or missing drivers, MSCDEX complaining about bad DOS
versions, and so on; all of those went away when I used VMDISK to build a
bootable image in D:\CDROM and booted from that. I have not tried turning
HW_ROM_TO_RAM on for the DOS from Drive A: object, but I plan to try that when
I get home.

At this point, I had a running DOS 5.0 session that I could use to run CD
software and so forth. The CDROM is accessible as drive S: in that session.
The DiscPassage search software that came with The Family Doctor CDROM works
just fine. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Microsoft Bookshelf:
the MSL program used to access the library blows up every time, with an
illegal instruction trap.

Hopefully, this will get others pointed down the right track towards getting
their DAK $199 CDROM packages going. Good luck!
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
     We survived Jimmy Carter; we'll (probably) survive Bill Clinton.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc