- amiga history guide Supporting Amiga and compatibles since 1997 -
-
-
- banners - disclaimer - faq
 
- - -
- -     -
-
recent updates
amiga history
features
amiga models
magazines
technical
interviews
internet links
downloads

 

-

© 1997-2006
Gareth Knight
All Rights reserved

-

 
-

PC Boot Disks

Using a PC is not easy at the best of times. A lot of software will fail to load, realising that it is not running on a genuine Intel processor. Other software may fail simply because of a conflict with other software or a lack of conventional memory (the PCs equivalent of Chip ram). This page goes over how to make a boot disk for the PC to save those few extra bytes.

Conventional Memory

Conventional memory is a 15-year-old bug found in MS-DOS. At the time Bill Gates thought that no one would need more than 640k of memory (muffled laughter). Unfortunately as time went on and the amount of memory in the PC increased the limit remained. The reason for this was due to compatibility. If the limit were removed, old software would not run. During the major revisions of MS-DOS, a patch was added to use the extra memory by separating it into Extended/Expanded memory. For a program to access Extended memory, it must execute with the base 640k. The problem comes with many PC games that access the memory directly. Whilst many MS-DOS and Windows applications use the DOS system architecture to access more memory, games use their own custom memory management system that can vary according to the writers preference. This may prove a problem for emulated systems as it bypasses the OS altogether. Oh, and before you blame stupid PC programming for this, remember, Amiga programmers have done exactly the same to get the game to run a bit faster in limited hardware.

How to create a boot disk

The aim of a boot disk is to load only the minimum DOS and device drivers for the program to run:

  1. Load the PC emulator program and wait for it to boot into DOS from the hard drive.
  2. Insert a disk into drive A: (probably DF0:)
  3. At the C:\> prompt type FORMAT A:/U/S and press ENTER.
  4. Once the disk has been formatted type COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT A: and press ENTER
  5. Then type COPY CONFIG.SYS A: and press ENTER.

The disk is now a bootable floppy that mirrors your system files. These files must now be edited to reduce the number of devices being loaded to just those required for a specific program. It is impossible to say what those devices are as every system is different, but generally all references to Windows can be deleted, followed by mouse drivers if they are not needed.

These files can be edited in any Amiga text editor. If you wish to go for the PC experience and alter them in the PC emulation you can use the built-in text editor, EDIT.

Switch to drive A: and type:

EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT

This will start the MS-DOS text editor. If you do not want to delete a line but want to stop MS-DOS from executing it, place the DOS statement REM in front of the line. This enables you to restore the line if changes have to be made later.

Once changes have been made to the AUTOEXEC file the process can be repeated on CONFIG.SYS by exiting to MS-DOS and typing

EDIT CONFIG.SYS

 



BACK

-

Latest updates to the Amiga History Guide. (more)


-
· Amiga Hardware
· Amiga History.de
· Amiga Magazine Rack
· Amiga-news(en)(de)
· Amiga.org
· Amiga World
· AmigaOS 4.0
· Amiga University
· Commodore Retrobits
· Dave Haynie archive
· Lemon Amiga
· MorphOS Support
· morphos-news.de

-

Other interesting items in the archive!


-  

--

home · changes · amiga history · features · amiga models
magazines · technical · interviews · internet links · downloads

Hosted by:
Bambi - The Amiga Web Server