Teledisk V2.12 problem on P II?
Nicholas Zymaris
I was trying to run Teledisk V2.12 (this is the version on update.uu.se as
well as Simtel, with a 1990 file date) on a Pentium II to generate RX-50
diskettes (and then perhaps standard diskette images) from the
proprietary-format Teledisk images, for use on my Pro 350 and Rainbow.
The P II has a 5 1/4" high density disk drive as B: which functions fine
and will work perfectly with PUTR and FDCDEMO to write RX-50's. The same
thing happens with TDCHECK.EXE. I get the opening screen but it locks up
soon after trying to access the diskette drive, and I need to reboot. The
diskette is not actually written to (I tested this by using a diskette
with IBM format, which was still readable after the Teledisk attempts).
Could this be from an incompatibility with the P II hardware? Or a
software problem with Windoze 98? I've successfully run this Teledisk on
8088's, V20's and 80286's so I suspect it is the former. I'm now running
it in plain DOS (V7.1) without the GUI loaded; if the Win 4.1 GUI is
loaded then it aborts Teledisk instead at the same point. I can run it on
my '486 laptop under MS-DOS V6.2x without any problem, but it does not
have a 5 1/4" drive.
BTW, anyone know if there is any documentation available so that one might
decode a Teledisk image oneself, without using Teledisk? I'd hate to have
to scrounge up the parts needed to get the 80286 working again when I
already have a working system with a 5 1/4" drive.
--
Nick Zymaris
ni...@idt.net IC XC + NI KA
Tim Shoppa
>
> Hello all,
>
> I was trying to run Teledisk V2.12 (this is the version on update.uu.se as
> well as Simtel, with a 1990 file date) on a Pentium II to generate RX-50
> diskettes (and then perhaps standard diskette images) from the
> proprietary-format Teledisk images, for use on my Pro 350 and Rainbow.
> The P II has a 5 1/4" high density disk drive as B: which functions fine
> and will work perfectly with PUTR and FDCDEMO to write RX-50's. The same
> thing happens with TDCHECK.EXE. I get the opening screen but it locks up
> soon after trying to access the diskette drive, and I need to reboot. The
> diskette is not actually written to (I tested this by using a diskette
> with IBM format, which was still readable after the Teledisk attempts).
>
> Could this be from an incompatibility with the P II hardware? Or a
> software problem with Windoze 98? I've successfully run this Teledisk on
> 8088's, V20's and 80286's so I suspect it is the former.
I think so too. Many others have reported problems with that version
of Teledisk on "fast" hardware. The official solution is to buy
the full commercial version of Teledisk (see http://www.sydex.com/).
> BTW, anyone know if there is any documentation available so that one might
> decode a Teledisk image oneself, without using Teledisk?
Not that I know of. The disk images were originally kept as 800-block
direct images of the RX50's themselves, and I have these original
files. Would they be useful to you? You can either write them directly
to real RX50's on a real -11 (for example, using COPY/FILE/DEVICE under
RT-11) or use John Wilson's PUTR to put the 800-block RX50
images to disk.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: sho...@trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927