MyDOS and 850 Serial Ports

[TomC]

I am using MyDOS 4.5 and plan on using an 850 to use its serial ports.

 

Is there any thing special - in code or bootprocess I need to do in order to ensure the system has the 850 drivers installed?

 

Thanks in advance for your helpful advice!

 

TomC

[TGB1718]

According to the manual, as long as it's turned on before the computer, it will boot its drivers ready for use.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

There should be an RS232 driver in one of the ARCed versions of MyDOS on my MyDOS page for those instances where you don't want to cold start your computer.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[thorfdbg]

On 4/17/2020 at 12:41 PM, TGB1718 said:

According to the manual, as long as it's turned on before the computer, it will boot its drivers ready for use.

Well, sort of. If there is no disk drive connected to the ssytem, and only the 850, then the 850 will "mimic" the disk drive and the Atari will boot from there. If there is a disk drive, the 850 will not be seen unless there is a small AUTORUN.SYS which performs the bootstrap instead.

[Mathy]

Hello Thomas

 

3 hours ago, thorfdbg said:

... unless there is a small AUTORUN.SYS which performs the bootstrap instead.

 

Since MyDOS 4.53 the file should be named FILENAME.ARx, where FILENAME can be anything you like and "x" needs to be 0 to 9.  First one to load automatically needs to be .AR0, the next AR1, etc.  Automatic loading stops when a number is not present.  For instance, if the medium contains .AR0 and .AR2 but no .AR1, AR0 will be loaded automatically but .AR2 will not.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS (AFAIK) all versions of MyDOS support lower case letters in filenames.