Subject: IBM PC DOS 1.10 on a Hard Drive

From: J Forbes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 27 16:34:48 2003

I have an early 64k 5150 PC, with an internal 10mb hard drive, and 
external power supply for the hd, and a Davong controller card.

I figured I'd never get this thing running, but I lucked out and found 
another Davong ps and card, plus the original (July 1982) documentation 
and installation diskette!!!! $5 plus $20 shipping....a bargain for ebay!

I finally got around to seeing if I could get it working. The drive in 
my machine is labelled 10 mg formatted. The docs and installation 
software mention 6mb and 12mb formatted drives...not 10mb.

To install it, I followed the instructions in the manual...first, make a 
blank formatted bootable dos 1.10 floppy. Then copy the files from the 
Davong diskette to the new floppy. Now run the installation program, 
which configures and formats the hard drive. At first, I told it that 
the drive was 12mb, and it crashed during the installation. I changed to 
6mb, and it worked fine.

Now I have a system that boots from the floppy I made, and comes up in 
the A: drive...but that is the hard drive! B: is another partition on 
the hard drive (volume, actually), and C: is the floppy drive. Wierd to 
get used to. But PC DOS 1.x on a hard drive is a rather rare thing. I 
have a copy of PC DOS 1.00 also, and the Davong software has support for 
it also. That might be my next experiment.

This drive identification scheme is just like on my Kaypro 10, which 
runs CP/M on it's hard drive (but the Kayrpo boots from the hard drive, 
unlike the PC) The Kaypro has user areas, which act a bit like the 
directories on DOS 2.x +
-- 
Jim

Visit the Selectric Typewriter Museum!
http://www.mindspring.com/~jforbes2