DOS File Transfer & CPU Control

Powers · 04-04-2004, 10:43 AM

I'm working on a basic car MP3 player, and right now it is running windows 98. But it's only a p1 133 or something along that line, so I would like to run DOS and MPXPlay because windows takes too long to boot up. Accept I was running Remote Administrator on Windows and used that to transfer and set up stuff without having to take it out of my car. Does anyone know how I can do all this stuff, enable networking and have a remote desktop with DOS?

raypsaliga · 04-04-2004, 10:50 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Powers

I'm working on a basic car MP3 player, and right now it is running windows 98. But it's only a p1 133 or something along that line, so I would like to run DOS and MPXPlay because windows takes too long to boot up. Accept I was running Remote Administrator on Windows and used that to transfer and set up stuff without having to take it out of my car. Does anyone know how I can do all this stuff, enable networking and have a remote desktop with DOS?

i can help you with file transfer.. a bat file i wrote:
net use x: \\raydesktop\Media\Music
xcopy x:\*.* c:\Music\ /D /Y /S
net use x: /DELETE

line 1 maps a network drive to the location where the source folder is. line 2 copies all files that: dont exist in the destionation folder, or if they exist, if the source file has a newer date, copies it. line 3 closes the network resource. i like the date checking because i like to keep my car's music library updated against my desktop's. if i change an ID3 tag or somthing, the change will carry over, and it only copies updated or new files, so i dont waste time copying gigs and gigs of music over when i only want to update a few songs. i dont know much about dos or networking in dos or anything. i'm young, it was before my time

i hope i helped.

ray

Powers · 04-04-2004, 10:53 AM

Ya, everything worked so well in Windows, but it's just too damn slow. Dos would be nice, but i don't know how to use it.

So what do I do with that bat? exec it on the computer I'm transfering to?

raypsaliga · 04-04-2004, 10:58 AM

yeah, save it in notepad as a .bat, and it will execute like an .exe. its written now to be on the computer that is being transfered to, but if you want it on the other one:
net use x: \\rayscar\Music
xcopy c:\Music\*.* x:\ /D /Y /S
net use x: /DELETE

Powers · 04-04-2004, 11:02 AM

OK, thanks. If you have any ideas of how to enable netbios and file transfer between a DOS and Windows XP machine let me know.

Also, how does one start up MPXPlay on bootup?
This DOS is almost all french to me.

I have a MPXPlay boot disk, but it takes just as long to load, will that work if I copy it to the hard drive?

raypsaliga · 04-04-2004, 11:04 AM

you can get a faster computer for pretty cheap... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...MBM-M6VLQ-1300
quite an upgrade for 80 bucks. also try newegg.com if you are interested, they might even be cheaper.

bh76 · 04-04-2004, 02:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Powers

OK, thanks. If you have any ideas of how to enable netbios and file transfer between a DOS and Windows XP machine let me know.

DOS doesn't have built-in networking support. It can be added, though, by installing additional software. This page gives instuctions on how to install the Microsoft Network Client for DOS.
http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/dosclnt3.htm

With this Microsoft client, one can map drive letters to Windows networking shares.

At the bottom of the page, there's a link called "DOS-based Microsoft Network Server". It gives instructions on how to get things set up so one can share files, on the DOS machine, with other Windows-based computers.

Quote:

Also, how does one start up MPXPlay on bootup?

There's a batch file called autoexec.bat, which is automatically run when you boot into DOS. You'd add a command at the end of the batch file, to tell DOS to run MPXPlay.

Quote:

This DOS is almost all french to me.

Here's a couple of tutorials that cover the basics:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/tvdt.htm
http://www.homepages.better.net.au/t...STUTORIAL.html

Quote:

I have a MPXPlay boot disk, but it takes just as long to load, will that work if I copy it to the hard drive?

I'd grab a copy of the most recent version of MPXPlay and start fresh. The version of MPXPlay on the boot disk may or may not be recent, and who knows how it was configured. You'll definitely want to put MPXPlay on the hard drive.

Since you're running Windows 98 you won't need to install DOS. It's already there. In the root directory on c: drive there's a file called MSDOS.SYS SYS files are normally DOS device drivers, but not this particular file. Open it up in a text editor (Notepad is fine). Near the top you should see a line that says: BootGUI=1 Change it to BootGUI=0 When you reboot, the computer will boot into DOS, instead of loading Windows. If you need to get back into Windows for some reason, just type Win at the command prompt.

Powers · 04-04-2004, 02:30 PM

Ok, I installed DOS 6.22 fresh, mainly because I only have 740 Mb of hard drive space to work with. I've got it all loading and stuff, I just need to network. Hopefully I can get that all working.

Thanks for the help guys.

Rob Withey · 04-04-2004, 02:55 PM

www.wown.com was invaluable when I was setting up ndis drivers under dos. Unfortunately they appear to have removed their dos section now, but archive.org still has the old version:

http://web.archive.org/web/200306221...g/dosclien.htm

Powers · 04-04-2004, 04:09 PM

OK, I got the Dos client on the computer, but there is no TCP/IP, which i need to get on my network. Does anyone know where i can get tcp/ip drivers for an SMC EtherEZ 8416 card?

bh76 · 04-04-2004, 08:57 PM

The DOS networking tutorials are still on wown.com, but the pages are kind of buried. Here's a link to a page that gives instructions on how to get TCP/IP up and running:
http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/doscltcp.htm

Hcomplyr · 04-04-2004, 09:21 PM

try www.driverguide.com

Username "drivers"
Password "all"

Powers · 04-04-2004, 09:29 PM

Ya, I've tried almost everything, I can't get the thing to share.

Is there another way to connect a Windows XP or 2000 machine to a DOS machine that would be able to run all the time, check for connections on bootup, if there are none, continue to MPXPLAY?

I'm not much of a coder, still doing senior 3 computer science, and don't know much about interpretting input signals.

The only other thing I could think of is a serial link or parallel link, but i don't know what programs would do that, and especially from XP to DOS

bh76 · 04-04-2004, 10:02 PM

There are a number of things that can go wrong, it's just a matter of narrowing it down.

First things first, can you ping other computers from the DOS machine?

Powers · 04-05-2004, 10:23 AM

I ran a superdisk test and it passed all the LAN tests, I just can't get on the network. I'm not sure whether it's because TCPIP isn't enabled, or what, but i'll keep pluggin away at it.