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Restoring software on a Compaq Portable II and putting it online

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Fallingwater

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Oct 10, 2009
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I have a Compaq Portable II (286, 640RAM, 10 meg hard drive, 5 1/4 floppy) which I'd like to use to read what few BBS are left online, in an attempt to see just how what we know as "the internet" was for the generations before mine. And no, telnet on a new computer won't do: I want to immerse myself in this as much as possible, which somehow I find hard to do when I'm running a quad-core with more RAM than there was in a large corporation back when BBS were all the rage.

I have two problems:
1) it works, but it has no operating system. I have no 5 1/4 drives nor disks, and no easy way to obtain them; also, the floppy and HD inside the CPII are too old to interface with a current system. All I have are a serial and a parallel port, but no idea how to use them to transfer data.
2) how do I put it online? I obviously don't need much bandwidh, just the necessary to receive some text via telnet (or the equivalent in old DOS). I'm thinking I could use a "bridge" computer inbetween, which I could connect via ethernet to my ADSL line and then with a serial/parallel connection to the CPII. Again, I've no idea what I'd need to do to achieve this (beyond buying/building the interface cable).

Little help? :)
 
In a nutshell, search for the DOS Networking threads here on the forum. There have been many of them.

You can get FTP and Telnet applications that run in DOS on your machine. The old Simtel software archive is still available via ftp at ftp.simtel.net, and with a telnet program you can use telnet BBS systems, which still exist.

You will need to do one of the following, listed in order of most desirable to least:
  • Get a network card with a supported packet driver. This provides the best performance
  • Get a parallel port to Ethernet adapter, such as the Xircom PE3-10BT. These also use a packet driver.
  • Use a Laplink cable and a packet driver that simulates an Ethernet connection over the Laplink cable.
  • Use a null modem connection to a Linux machine and let that machine do the routing for you.

With the first two options you can plug directly into your home switch or router, and even get an address via DHCP. The other two methods take a bit more work.
 
The first method is impossible, since I can't find AT network cards on sale. Edit: scratch that - from things I'm reading online it seems it uses once-common ISA expansion cards. I need to open it up and confirm. I should have an ISA network card sitting around somewhere, I'll see if I can dig it out.

Why is serial the least desirable option?

Also, I still have the problem of installing the OS on the hard drive.
 
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There are a gazillion 16 bit networking cards for sale on eBay. The Xircom adapters can usually be found for little money too. You might be able to find ISA networking cards in the second-hand bin of your local 'mom & pop' computer store, although they are more likely to be PCI cards now.

Serial is just slow, and you still need the other machine to act as a gateway for you. You might as well just run a terminal emulator at that point.
 
Fallingwater said:
Also, I still have the problem of installing the OS on the hard drive.
Click to expand...

For this problem you are going to have to find DOS diskettes that are the right size and density. DOS 3.3 or DOS 5 would well on that machine. I believe you have a 360KB drive, so you will need matching diskettes.

Do you have a machine in the house with the correct diskette drive? If so, it is possible to send images of diskettes and let you recreate the diskette on that machine. Otherwise, you are going to have to get somebody to mail you diskettes.
 
Are you sure the FD or HD can't be connected to a modern system?

The floppy should be pretty standard, you might just have to find a floppy cable with an edge connector rather than a normal IDC.
 
Intel Pro 10 or 10/100 ISA cards I recall having very good bundled packet drivers for DOS because I used to use one to run MajorBBS under DOS.

If you get a card with no driver disk, you can always download the packet driver.

Search ebay for "intel isa ethernet" and a bunch come up, some around $5.

Also maybe this will work and be a nice match since it's a Compaq part:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&&item=300355223267
 
I've finally done some work on the computer. Turns out it's more standardized than I thought. I replaced the 5.25" 360kb floppy drive with a 1.44MB 3.5" one, and it works fine. It's not aesthetically nice, but then I wasn't going for full historical accuracy anyway.

I think I can also scrounge up an ISA ethernet board (I have to look at my quite large pile of old computers to be sure). Once that is done, I was thinking of using the Portable as an IRC terminal (in addition to surfing bulletin boards), hooked up to my main computer.

Now, my main computer is running Win7 and Debian Squeeze (double boot), and connects to my home network with a wifi USB stick, so it has a free ethernet port. I'd like to set things up so it can share the connection with the Portable through Ethernet. Any tips on doing that?
 
Since Windows XP you set it up to do "Internet Connection Sharing." Just look that up, it's not hard to do, and then your Windows host can provide the DHCP and NAT to put an Ethernet client online. You MAY need a "crossover cable", but I've found a lot of modern Ethernet jacks can autosense they need to switch roles and can handle that automatically. I don't know if both sides need to be able to do that?

And of course I'm sure Linux can do the same thing as ICS, but likely requires a lot more manual configuration. :) (Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and want to marry it, but for just get-up-and-go without all the troubleshooting, ICS is pre-built and ready to roll.)
 
Ok, I'm officially desperate. I've been struggling against this for the past two days and I'm going out of my mind.

I need the compaq setup disk, or I can't access the BIOS, and without that the hard disk might as well not be there.
I've found the sp0316.zip file here -> http://oldcomputers.net/compaqiii.html <- and put it on a 1.4MB 3.5" (formatted as 720kb with tape on the hole). The Portable 2 refuses to work on it, with a "load failure" message; I assume it's meant for the Portable 3 and is unsuitable to the 2.

I then found this page, which has links to .dsk files and to the copyqm program to write them with. I used copyqm (under an emulator), but it refused to write the content to a 3.5" disk. I then used a floppy emulator to emulate a 5.25 360kb disk, and copyqm put the setup files on it, creating an img file.
I used dd under Linux to record said image file on the 3.5" diskette, and the files are there when I open the floppy, but the portable 2 doesn't want to know about it - it just sits there with the floppy light on.

I assume using the original 5.25 drive and a 360kb diskette it'd work, but a) I suspect the original drive is broken, as it was given to me disconnected from the machine, and b) even if it was functional (or I somehow managed to find a spare) I've no idea whatsoever where to buy/borrow/steal 360kb disks around here. The shop I went to today had to dig through piles of optical media just to find a lonely box of 3.5" floppies, I think they'd laugh me out of the store if I asked for 5 inchers.

I also mistakenly wiped the only disk from which the Portable 2 did something (the DOS 3.2 floppy I had for another old computer). I went looking for bootdisks for DOS 3.2, but I can only find them in 360kb format, which I assume would give me the same problems I'm having with the setup/diagnostic disk. The oldest bootdisk I can find in 3.5" format is for dos 3.3, which doesn't work on the Portable 2 (locks up during boot). In other words, I desperately need a link for a dos 3.1 or 3.2 boot disk for a 3.5" drive. Once I have that, and it boots, I *should* be able to put the setup files from the disk image in the system disk, and have something with which to access the BIOS.

Any help?
 
I have an Amstrad PC1640 with 360Kb 5¼" floppy disk drives. I might be able to write the image, and then re-read it as an IMG file, which should blow to a 3½" disk. Let me know if you want me to try.
 
That's what I've been trying to do with the emulators, and apparently 5.25 images just don't translate to 3.5 disks. It records, windows explorer shows all files, but then no computer boots from it (I tried with an old Athlon too).

What I'm trying to do now is to boot 360kb DOS images with VirtualBox; this does succeed in booting DOS 3.2, but I'm having trouble making it see a B: drive, or indeed the (20MB) hard disk I created for the virtual machine.
If I can get it to see a B drive I should then be able to give the "format b: /s" command and have it transfer the system on a 720kb floppy image, which can be burned on a 1.44MB floppy formatted to half-size (from what I can see, DOS 3.2 doesn't actually support 1.44MB floppies).

By the way, I tried with a DOS 3.21 720k image I found, and it says "disk boot failure". I guess anything above 3.2 is a no-go.
 
In desperation I tried DR-DOS version 3.41, and it boots and runs. I don't know if I'm going to yell in happiness or cry in exhaustion.

Edit: huh, DR-DOS version 6.0 works as well (though it takes a bit longer to load). Unexpected, but good, I guess.

Now to fix the enter key, then see if the setup apps are compatible...

Edit2: finally found a 720kb image of DOS 3.2, and it runs. After bootup I exchanged disks, and it read the directory of a 1.44MB floppy, so my previous information about 3.2 not reading HD drives was wrong.
Also enter key is fixed. Now to run the diagnostics.

Edit3: we have liftoff! Setup utility copied from non-bootable Compaq disk image, and ran on DR-DOS. Accepted default settings, and hard disk suddenly came to life, loading the existing OS, which turned out to be... MS-DOS 6.00. I've no idea how this is possible, as it refused to boot from 6.22 floppies. Oh well.

Now to find a suitable Ethernet card...

Yet another edit: Ethernet card found.

High-res picture
Main chip close-up

I understand I need packet drivers. I searched for packet drivers for AMD PC-NET, and I get several pages, none of which explain to me what I need to do. I tried searching the forums, but I can't find anything explaining in detail what commands I need to give the packet driver itself.

And what after the driver is installed? How do I configure the network connection?
 
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Bumpty bump. Everything is solved but the Ethernet card drives - I still need help with those.
Also: is there any way of connecting an external keyboard to the CPII? I use an ergonomic ps/2 keyboard with my main computer, which I'd like to use with the Portable as well; however, it doesn't have any external connectors, and the one used on the mainboard follows no standard that I know of. I'm OK with splicing an adapter or plug or something to the existing cable.
 
It looks like you can download a PCNet packet driver here. The sidebar on the right also has links to DOS drivers which may or may not be what you need.
 
Ok, the ethernet card is configured (I think). Started PCNTPK.COM, gave it INT=0x60, and it autodetected the rest.
I've also set up connection sharing on the win7 machine, and hooked the two together with an ethernet cable (one of the two lights on the socket lights up on both computers).
What now? I've tried running doslynx on the CPII, but it doesn't load any websites.
 
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You also need a TCP/IP Stack. That's what gives you your IP address, etc. There's several out there. WATTCP, Mbrutman's, etc.

Personally though, I download MS's DOS networking stuff(DSK3-1.exe and DSK3-2.exe so I can map network drives and such. There's also a DOS browser called Arachne that will use it I think. The other advantage is DHCP capability (if needed). You just need your network card's DOS drivers (not packet driver). Just be aware that MS's networking is a memory hog. Try the basic re-director first.
 
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