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Config.sys and Autoexec.bat for a 5150

tempest

tempest

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Sep 16, 2014
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Location
SE Michigan
It's been a while since I've done an autoexec.bat or config.sys so I'm looking for some help. I have an IBM 5150 with the following:

640K
5.25" drive
3.5" drive
DOS 5.0

Disk Drive card
XT-IDE card
Six Pack Plus clone card
Hercules clone card
IBM Game Port adapter clone card


Currently my files look like this:

Config.sys
------------
DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE (DOS install put this in)
FILES = 10
DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS

Autoexec.bat
---------------
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
PATH C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
C:\TIMER /S (for my RTC)
SETPB35 B (for my 3.5" drive)
DOSKEY (I love the history feature so I load this)


MEM says I have 586K free which seems kind of low considering I'm not loading much. Anything I'm missing or could improve?
 
DOS 5 is a bit late for a 5150 and so will take up more memory. Since you've ignored the bit about DRIVPARM (which works fine for DOS 5), why not go back to something that's more time-appropriate to the 5150 and uses less memory? Say, DOS 3.1 or 2.1?

DOS 5 is really targeted at 386 and later systems.

One of my favorite 5150/5160 TSRs was Simon--a do-everything editor+lots of utilities.
 
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DOS 3 saves about 30kB compared to DOS 5, IIRC. DOS 5 needs a 286 to load high and free up needed room.

Do you need ANSI.SYS? Few programs used it and most good terminal software had equivalent functionality baked in should you desire contacting a BBS.

DOSKEY is relatively large as command history tools go. Consider changing the buffer size; without a hard drive, paths will be small and command lines tiny.

There may be other defaults that could be squeezed down like buffers and FCBS. Might be able to free up 1 or 2 K that the system overprovisioned.
 
I'm using DOS 5 because I have a 1GB DOM in the XT-IDE and I don't want to break it up into 32MB chunks.

Yes I need ANSI.SYS for the text adventures I play.

I've never looked into the buffer size for DOSKEY, I'll have to see how you change it.
 
Check for replacements to ANSI.SYS. Some are .COM programs and thus can be loaded on an as needed basis, possibly called from a batch file which would unload ANSI when the game is finished. I think the MS-DOS ANSI.SYS is larger and slower than many of the alternates.
 
With a hard disk (including DOM), one benefits from having EMS for caching (including that 128kB FAT). With EMS, some other options would be available which could increase free memory. Most notable is the extra 64kB of video memory reallocated to base memory when running text mode programs. If 704k ain't enough, maybe a 5150 ain't what is needed.

DOS 3.31 would have made for the perfect OS for a 5150 used today since it combines the small footprint of DOS 3 with the large partition support to handle current DOMs.

Size of the drive doesn't matter much for memory usage. The FAT will be approximately the same size with a 32 MB drive as with a 2 GB drive.
 
Any particular advantage to a DOM on a 5150? The write frequency is going to be very low and the CPU speed likewise, so a small CF drive should give you all that you need. One reason that I like the XT-CF adapters is that the CF sticks out the rear bracket and so can easily be swapped for another.
 
Like I said, it's what was at hand.

The reason drive size matters is that I'm using a batch file menu system for launching games and I wanted to keep them all in the same directory. Having them spread out across 5 or 6 partitions would have made things more complicated.

So far I haven't run into a program that complained about not enough memory free. In my experience games that required 620K+ free to run didn't happen until the 486 era.
 
tempest said:
The reason drive size matters is that I'm using a batch file menu system for launching games and I wanted to keep them all in the same directory. Having them spread out across 5 or 6 partitions would have made things more complicated.
Click to expand...
Did I read that wrong or did you say you can't fit your batch file menu system in 32 MB? :)
 
The batch files sure, but not the game files. I suppose I could spread them out across a few partitions (maybe make each partition a specific genre) but that seemed like a lot of work for no reason.
 
tempest said:
The batch files sure, but not the game files. I suppose I could spread them out across a few partitions (maybe make each partition a specific genre) but that seemed like a lot of work for no reason.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you didn't really think this through too well.

Every batch file you write to launch a game has a path to the target. What difference does it make if that path is to C:, D:, E:, F:, or G:? It's six of one and a half dozen of the other.
 
tempest said:
I'm never used JOIN before. How does that work?
Click to expand...

Doesn't the link explain it? (Probably better than I can)

Suppose you have drives C:, D:, E: and F:. You want everything to appear as if it was on drive C: only. You could create subdirectories on C: and then join those to D: E: and F:. D:, E: and F: would then become accessible only as their aliases on C:.

Windows has a similar capability; cf. the MKLINK command.

Another useful DOS command is SUBST, which sort of does the inverse--creates a virtual drive from an existing directory.
 
Overlkill

Overlkill

Stone said:
1 GB is surely overkill in a PC.

How much (realistically) do you actually need?
Click to expand...

I just smiled because I use 1GB and 2GB CFs to drive my 5160 - and I am using over 800MB of that right now. Of course you've likely seen the very long list of applications I have installed for DOS and Win3.x. No overkill here :)

Mike
 
JOIN will not work if any of the games try directly accessing the disk through INT 25h/26h.

Creating lots of smaller drives will make the internal structures of DOS slightly larger. Is that worth saving on slack space?
 
Stone said:
Sounds like you didn't really think this through too well.

Every batch file you write to launch a game has a path to the target. What difference does it make if that path is to C:, D:, E:, F:, or G:? It's six of one and a half dozen of the other.
Click to expand...

Just a pain organizationally that's all. Like I said though, I haven't run into anything that complained about too little memory yet.
 
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