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Ideas for a diagnostic/utility floppy disk (3.5)

A

anormal

Experienced Member
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Nov 18, 2010
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103
Location
Canary Islands / Spain
Hi!

I got this week a spanish PS/1 2011 (with a 30MB HD), working perfectly, no apparent faults.

I was thinking to build a boot floppy with some tools useful for testing.

I know this PS/1 has a 286, so, some of these tools probably don't work. I have to test them first.

I thought of somelike this:

- Benchmark : Topbench
- Debugger: Insight debugger 1.24 / Quaid Analyzer (may-90) / AVPUtil 2.2 ??
- Floppy disk testing/copying: snatchit (with Copy2PC 5.2) / Imagedisk 1.18 / Copywrite (may-92) / Quaid's Disk Explorer (oct-91) / Teledisk 3.23 / TestFDC
- Hardisk Tools: Spinrite 6.0? / some formatter / Speedstor ? / ... ?
- Hardware test : Checkit ? / i remember Norton has some kind of tools for this
- Hardware id : maybe a old HWinfo works in 286 ?
- File manager / viewer : Volkov commander with an old Hiew? o maybe there is a Biew compile for dos ?
- File compressor : Rar/zip/arj/lha (i remember arj was very used in DOS)
- Some antivirus? : i think this need another disk, too large ?

i've been testing compressing many of these tools with latest Upx with --brute commandline and everything is working fine :D

These are only ideas...

If you want to suggest something, whatever you think it could be useful in a disk like this ...

Regards!
 
You have the copywrite software? I was looking for it. Can you send it to me?
 
I simply use PC Tools Diagnostics or Norton Diagnostics. That covers most hardware tests. It looks like you are going way beyond that.
 
Yes, i guess i was overthinking all this... i just wanted some tools for testing and such.
It's my fault of making things complicated :D

I'll keep updated this thread as i build this disk. I've thinking of using DOs 6.22, with 4DOS 9.0, etc.. let's see as it must be run in 8086 or 80286

I am thinking as wonderful is to start a PC after 20 years of no use and hearing the HD spinning and working!
 
Glad it's working ok. Nestor is the local guru on these machine iirc. almost bought one myself back in the day and a neighbor owned one. Norton SI is what I use on my Zenith 286 for system info. It was give away on magizine cover disks. You're using MS Dos 6.22 any so you could just use MSD instead.
 
anormal said:
- Hardware test : Checkit ? / i remember Norton has some kind of tools for this
Click to expand...

More importantly, checkit includes a CPU correctness test, IIRC. That's really one of the most important things you should put on a diag disk, not copywrite...

Also, topbench is good to check if the system is stuck in a slower mode or something, but it is not meant to check for errors/faults. I only measure the speed of the various metric code suites, I never checked them for correctness :)

BTW, the best diag disk for a system is the one provided for that system. I'm pretty sure the PS/1 had a diag disk or procedure, yes? According to ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/IBM_PC_BBS/allfiles.txt there was...
 
hey, thanks for all tips,

As usual you are right Trixter ;), regarding Topbench, maybe you have time and want to update the binary in https://dosbenchmark.wordpress.com/downloads/, as the .EXE is from 2013, and i see in the repo you have made some updates, not critical i know, but just new ;)

At first i was thinking in doing this bootdisk not only for this PS/1 but as a utility/testing boot disk in general, so the inclusion of other tools, as disk copiers, as i plan to put some originals in this PC and check for copying (my main interest is studying copy-protection/emulation)

Yesterday i downloaded a lot of of all msdos tools, great memories :), so i have now to choose what i am going to put in the floppy

thanks all for suggestions
 
Chuck(G) said:
Has anyone considered PC-Probe?
Click to expand...

I've never heard of this, although given Landmark's shoddy decisions in their speed test, confidence level isn't too high. Still, curiosity piqued; will check it out.

anormal said:
As usual you are right Trixter ;), regarding Topbench, maybe you have time and want to update the binary in https://dosbenchmark.wordpress.com/downloads/, as the .EXE is from 2013, and i see in the repo you have made some updates, not critical i know, but just new ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know, I'll update this tonight.
 
The idea was to make a general disk, not only for testing this PS/1, as i plan to get other vintage pcs.

The pre-requisites for this ps/1 are more difficult because it has only a 286 and 1MB ram.

It must work everything from floppy as i can't assume the pcs to test will have a HD.

There are other testing/id softwares as Astra, Amidiag, Aida16, Check-it, NU, etc...

I am not sure by now (still have to test) but maybe some of them have a burn-in test i can left the pc some nights testing thoroughly
 
I have a program from 1992 called BurnIn, version 4.5, by OsoSoft, George Campbell. It tests Disks, Monitor, Math and CPU, Printer, Graphics and Memory. Everything is user selectable as well as the run time. You just set it and forget it. If you want it I'll make it available.
 
One of my favorites is PC-Check by Eurosoft. Its CPU information becomes inaccurate on anything higher than a 486, but on 8088 through 386 systems, it works great.

Here's a free demo version:
http://www.amstereo.org/pccheck.zip

1ytxrc.gif


pc-check-150-25.gif
 
vwestlife said:
One of my favorites is PC-Check by Eurosoft. Its CPU information becomes inaccurate on anything higher than a 486, but on 8088 through 386 systems, it works great.

Here's a free demo version:
http://www.amstereo.org/pccheck.zip
Click to expand...
Looks like a nice program but you can't do much unless you get the full version. Most notably, the Burn-In section doesn't function in this Demo. :) The program I referenced is fully functional.
 
thanks for suggestions!

Now, i want to test some of these work in a 286! ;)

Maybe anyone codes a tracer/emu for checking if an executable runs in what processor ;). I think it needs to emulate, or at least dinamic tracing, because self modifying code, prefetch queue modifications, etc...

But as usual, i am overcomplicating things!
 
@anormal

I want to know your BIOS of IBM PS/1 2011 is original USA Revision 1
 
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