Interesting boot option on a Mitac 1600A - boot from a different computers floppy...

[kyodai]

Generally an interesting machine for a DOS Palmtop fanatic like me, but this one has a very unique boot option.

You can actually boot from a floppy - but wait - not a local floppy but one in your normal desktop PC if you connected the desktop PC via the serial cable and installed the necessary software on the desktop.

Pretty much all DOS palmtops have some kinda datalink software included to transfer files via the serial cable, but i have never seen one that could boot this way. Has anyone ever encountered something like this???

Also I am currently reading the manual which states that the PCMCIA slot can be used for RAM cards (I guess they mean SRAM), Flash cards (Surprised me since most PCMCIA 1.0 slots usually require a driver) and EMS cards. The manual does not really go into detail but just notes that "Applications that can use EMS may benefit from EMS cards).

I googled a bit but i didn't find any reference to EMS cards. I believe you can use a normal SRAM card and either define it as "storage" like in normal palmtops or use it as EMS. I will try to find out more by experimenting a bit tonight at home.

No Photos yet, but this is how the machine looks like:

http://www.tankraider.com/DOSPALMTOP/mitac1600a.html

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Also I am currently reading the manual which states that the PCMCIA slot can be used for RAM cards (I guess they mean SRAM), Flash cards (Surprised me since most PCMCIA 1.0 slots usually require a driver) and EMS cards. The manual does not really go into detail but just notes that "Applications that can use EMS may benefit from EMS cards).

Cardbus is the brainchild of Ian Cullimore who got the ball rolling by getting together several manufacturers to come out with the PC Card standard.

Originally it was designed to be a memory interface for portable devices, but quickly grew to support other devices in later revisions and it's original purpose faded pretty quickly.

Memory cards of any type on Cardbus weren't produced in quantity, or for very long so they're somewhat rare and expensive.

4M Flash:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281205967205

4M SRAM with battery:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181748516601

 

[kyodai]

On a side note - this is truly an oddball if compared to all the Tidalwave clones. From the outside and specs it looks so similar, but under the hood this is really one-of-a-kind for a DOS palmtop.

EMS from an SRAM card does work, but only in PCMCIA slot B and only after formatting it with the included MFORMAT app. Since this is basically an 8086 the EMS is of limted usefulness. I can run Windows 3.0 and format a 4 MB Mitsubishi melcard (SRAM) for EMS and Windows 3.0 can use it but since Windows 3.0 can only boot in REAL mode there aren't really any applications i can imagine that utilize it. maybe Word or Excel, but to me it's not that much of an office computer.

If you have a PCMCIA card in Slot A: it will always try to boot from it whatsoever - which is cool if you wanna boot MS-DOS 6.2 or so, but if your card holds no system files it is a bit annoying since there's no option i found to change boot behaviour.


Booting from a different computers floppy is also a pain - it works but the serial/parallel hybrid cable is a pain (Clunkiest cable ever), installing the server app a bit annoying - but hey it does work.

The System utility is a joke since it always just displays PCMCIA slot A and B as "No floppy detected", no matter if you have a storage or EMS card or both configured (They do work though!).

This is so unique from every point of view - it has even an emulated numeric keypad, you can set brightness via keyboard combinations and so on. And the only DOS palmtop i have to use AAA batteries, all others use AA...