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Issues with PC DOS 7 and Drivers

4

404TimeNotFound

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2014
Messages
54
Location
Fort Wayne, IN
So I've been attempting to get my SGI IrisVision and IBM caddy CD ROM drive to work in my PS/2 Model 95 under PC DOS 7 on and off for the past week or so now with little luck.

Starting with the CD drive, It's currently partially working, in that IBMCDROM.SYS loads and detects a CD drive and allows me to *access* it (switch to E: ) however ASPCDROM.SYS loads but does not detect a CD drive and I can't actually access the drive or any media in it, if that makes any sense. I've triple checked my autoexec.bat and config.sys files and can't seem to find anything wrong there. I know the page at ohlandl says to use ASPI.4B.SYS however I can't seem to download the file, it just opens in my browser as an audio file I can't play. Other than using that one driver though it seems I've done everything as I should, which makes me think I need to use said driver. Now onto the IrisVision...

I was actually really excited when I first got my hands on this, however that quickly wore off as I've done nothing but struggle in attempting to get it to work. I've since downloaded and installed what I thought was the proper software off of the ohlandl page for the IrisVision, but still have had little luck in getting it running. The ADF files are installed and the card itself is detected in the setup program, however it only lists the card under slot two, instead of two and three as it occupies both (I'm not sure if this is normal or not). As for when I'm in DOS whenever I try and run a demo or anything aside from the configuration program (which I have used to properly configure the settings for my display) it comes up with a message saying that "The 386 chip is currently executing in virtual 8086 mode under the control of another program" and that I have to close whatever program that is to use "386 DOS Extender", however before I started muddling around with my CD issues it would come up with GL_DREX (GLR_DEX?) or something similarly named had failed to load upon trying to run a demo, and the test program would work as well which I did run a few times (it only resulted in a green flash and then displayed scrolling diagonal green lines, though it claimed that it had passed).

Sorry for my (probably) rookie questions, I've never done much of anything with DOS until now aside from shoving it and a few programs onto computers. Any help with this would be appreciated, especially with the CD drive as I'm trying to install OS/2 Warp 4 Server onto my two disk RAID.
 
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I'm wondering if the CD drive has a jumper for block size? On some RISC workstations, Sun, SGI etc, the CD drive was used for booting the OS for installation. As such they needed to read 512b blocks, just like a hard disk, but in the PC world the CD drives were set to 2k. You might be seeing this disparity if you've just unhooked the drive from a workstation and want to use it on PC.
Hope it helps.
 
Can you post your autoexec.at and config.sys files?

Why do you need ASPCDROM.SYS if the drive is already detected and avialabe?
 
If IBM's CD driver detects it on startup, and MSCDEX assigns it a driver letter, I'd generally consider that job done as far as DOS goes - but if you haven't already, try removing/commenting-out every other line from CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC etc.

For testing are you using quality original CD's, or stuff written on to a cheap CD-R?
Are you able to clean the lens?
 
bob22 said:
I'm wondering if the CD drive has a jumper for block size? On some RISC workstations, Sun, SGI etc, the CD drive was used for booting the OS for installation. As such they needed to read 512b blocks, just like a hard disk, but in the PC world the CD drives were set to 2k. You might be seeing this disparity if you've just unhooked the drive from a workstation and want to use it on PC.
Hope it helps.
Click to expand...

From what I can tell there is no jumper for this, or it's internal and I'd have to open the drive to get to it. I originally pulled this drive out of my model 80 as I had wanted a caddy drive in my 95 so I doubt this is the issue, but thanks for the advice!

Caluser2000 said:
Can you post your autoexec.at and config.sys files?

Why do you need ASPCDROM.SYS if the drive is already detected and avialabe?
Click to expand...

I'll get those posted here in a bit. As for ASPCDROM.SYS I has used the SCSICDRM application, which extracted self to a blank disk and I then ran the installer from that. The installer installed both and the IBM driver loads first, then that. I'm going to be honest this is the first time I've done more than just install DOS onto a system with a floppy drive, so I'm pretty inexperienced with DOS overall.

SpidersWeb said:
If IBM's CD driver detects it on startup, and MSCDEX assigns it a driver letter, I'd generally consider that job done as far as DOS goes - but if you haven't already, try removing/commenting-out every other line from CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC etc.

For testing are you using quality original CD's, or stuff written on to a cheap CD-R?
Are you able to clean the lens?
Click to expand...

I'll try that here soon, and I've used both quality discs and cheap CD-Rs I've burned. I *should* be able to easily, as it is a caddy drive.
 
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404TimeNotFound said:
As for when I'm in DOS whenever I try and run a demo or anything aside from the configuration program (which I have used to properly configure the settings for my display) it comes up with a message saying that "The 386 chip is currently executing in virtual 8086 mode under the control of another program" and that I have to close whatever program that is to use "386 DOS Extender", however before I started muddling around with my CD issues it would come up with GL_DREX (GLR_DEX?) or something similarly named had failed to load upon trying to run a demo, and the test program would work as well which I did run a few times (it only resulted in a green flash and then displayed scrolling diagonal green lines, though it claimed that it had passed).
Click to expand...

The "386 chip is currently executing in virtual 8086 mode" error is because the program you're trying to run is attempting to switch into protected mode, but you have a memory manager (such as emm386 or qemm) already loaded which has already done so. You'll need to remove the memory manager from config.sys and reboot before trying to run those programs.
 
Just an update:

After clearing my Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files of anything non-essential or CD related (I did remove the line regarding ASPCDROM.sys) I've still made no progress. The drive has a letter, I can switch to it, but I can't actually access any media in the drive. The only other options I can currently think of are try a different driver or drive, whcih I plan on trying both here this Thursday when I have more time on my hands.

Regarding the IrisVision Trixter was correct in that my memory manager was keeping it from functioning properly, and after editing out the lines in attempting to get my CD drive functioning it no longer spits out errors and actually will run demos. Well kind of...

This is attemtping to run the "Jello" demo
20171003_225139.jpg

The Cube demo
20171003_225208.jpg

And the "Insect" demo
20171003_225232.jpg

As you can see all that is displayed is a mess of green...
 
Pretty sure the IrisVision system required a higher resolution than the fixed-frequency monitor you've got connected. Try connecting a multisync monitor (or modern monitor) and see if you get better results.
 
Trixter said:
Pretty sure the IrisVision system required a higher resolution than the fixed-frequency monitor you've got connected. Try connecting a multisync monitor (or modern monitor) and see if you get better results.
Click to expand...

Actually just tried it with a Sony Multiscan 17SE II and a Samsung 955DF, both monitors didn't display anything and just went into power saving mode.

Edit: I managed to get something more coherent (and not green) out of my 8515 display using the cube demo, however I can't say for certain if the adapter is fully functioning as the display in question has a bad vertical pre-amp and scrolls up endlessly. This however makes me thing that the IrisVision is only compatible with newer PS/2 monitors (at least 8515 on up), and if that's the case it will be a royal pain in the rear to find one. As for the display I was originally using, that was an 8512.
 
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I may be mistaken; it looks like it was indeed engineered for VGA: "...including standard 15-pin VGA-style video output and a 15-pin VGA passthrough input connector. The IBM genlock connector was moved to the top of the card, and stereo display signals were also brought out to the VGA passthrough connector."

This is a complicated system. Are you sure your IrisVision boards work? Do you have both of them? Do you have the monitor and passthrough cables connected to the correct ports? Do you have at least one daughterboard to provide the framebuffer/z-buffer?

Have you consulted this: http://www.4crawler.com/IrisVision/index.shtml There is a lot of information there (including config.sys settings that may allow you to use it with emm386) and it suggests the boards may need setting up before they'll work. There is also an Adapter Description File (ADF) for use with your PS/2 Setup disk.
 
FYI, those IBM caddy loading drives are derived from Sony models which are known to have issues with SMD capacitors. Mine dropped out partway through testing and had to be partially recapped at 2AM for me to get it somewhat behaving again.
Also I am only aware of the IrisVision board that has the HD15 connector as an input/genlock connection and a 3W3 connector as the only output connection, also assume the base requirement of the GR 1.2 which the IrisVision is based from and make sure whatever display you use supports 1280x1024 60hz.
 
So I feel like complete idiot right now. After doing some more research it turns out that I need to run a pass through cable out of my XGA adapter and INTO the IrisVisions 15 pin connector, then connect a compatible monitor to the 3w3 connector via bnc connectors.

Trixter said:
I may be mistaken; it looks like it was indeed engineered for VGA: "...including standard 15-pin VGA-style video output and a 15-pin VGA passthrough input connector. The IBM genlock connector was moved to the top of the card, and stereo display signals were also brought out to the VGA passthrough connector."

This is a complicated system. Are you sure your IrisVision boards work? Do you have both of them? Do you have the monitor and passthrough cables connected to the correct ports? Do you have at least one daughterboard to provide the framebuffer/z-buffer?

Have you consulted this: http://www.4crawler.com/IrisVision/index.shtml There is a lot of information there (including config.sys settings that may allow you to use it with emm386) and it suggests the boards may need setting up before they'll work. There is also an Adapter Description File (ADF) for use with your PS/2 Setup disk.
Click to expand...

Just so it is clear I do have the ADFs installed, all four boards (Geometry engine, raster video engine, z-buffer board and 24-bit MEV2 board, all properly sandwiched together and seated into the system). As for if they work or not that's what I'm currently trying to determine :lol:

Thanks for that link! I'll be sure to go over it here soon. There is a setup a program that includes settings for resolution with options for 1280x1024, 1024x768 as well as PAL and NTSC, options for sync method (sync on green, seperate sync, etc.), gamma correction and a few others.


NeXT said:
FYI, those IBM caddy loading drives are derived from Sony models which are known to have issues with SMD capacitors. Mine dropped out partway through testing and had to be partially recapped at 2AM for me to get it somewhat behaving again.
Also I am only aware of the IrisVision board that has the HD15 connector as an input/genlock connection and a 3W3 connector as the only output connection, also assume the base requirement of the GR 1.2 which the IrisVision is based from and make sure whatever display you use supports 1280x1024 60hz.
Click to expand...

If that's the case I may try swapping a different drive into it and see how that works out. Regarding resolution, as per above the setup program has settings for 1280x1024, 1024x768 as well as PAL and NTSC.

Edit: I swapped the drives out and I now have a functioning CD drive! A little disappointment the caddy drive doesn't work bit I may look into fixing it in the near future.
 
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Once you get all of this working, DO NOT separate anything -- a system with both XGA and a functional MCA IrisVision is a very historically interesting system. Also, once you get everything working, please make a youtube video of your setup running some demos or something.
 
Success! I found one of the IBM 3w3 to BNC cables and it just arrived today. I connected everything up and ran the BNC connectors into my Sony Multiscan and it works! Some of the demos (such as insect or jello) are a bit choppy but everything works and they all run, and there's even a flight simulator included with the software! I may try to get some videos of it up on YouTube at some point in the future, but first I'd like to see if I can find three more 32mb memory sticks so I can cap the system out and see of that helps with some of the choppiness. Anyways thank you to everyone who helped me figure this out!
 
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