Author Archives: Michal Necasek

Converting NT DDK/SDK PostScript documents to PDF

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Michal Necasek

Pre-releases of Microsoft’s NT development tools, as well as the final NT 3.1 SDK and DDK, shipped with a full set of printable documentation in PostScript format. The PostScript book-style document were rather more pleasing to the eye than the … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, NT | 5 Comments

OS/2 Warp installation pitfalls

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Michal Necasek

Recently I had an opportunity to install and update various versions of OS/2 (Warp 3 and later) in virtual machines. In the process I ran into several subtle and not so subtle issues which may be worth recording, complete with … Continue reading →

Posted in OS/2, Virtualization | 14 Comments

Is it so hard to document things?

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Michal Necasek

A few weeks ago I spent a bit of time debugging a program which mysteriously failed under DOS 3.3, although it worked without any apparent problem on DOS 4.0 and later, and there was no indication that it required anything … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS | 66 Comments

Running 1-2-3 R3 in a VM

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Michal Necasek

I recently tried to install the infamous Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3 from 1989 in a VM. The program disks included both DOS and OS/2 executables, and both were failing. The DOS version stopped with “Cannot initialize system driver” immediately after … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, PC history, VirtualBox | 3 Comments

Need for Speed SE video glitch

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Michal Necasek

When attempting to play the classic racing game Need for Speed SE in a virtualized environment (VirtualBox), I was dismayed to discover that all the in-game videos were completely garbled. Curiously, the introductory video played when the game is first … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, VirtualBox | 8 Comments

WordStar needs address wraparound?

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Michal Necasek

The CP/M compatible interface in DOS was initially documented, later forgotten, and then re-discovered every once in a while. In 1989, John Switzer described parts of the CALL 5 system call interface mechanism in a slightly hysterical article as a “back … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, PC architecture, WordStar | 11 Comments

Who needs the address wraparound, anyway?

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Michal Necasek

The infamous A20 gate is well known and documented in hair-raising detail. What’s much less well documented is the real purpose of the A20 gate, that is, who actually needs the 8086 address wrap-around to be emulated in the first … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, PC architecture | 4 Comments

IBM DOS 5.0 QBASIC hangs on non-IBM systems

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Michal Necasek

Much like its predecessors, IBM DOS 5.0 has no trouble running on clone systems, as long as they’re sufficiently compatible. That includes virtual machines. However, the QBASIC.EXE (and consequently EDIT.COM) program dated May 9, 1991 consistently hangs on any non-IBM … Continue reading →

Posted in BIOS, DOS, PC history | 20 Comments

Hang with early DOS boot sector

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Michal Necasek

While installing various versions of DOS for the DOS history series of articles, I was faced with a mysterious problem: Some versions of DOS would hang right away when booting from fixed disk, but not from floppy. I already knew … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS | 32 Comments

Happy 30th Birthday!

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Michal Necasek

In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the IBM Personal Computer, the OS/2 museum started a new series of articles, this time dealing with the history of DOS—the predecessor of OS/2 and the first OS developed by Microsoft in cooperation … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, PC history | Leave a comment