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  • MODE.COM in MS-DOS 6.22?

    From Amir Caspi@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 7 15:30:12 2021
    Hi all,

    I'm trying to restore a very old DOS program that uses the LPT. I've been running it in a (very old) Parallels Desktop VM but the LPT-to-file functionality doesn't work properly from v9 onwards, and v8 is totally end-of-lifed. I'm trying to get this to
    work in VirtualBox and need to redirect the LPT to COM.

    I've gotten the Parallels HDDs working fine in Vbox -- I can boot, I can run the old DOS program just fine. But, I can't redirect the LPT -- the "mode" command isn't found (DOS is complaining it's a "bad command"). So apparently I don't have MODE.COM
    installed, and I'm not sure where to get it.

    Any ideas on how to get MODE working? Or, might anyone know how to redirect LPT to a text file in VirtualBox?

    Thanks in advance for your patience as I am a complete DOS luddite (and I don't use Windows, this is a pure DOS VM).

    Thank you!

    --- Amir

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Amir Caspi@21:1/5 to Amir Caspi on Sun Mar 7 23:30:52 2021
    OK, I've resolved this but have a different question now. =P It turns out my existing DOS installation on the Parallels VM used a basic 6.22 install which had only the first install disk's worth of stuff. I found the full 3-disk install and was able to
    get MODE.COM from that. I was then able to reassign LPT1 to COM1 and get printing working in Vbox.

    BUT -- when I tried a _fresh_ install from the 3-disk set, the ASSIGN command kept returning an error ("incorrect DOS version"). I tried using SETVER but could not find a version number that would work properly. My old limited install didn't have this
    problem, ASSIGN worked fine. So, in the end, I just copied MODE.COM from the new install to the old install, and it now works fine... but I have no idea why ASSIGN didn't work properly off the fresh install.

    Is there a particular version number to use with SETVER? 5.0 didn't work, nor did 6.22.

    Thanks!

    --- Amir

    On Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 4:30:28 PM UTC-7, Amir Caspi wrote:
    Hi all,

    I'm trying to restore a very old DOS program that uses the LPT. I've been running it in a (very old) Parallels Desktop VM but the LPT-to-file functionality doesn't work properly from v9 onwards, and v8 is totally end-of-lifed. I'm trying to get this to
    work in VirtualBox and need to redirect the LPT to COM.

    I've gotten the Parallels HDDs working fine in Vbox -- I can boot, I can run the old DOS program just fine. But, I can't redirect the LPT -- the "mode" command isn't found (DOS is complaining it's a "bad command"). So apparently I don't have MODE.COM
    installed, and I'm not sure where to get it.

    Any ideas on how to get MODE working? Or, might anyone know how to redirect LPT to a text file in VirtualBox?

    Thanks in advance for your patience as I am a complete DOS luddite (and I don't use Windows, this is a pure DOS VM).

    Thank you!

    --- Amir

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * O
  • From JJ@21:1/5 to Amir Caspi on Tue Mar 9 13:40:41 2021
    On Sun, 7 Mar 2021 23:30:52 -0800 (PST), Amir Caspi wrote:
    OK, I've resolved this but have a different question now. =P It turns out
    my existing DOS installation on the Parallels VM used a basic 6.22
    install which had only the first install disk's worth of stuff.

    That shouldn't happen. Even MS-DOS 5.0's MODE already support LPT.

    BUT -- when I tried a _fresh_ install from the 3-disk set, the ASSIGN
    command kept returning an error ("incorrect DOS version").

    That shouldn't happen either. Chances are those disk set are custom
    compiled. Get a correct disk set from Internet Archive.

    I tried using
    SETVER but could not find a version number that would work properly.

    IIRC, SETVER won't work for MS-DOS own programs as they detect the real DOS version, rather than the reported DOS version. SETVER only change the
    reported DOS version.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Amir Caspi@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 8 23:31:49 2021
    On Monday, March 8, 2021 at 11:41:00 PM UTC-7, JJ wrote:
    That shouldn't happen. Even MS-DOS 5.0's MODE already support LPT.

    The problem was that MODE was not installed; apparently I was missing a bunch of utilities. From what I understand (which is very little), MODE is an external command, not built in, and apparently it was not installed. (Until I copied it over from the
    fresh install, that is.)

    That shouldn't happen either. Chances are those disk set are custom compiled. Get a correct disk set from Internet Archive.

    Hmm, ok, will definitely try that. It looked like a regular install set but admittedly I don't know anything, so your advice is most welcome. =)

    Thanks!

    --- Amir

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)