I don't much like option B, but it does work. There may still be things
running in the background in Windows (anti-virus, etc.) that will steal
processor time and mess up CW keying. I've had to use this option on some
PCs, however, because the parallel/serial card was PCI, not ISA, and DOS
couldn't see it.
Option C is better, I think, because you have no Windows baggage.
The best option, however, is a variant of your option A. Boot to a floppy
that has an AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS that do just what you want (HIMEM,
SMARTDRV, etc.). Then add a COMSPEC command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT to tell
the computer to begin using the operating system files on your hard drive
instead of the floppy.
SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM
(Verify the location of COMMAND.COM on your Windows machine. I'm not on 98
right now.)
Create the boot floppy from the same machine so you won't have any
COMMAND.COM version problems.
Robert K5PI
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-trlog@contesting.com [mailto:owner-trlog@contesting.com]On
Behalf Of Scott Johns
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 9:04 AM
To: trlog@contesting.com
Subject: [TRLog] Booting to DOS
What is the best way (for TR), to avoid the problems associated with
windows, to boot up DOS from a machine which normally runs under Win98?
A). Machine off, DOS boot disk in a:drive
B). Machine on in Win98, exit to DOS shell
C). Machine on in Win98, shut down to DOS
Also, where are sources to get DOS and to get cheap parallel and serial
cards for an old 486 machine?
73, Scott W3TX
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