[CQ-Contest] [Trlog] Successfully booted DOS from CD and ran TR and CT from USB stick

[kd4d at comcast.net]

Good afternoon, all:

I have been successful creating a MS-DOS boot CD, containing a
minimal MS-DOS installation, and running TR and CT entirely from
a USB memory stick.  :-)

I have not been able to test this in combat conditions yet, but
it is working.  Any volunteers?

I installed TR679 on the USB stick and fired up the CQWW.
CW sending seems to be working.  I put the all679.zip file
contents in d:\tr679.  I installed CT10.002.001 in d:\ct10.

The really neat thing about this is that I can download all of the
CT, TR, cty.dat, and master.dta files in Windows and write them 
to the USB stick in Windows.  Then, reboot from the CD and go.

Basically, I booted the CD, with a minimal autoexec.bat and config.sys:

autoexec.bat
path=a:\;a:\dos71
smartdrv a+ c+

config.sys
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off
DEVICE=emm386.exe noems
DOS=high,umb
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20

LASTDRIVE=Z

The CD appears as a:.  My USB stick happened to be D:, but yours
would probably be c:.

I put the TR files in D:\TR679 and created a log directory
d:\logs\tr.  I put trmaster.dta and cty.dat in the d:\logs\tr
directory (the way I like to configure), and entered
path=d:\tr679;%path%.

I put the CT files in D:\CT10 and created a log directory
d:\logs\ct with master.dta and cty.dat.  For the CT test,
I entered path=d:\ct10;a:\;a:\dos71.

Then,
D:
cd logs\tr
tr

and started TR.

(or D:
cd \logs\ct
ct

to start CT.)

Using this technique, I can run TR or CT under pure DOS on any
computer that supports booting from CD AND has bios
recognition of a USB stick without affecting the computer AT
ALL, without repartitioning the disk, and without permanately
installing DOS.

If anyone wants the procedure for creating the bootable CD,
drop me an e-mail.  I am looking for volunteers to try this in a 
real contest.

My hope is that this technique, combined with the non-destructive
procedure I've developed for dual-booting Windows XP and DOS,
will help me continue to use CT and TR for several more years on
new computers.

73,

Mark, KD4D