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Pc-mos/386

the good news..

the good news..

Sharkonwheels said:
Do make sure, if you speak with that family member again, to pass on our well-wishes. Gary's company (TSL) was a pioneer in that industry of the 80's-90's of the multi-user DOS systems, and is a phase in my life I'll never forget.

T
Click to expand...

hi all,

I certainly will do. The good news is that there doesn't seem to be any legal problem anymore to publish the code. I have been talking to gary's sister and she currently tries to find the code on the harddrives Gary still has.

I keep you posted on the further steps....
 
roeland said:
hi all,

I certainly will do. The good news is that there doesn't seem to be any legal problem anymore to publish the code. I have been talking to gary's sister and she currently tries to find the code on the harddrives Gary still has.

I keep you posted on the further steps....
Click to expand...

That would be awesome! I still have a very nice 386 machine that won't run much more than DOS (2 MB RAM limit and a 60 MB hard drive), but it would be just right for hacking on PC-MOS!

And I speak 8086 Assembler (well, to be fair, I did a long time ago) and C. :)
 
belated inquiry

belated inquiry

Hi.

I've had some exposure to PC-MOS and was naturally favourably impressed with it. Ergo my joining this forum when I came across this thread.

Any news on developments? I too would like to see PC-MOS released - preferrably under the GPL - and revived.
 
Yes, I too remember PC-MOS/386!!!

Yes, I too remember PC-MOS/386!!!

I was a VAR with them back in the day (1988-1993), and used to do systems integration with PC-MOS/386 as a more economical solution for businesses that needed multi-user application environment, and didn't want to spend the money on an in-house LAN. (LANs were expensive at that time, including continued support) I wrote and VAR'ed a lot of multi-user-based retail POS applications - much of them Dbase III - related. These all ran great on the PC-MOS platform! I always configured my client's systems using Wyse dumb terminals via BOCA (multi-serial port adapters) boards or similar. I kept a running system in my lab until the late 90's, even though I was no longer doing anything with the product. I'm from them old school of IT, back when we called it DP (data processing), and the idea of being able to configure and run a multi-user environment of DOS simply appealed to me.

In the corporate world, I was (for 24 years) a UNIX system programmer, which back in the day encompassed all areas of maintaining the environment - administration, network admin/config/maintenance/user support, etc. Since UNIX was/is multi-user, I wanted to utilize the 80386 architecture to achieve this capability within the DOS environment. And boy, did it do well for me! So many people were/are completely ignorant to the existence of DOS m/u environments. I finally, however, in 2007 through away (it sort of hurts now!) my copy of the last PC-MOS version, 5.x.x along with the manuals (2), each in its binder case. We were moving from our home and downsizing tremendously, and I had to let go of things that I simply wasn't using, hadn't used in years, and saw no immediate plan to use. At this moment, I wished I had just put it into one of the storage boxes (all still in storage!), but I figure if I get the chance - and space - to create a LAN of legacy/vintage DOS systems, I may be able to track down the last version and do my thing again.

I also used to play with VM/386, DR Concurrent DOS (later bought and shelved by Novell. I never liked Novell, never), Alloy and a few lesser-known others. DR-DOS/386 Multi-user became, over time, REAL/32. I believe REAL/32 is still available as a download, although not suported. Aaah, these m/u DOS environments were ahead of there time in many ways. They do bring back good memories. I could go on . . .

I'm sure someone's got a few copies, probably still shrink-wrapped, lying around in some garage or warehouse (like mine was). If anyone reads this an hears/see such a site, please post it.

Hey, if anyone knows of a resource center (site) where we can download, or even send off for, some of these legacy OSs, please let me know. I'm also interested in locating some TRS-80 boxes (Models 4 & 4P in particular) along with TRS-DOS 6.x and LDOS 7.x (also for the TRS-80 machines). Also looking for some Kaypros with CP/M.

How many of you knew that there was an early multi-user version of CP/M? I think it was called MP/M. It was the predecessor to DR-DOS (before Digital Research took it over and enhanced it). Be nice to see it running again somewhere. Just a bit of trivia.

Thanks everyone, for keeping the memories (and the vintage wisdom) alive!
Enjoy.

Sundragon-
 
Sorry to hear about Gary's health!

Sorry to hear about Gary's health!

I just decided to go through and read ALL of the post regarding PC-MOS. For those of you who are in touch with him, or his family, please send him our best wishes!

He truly engineered and brought about a product that I really loved and will never forget. So let him know, if you can, that someone out here remembers and still speaks highly of PC-MOS/386. I also remember the good tech support they had.

I'm excited to have read that there's discussion of having PC-MOS/386 released to the public, becoming freeware, maybe OpenPC-MOS?!!!

This would really be great! My son, who's just turned 12, is very interested in computers and computing environments. He'll install and run anything I've got a cd/dvd-rom for. He's interested in see PC-MOS run, as he's heard me float into nostalgia as I recall the earlier days. It would be nice to be able to run it again with him at the helm. I've brought up DOS 3.3 and 6.2 on an 386 machine, as part of an exercise to teach my children the history, and to appreciate where the modern computing environment comes from. He'd really get a kick out of PC-MOS, configured as a 2 -3 user system.

Keep us posted.

Thank you again!

Sundragon-
 
7 pages of posting and where are the Images!

Could some kind soul please ready
a) Software images
b) Documentation and codes

and put them onto a site somewhere so that we could all sample PC-MOS/386.

I am sure that if after futher consideration the consensus was that the hosting was appropriate, it would then be taken down immediately. :cool:
 
I have a strange PC-MOS problem. I was running PC-MOS on a 486DX-100 supporting 3 Wyse terminals with no problems. It got hit by lightning so I copied all the data that I could from the HD, then did a clean install of PC-MOS 5.01 and copied back the saved files. Now I can't get PC-MOS to boot on any computer that I've tried. I have another portable system running an AMD K6-2 300MHZ and PC-MOS works just fine on there. I noticed that someone here said they couldn't get their PC-MOS to boot if they loaded the $386.sys driver. That seems to be where mine hangs too but then how do you get the multi-user function to work. Without the driver, my computer says "Not enough memory" for any tasks even though I'm running 64Mb. I ran this same system on the 486 with just 4Mb! Any ideas?
 
Hi all, I have come up with a strange PC-MOS problem in just the last couple of days. Maybe someone here has a suggestion to fix it.
I am presently running several small 2 and 3 user networks under PC-MOS 5.01, Clipper/Dbase III apps, a couple for 20 years and everything has been working fine. Suddenly PC-MOS will not open a .mem data file. In the last two days, four clients have called in with the same problem, on starting up their program, they get an error message saying. "Proc (module name) open error aucdata.mem (2) or (5). No matter which program module calls that file, it produces an error message.
The same programs will run just fine under DOS 5.0 to Dos 6.22 except of course there is no multi-user ability.
Any ideas?
 
I believe I may have a similar issue -- I find myself dealing with similar open error messages.
The issue seems to have manifested on or about Aug 1st or 2nd, but was just brought to my attention late on the 3rd. It is affecting our ability to control some, but not all, aspects of an old paging terminal. I'll be taking my first serious look at it today, 8/7/12, but my initial quick "assessment" made Friday evening produced some results similar to your description. I will need to do some brushing up on the PC-MOS, DOS, and the paging terminal software before I can claim to make an actual evaluation, so it should be interesting and probably frustrating. I'll be watching to see what develops with your situation, and will try to report any progress I might make as well. Good luck.
 
Just discovered that the PC-MOS date generating function must not go beyond July 31 2012!! Came to work wednesday August 1st to discover crashed programs. ( PC-MOS / FOXPro 2.6 / SBT Accounting. ) Took several days to work this out. We managed to get our system running under MS-DOS 6 one user only. As work piled up, we tried to figure out why perfectly good files would not open once accessed or edited or copied (not a valid file, file not found, etc.), but were OK with DOS. It finally became apparent that the file header date was the problem. Like Y2K all over again. Any file with a 08/01/2012 date would not open under PC-MOS. The date was being written OK, but then the file would not open. Solution? spend $$$ to get an emergency upgrade to a whole new softawe/hardware system? ( Work still piling up with 12 person parts & equipment distribution business all trying to use one terminal!) Heres our solution... (1) Rewrite all affected files by editing the file header with a D-Base file-fix utility program and/or accessing & saving the files under MS-Dos booted up with an earlier system date. (2) Re-set the Computer C-mos clock date to the year 2000 and re-boot. (3) Insert a variable/function to add [365.25x10] days to all SBT accounting/inventory programs and procedure files anyplace a date is created/saved/displayd to make sure all "working" dates are correct. The files will still be written with old dates in the file header, but not an issue. Re-compile all program files, and re-index all data files to get "good" dates in FPX and CDX files. Booted up and everythig seems to be OK! Good to go for another 12 years, running 13 terminals/workstaions and 7 printers off one "server". Hope this helps any other PC-MOS cult users out there!
 
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MDK,
Thanks. I had also made a contact in the digital paging world hoping to find anybody still running the same or similar equipment/software as we do, and got a reply indicating a Y2K-type issue also being experienced by other paging systems running PC-MOS. Although the fix/workaround is geared specifically to our paging systems' operation, the general procedure seems to be much like your solution:

[courtesy of Brad Dye, brad@braddye.com]
Hey Tom,

Here are some e-mails about the Unipage Y2K-type bug from last week. The first is a bulletin that I sent out to my newsletter subscribers:

> There is a Y2K type bug in the Unipage/Motorola Console 4. Evidently files updated with today's date, August 1, 2012, will cause some problems with accessing the database— like trying to do activations or swaps.
> My limited understanding of the issue is that the files affected end ".DBF" and possibly others in the Console Database Program (CONDB.EXE) and changing the date to anything earlier should fix the problem.

Then I received this:

> Brad, thanks for the email, we were one of the carriers affected by this Unipage date issue. If it has value, thought I’d share the quick version of what we had to do. John B. with Microspace suggested that it would make sense to pass this along.
> Our console system became unusable as a result of this 8-1-2012 date problem. However, the fix was not as simple as turning the clock back. Once we turned the date back to 2001 (the day of the week matches up), we were still getting condb40c.log file
> errors & could not access subscriber information. The total fix was to use a MSDOS v6.22 boot disk. I could not modify bad files while running PCMOS os, which makes me suspect that PCMOS may be as much of a culprit as the console program. Next, edit
> the condb40c.log file so it will have the 2001 modified date attached to it (all I did was change the last entry to a 2001 date). Then while in MSDOS, start the console program (condb) and invoke the “re-index database file” command under the maintenance
> menu. This should be done for all databases that would be available under the log menu. At least, that worked for us.
>
> [...]

I see you already developed a fix for your system, but perhaps it may be of some use to you or Paulsee, anyway. Had I not been fortunate enough to have received a specific fix for my issue, I'm sure I would have put yours to good use!! Thanks, and good luck.
-Tom
 
Paulsee said:
Hi all, I have come up with a strange PC-MOS problem in just the last couple of days. Maybe someone here has a suggestion to fix it.
I am presently running several small 2 and 3 user networks under PC-MOS 5.01, Clipper/Dbase III apps, a couple for 20 years and everything has been working fine. Suddenly PC-MOS will not open a .mem data file. In the last two days, four clients have called in with the same problem, on starting up their program, they get an error message saying. "Proc (module name) open error aucdata.mem (2) or (5). No matter which program module calls that file, it produces an error message.
The same programs will run just fine under DOS 5.0 to Dos 6.22 except of course there is no multi-user ability.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...

You interest me strangely! What were these apps doing that operated under PC-MOS for the last 20 years? I used to work in the Digital Paging Industry, back then, and even sold an app to paging companies written in Clipper...
 
Billyray said:
You interest me strangely! What were these apps doing that operated under PC-MOS for the last 20 years? I used to work in the Digital Paging Industry, back then, and even sold an app to paging companies written in Clipper...
Click to expand...

Hi Billy Ray,
Strangely, eh? Well my particular apps are written for auction data management. I sell and support computer systems that are tailored specifically for auctioneers' sakes management. Yep, a couple of my systems have been in operation for over 29 years with a couple of updates and tweaks over the years as we come up with a beneficial improvement.

Anyway, the Y2K type problem with PC/MOS is the date. Any date past July 31, 2012 will cause PC/MOS to act erratically and randomly reject any file with a date stamp later than 7/31/2012. I think that somewhere in the PC/MOS .exe file is a date stamp or reference to the end-date which if altered should cure the problem. So far, I haven't been able to find it.

Someone suggested a hex editor but I haven't tried that yet. I used to be able to use a Norton utility program and search for a particular string within an .exe file and once found, edit the string but so far, not knowing what string I'm searching for, I have not been able to find it. Any suggestions in that area?

I have been able to use a work-around for now but I sure would like to continue using PC/MOS just the way it has always worked before the bug problem.
 
Re: Pc/mos bug

Re: Pc/mos bug

OOOps, OOOps, the phrase "auctioneers' sakes management" should read "auctioneers' sales management"
 
7 years late, but the 2012 date problem is fixed. It was a register mov typo that put data in the wrong place. Not an expiration date at all. Is anyone with manuals and disks still around?
 
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