Experts with The Poqet PC here? PCMCIA memory cards...

[1ST1]

Hello, any experts here, which know the usage of The Poquet PC?

That's a MS-DOS 3.30 based palmtop, introduced in the beginning of the year 1989, so even a bit older than the well known Atari Portfolio and much older than the HP 200LX. The Poquet is quite rare, but I got a working one. Like the Portfolio and the 200LX it's a pocket size MS-DOS mini laptop, in comparison with the Portfolio and the 200LX it is bigger, but it has a well and comfortable keyboard and 80x25 display. It's running on MS-DOS 3.30 and it has similar built in applications like the Portfolio (a spreadsheet is missing, but you can run original Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Multiplan on it.)

I got it with a 64 kB and a 2 MB PCMCIA SRAM card (using CR2325 batteries) with the Poqet PC logo, so they are the original ones. After getting these batteries I was able to format the 64kB card and it holds it's content over power off and unplug and replug the card. I can't format the 2 MB card in the Poquet PC, it always says error in formatting.

So I found this website: https://www.bmason.com/PoqetPC/software/index.html

There is a software which is able to format that 2 MB card, but as I don't have anything else, means no serial/parallel cable for the Poqet I currently don't have any possibility to transfer the software to it.

So I thought beeing smart and pulling out my HP 200LX. First thing I tryied, I checked it's 10 MB Flash card, it's still formatted and there are datas on it. So I plugged that flash card in the b: drive of the Poqet, but it can't read that. So I plugged the 2 MB SRAM card into the HP 200LX and it was able to format it with 2 MB capacity. I plugged it back into the Poqet, but read error there. In the HP it is still readable, so not broken.

The point is, the 64kB card formatted in the Poqet PC is also fully readable in the HP 200LX.

Any explanation for that? Would it help to pull out one of my older Thinkpads with PCMCIA slot and Windows XP?

Would such a device help? I think they might be incompatible to such old PCMCIA memory cards? They may only support newer ATA cards. But that would be the easiest to just plug them to my Windows 11 notebook.

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[dreNorteR]

Windows XP might work, but in my experience, Win9x is the safer bet for SRAM cards - newer operating systems probably don't support them at all. And the reason why the Poquet can't access a 2 MB card formatted in the 200LX might be that it only supports one specific format, and the HP palmtop does it differently (sectors per cluster, number of root directory entries, etc).

Flash cards will require a third-party driver. If it doesn't exist already, writing one would take some reverse engineering to figure out how the hardware maps PCMCIA cards into memory.

I would try to use a laptop running Windows 9x to put the format program on the 64K card, then run that on the Poquet and see if the 2 MB card formatted with it works on everything else.

 

[twolazy]

Are you remembering to format them in fat16 and not fat32?

 

[1ST1]

Are you remembering to format them in fat16 and not fat32?

What don you mean? The Poquet and the 200XL do not know anything about FAT 32 (they run MS-DOS 3.30 (Poquet) and 5.0 (200LX), and my attempts to format/access the cards were just with these until now. I need to pull out one of my XP + PCMCIA notebooks and DOS/Win 9x + PCMCIA for further tests.

What I found out now, that the developers of the Poquet were also involved into designing the standard of type 1 PCMCIA and the Poqet-PC is maybe the first device where this was implemented. And the fun fact is, one of these developers was also involved into the design of the DIP-PC, better known as the Atari Portfolio, at the same time where they decided to use the Mitsubishi Bee cards instead of trying PCMCIA.

 

[twolazy]

The cards still need a file system to function, most likely fat-16. Perhaps the Poquet uses Fat-12 as the file system? I do know MSDOS 3.3 supported both. If the Poquet is indeed fat12, the partition/drive limit is 8mb I believe (and would have issues with a 10mb card). Just a hunch.

 

[dreNorteR]

The cards still need a file system to function, most likely fat-16. Perhaps the Poquet uses Fat-12 as the file system? I do know MSDOS 3.3 supported both. If the Poquet is indeed fat12, the partition/drive limit is 8mb I believe (and would have issues with a 10mb card). Just a hunch.

He formatted it in the HP 200 LX. Since it's a 2 MB card, it would likely have been as FAT12. But it's possible that the Poqet disk driver or DOS expects certain parameters, instead of reading the correct ones from the BPB. Might be this problem: https://jdebp.uk/FGA/volume-boot-block-oem-name-field.html

If that is indeed the cause, one possible solution would be to use DEBUG.COM on the HP to modify the OEM name string, like so:

a:\>debug
L 0100 0 0 1
E 0103
49 <space> 42 <space> 4D <space> 20 <space> 20 <space> 32 <space> 2E <space> 30
W 0100 0 0 1
Q

If this works, you'd probably also have to do it again after using Windows 9x to access the card, since it will overwrite that field with garbage.

Also, FAT12 can go up to 128 MB. I currently have both PC-DOS 2000 and a hacked up build of the DOS 4.00 source running on a disk with 4 such partitions!

 

[1ST1]

Which comands in debug would be required to read the OEM name string? Then I can compare between the 64kB card and the 2 MB card.

 

[dreNorteR]

Which comands in debug would be required to read the OEM name string? Then I can compare between the 64kB card and the 2 MB card.

After reading the boot sector (that's the "L" command), enter "D 0103 010A".

 

[1ST1]

How to read the same from B:?

"D 0103 010A"

Output is:

96 04 e8 8a 60-75 03 eb

 

[dreNorteR]

How to read the same from B:?

in the L (load) and W (write) command, the first number is the load address (0100), then second the drive (0=A: ), then the starting sector (0) and count (1). So you would have to change the second number to 1.

Output is:

96 04 e8 8a 60-75 03 eb

That doesn't look right, it should normally be some ASCII text, not executable code as this appears to be. Are you sure you ran the Load command first? If you run "D 0100" (also after loading the boot sector of course), the first three bytes it shows should be "EB xx 90" or "E9 xx 0x", followed by the OEM name.

And from looking at the 2mformat.com program, the expected string there would be "POQET3.3" (50 4F 51 45 54 33 2E 33).

 

[1ST1]

Hello, yes you are right, I was not using the load command before. So now I get for drive a: and b:

a: 50 4f 51 45 54-33 2e 33 POQET3.3
b: 4d 53 44 4f 53-35 2e 30 MSDOS5.0

So do you think the simple solution cold be to overwrite MSDOS 5.0 with POQET3.3 and I am done? What would be the command sequence?

 

[dreNorteR]

Hello, yes you are right, I was not using the load command before. So now I get for drive a: and b:

a: 50 4f 51 45 54-33 2e 33 POQET3.3
b: 4d 53 44 4f 53-35 2e 30 MSDOS5.0

So do you think the simple solution cold be to overwrite MSDOS 5.0 with POQET3.3 and I am done? What would be the command sequence?

Not being a Poqet expert (just knowing a few things about DOS), it's a guess if this will work. The debug commands are (comments on what each line does to the right, don't need to type those):

L 0100 1 0 1              ;load first sector of drive B: to 0100
E 0103                    ;enter bytes at 0100+3
50 4f 51 45 54 33 2e 33   ;"POQET3.3"
W 0100 1 0 1              ;write it back
Q                         ;quit

 

[1ST1]

Hello, I tryed that and I verified with

L 0100 1 0 1
D 0103 010A

And it displays

50 4f 51 45 54-33 2e 33 POQET3.3

like expected. But when

dir b:

it still displays general failure error reading drive b:

The 200LX still can read the 2mb card.

 

[dreNorteR]

Hello, I tryed that and I verified with

L 0100 1 0 1
D 0103 010A

And it displays

50 4f 51 45 54-33 2e 33 POQET3.3

like expected. But when

dir b:

it still displays general failure error reading drive b:

The 200LX still can read the 2mb card.

Well it was worth a try. Did you run Debug on the Poqet and try the "dir" command immediately afterwards? If so, maybe also insert the card again after taking it out and see if it works then, otherwise I'm out of ideas.

 

[1ST1]

Yes, I did that. I also rebooted it.

I did also some test orgy with PCMCIA equipped notebooks, my Thinkpad T41 with XP then was able to detect the HP Flash card at correct size, but it wanted to format it, I refused. The SRAM cards from Poqet weren't detected at all.

My working Win 9x based Notebooks (Olivetti Echos 100Pro, Olivetti Philos 33C) didn't detect any of these cards. There is one more, a Thinkpad 760D, but it refused to boot Windows 95, some sort of error, I didn't figured out what is the root cause (scandisk was ok)...

So I think I have to solder these serial cables for Poqet and HP...

 

[rittwage]

It was the first computer to use those cards, so there was no standard. Likely it will only accept the ones they made for it.

You made a valiant effort!

 

[1ST1]

Hello, is there maybe a simple solution to discover the file system difference between the two cards using debug? For example to verify if it is FAT12 or FAT16 ?

 

[dreNorteR]

Hello, is there maybe a simple solution to discover the file system difference between the two cards using debug? For example to verify if it is FAT12 or FAT16 ?

That wouldn't help, because the format will be different for a 2 MB card. In any case, it's safe to assume both will use FAT12 (it's technically possible to have a FAT16 filesystem that small, but only if both the sector and cluster size were less than 512 bytes). And even if you had the correct parameters, you'd need to change more than just the boot sector to get a correct filesystem.

Looking again at the boot sector inside 2MFORMAT, the sector size is the standard 512 bytes, but the rest of the format definition makes no sense: the total number of sectors is something like 10 MB instead, with 8 sectors per cluster. I assume the code sets these fields to reasonable values, but I'd have to reverse engineer it to find out what these are. Also, the "hidden sectors" field - which is normally only used for hard disk partitions - is set to 1, which could hint at there being something on the card before the FAT boot sector (maybe the Card Information Structure defined in the PCMCIA standard?).

What you could try is the following in DEBUG, with the Poqet formatted card in B:

A 0100
MOV AX,0201
MOV BX,0200
MOV CX,0001
MOV DX,0001     ;change to 0000 for drive A:
INT 13
INT 3
<empty line>
G
D 0200

If there really is such a hidden sector, this might read it. But in any case, you'd need to get some kind of format program onto the Poqet, and writing one in DEBUG would probably be too much effort.

 

[1ST1]

64 kB in A:


2 MB in B:

The interesting is that on the B: drive I can read POQET 2MB FAT12 in clear text, but the card has been formatted by the HP.

 

[dreNorteR]

So there's no hidden sector, it's the same as the boot sector you'd get from the L command. "POQET 2 MB" is just the volume label. And the OEM name of the card in B: has been overwritten with garbage ending in "IHC", which is something that Windows 9x does, as explained in that page I linked earlier.

But I wonder why that's there, it means that you plugged the card into some Windows machine and it was recognized, at least enough for it to write this into the boot sector?