In news:h13j2v$ljb$1@news.eternal-september.org,
P J typed on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:29:47 -0700:
> "John Doue" <notwobe******.com> wrote:
>> I would settle for 6.2 ...
>
> Hear, hear! Believe it or not, I am still running DOS 6.2 in a dual
> boot partition because of an old home automation app I could not find
> a decent Windows version for.
> pj

Dual boot? Windows runs DOS applications too. Is the other partition
Windows?

--
Bill
Windows 2000 SP4
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>P J typed
>> "John Doue" wrote:

>>> I would settle for 6.2 ...

>> Hear, hear! Believe it or not, I am still running DOS 6.2 in a dual
>> boot partition because of an old home automation app I could not find
>> a decent Windows version for.

>Dual boot? Windows runs DOS applications too. Is the other partition
>Windows?

Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
wrote one for receiving as well. I built an external interface for the
keyboard and receiver that used the serial port. It worked great under
DOS (5) but failed under later copies of Windows. For some reason
Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
serial port. I would guess that a home automation program written for
DOS might fail for the same reason depending on how the author
accessed the hardware.

In news:cqpa35d4p3fbuc0gmgoaihntchqh8r230k@4ax.com,
AJL typed on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:31:02 -0700:
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>> P J typed
>>> "John Doue" wrote:
>
>>>> I would settle for 6.2 ...
>
>>> Hear, hear! Believe it or not, I am still running DOS 6.2 in a dual
>>> boot partition because of an old home automation app I could not
>>> find a decent Windows version for.
>
>> Dual boot? Windows runs DOS applications too. Is the other partition
>> Windows?
>
> Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
> wrote one for receiving as well. I built an external interface for the
> keyboard and receiver that used the serial port. It worked great under
> DOS (5) but failed under later copies of Windows. For some reason
> Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
> serial port. I would guess that a home automation program written for
> DOS might fail for the same reason depending on how the author
> accessed the hardware.

Directly? Yes Windows (nor does any multitasking OS really) doesn't like
any program trying to take direct hardware control. As it makes it
virtually impossible to multitask such a program for one. Especially if
the OS needs to use the same hardware too. And second, it can totally
lockup the OS if the program hangs. That is why multitasking OS rather
would like to handle the hardware by itself and normally disallows
programs from doing so.

--
Bill
Windows 2000 SP4
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC

"AJL" <5@fakeaddress.com> kirjoitti viestissä
news:cqpa35d4p3fbuc0gmgoaihntchqh8r230k@4ax.com...
> Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
> wrote one for receiving as well. I built an external interface for the
> keyboard and receiver that used the serial port. It worked great under
> DOS (5) but failed under later copies of Windows. For some reason
> Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
> serial port. I would guess that a home automation program written for
> DOS might fail for the same reason depending on how the author
> accessed the hardware.

Have you tried to run DOS in an emulator window under Windows? Perhaps
Windows would allow accessing serial port from an emulator if you map
virtual serial port on virtual DOS PC to host PC's serial port? If that
would work, you could have Windows and DOS running same time -- if that's of
any benefit to you.

If you want to try that, DOSBox comes with its own version of DOS, and on MS
Virtual PC you can install your DOS 5.

But on second thought, you said you're sending and receiving Morse code;
that sounds pretty time critical, which emulators are not. While the host PC
is busy, the emulated computer runs slower, which probably would affect
lengths of signals to be sent or received. Oh well, you've coped with either
DOS or Windows running at a time so far, so maybe there's nothing that needs
to be fixed in the first place...

P.V.

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
> Dual boot? Windows runs DOS applications too. Is the other partition
> Windows?

Just like the other guys said: needed direct serial port access by the X10
controller.
PJ

AJL <5@fakeaddress.com> wrote in news:cqpa35d4p3fbuc0gmgoaihntchqh8r230k@
4ax.com:

> Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
> wrote one for receiving as well. I built an external interface for the
> keyboard and receiver that used the serial port. It worked great under
> DOS (5) but failed under later copies of Windows. For some reason
> Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
> serial port. I would guess that a home automation program written for
> DOS might fail for the same reason depending on how the author
> accessed the hardware.
>
>

What's ur call, AJL? I've been a ham since 1957. I was 11...(c;]

--... ...-- -.. . .-- ....- -.-. ... -.-. -.-

John Doue <notwobe******.com> wrote in news:o48Zl.138$Ie4.36
@read4.inet.fi:

> How many fries per gallon do you get?
>

Everyone wonders why it doesn't smell like french fries. Potatoes don't
fill the oil with their own oil. They're full of water so it boils off
at the fryer. Fish, however, are full of oil. Burning oil full of fish
oil DOES make the diesel exhaust smell like a fish fry...(c;]

There are 3 of us in the "French Fried Oil Company". I have a oil-
powered old stepvan so am in the pickup/delivery department. I pick up
the oil in the 5 gallon, plastic-lined, boxes it comes in. The
restaurants each have a large strainer funnel to get it back in the box
from their fryers. They trash the large stuff that would clog the box's
small hole. We take the oil to George's trucking company warehouse,
which is George's part of our little consortium, warehousing our supply.
Mike is a great truck mechanic and he's in "Filter and Storage". He
built, maintains and operates our filtering/pumping equipment. The oil
sits totally undisturbed for 60 days or more, as needed, when we have a
suction pipe to draw off nearly clean oil about 3" off the bottom of the
settled box. The oil is drawn off slowly to reduce the sediment it
picks up. This method has reduced our filter network refilter purchases
to nearly zero! Clean oil with only a trace of particles in it passes
through two massive diesel truck fuel filters/water separators drawn
through them by a positive displacement gear pump that runs slowly to
meter the flow. There's never been any water detected because the oil
is kept stored inside after being kept well above water's boiling point
for many days in the frying process. The filters are 5 microns then 1
micron before going through the pump into the plastic barrels we use
clean oil from.

As two of us are using pure oil in Frybrid conversions:
www.frybrid.com
pure oil goes into some barrels. My truck is a frybrid conversion,
totally unnecessary in South Carolina's hot climate, a total waste of
money. My Mercedes cars ('73 220D, '83 300TD wagon), are unmodified and
run on a mixture of 1 part mineral spirits (paint thinner I get from
painting contractors left over from their jobs) and 50 parts clean oil.
In winter the mixture has double the mineral spirits to ensure starting
near freezing, about as cold as it gets here. That still strands me a
couple of times a winter, but just wait until it warms a little and she
cranks right up. Once the engine has heated the injection pump housing,
it would run at 0F, no sweat unless the oil jellies in the lines,
preventing flow from the tank. The frybrid has water-heated everything
and a computer system...see webpage.

Our problem, locally, is supply. The warehouse's supply of oil SWELLS
over our actual usage. I joke with the other guys that we may need to
drive back and forth to Atlanta (350 miles) all weekened to reduce our
backed up supply. George has been experimenting with two old diesel
trucks used to ferry containers around the city to help us use up the
surplus. We've also considered buying a diesel genset and selling our
excess fuel as AC power back to the power company.

For this reason, we don't ever worry about how much "miles per gallon"
we get. "DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT" is our motto. Full throttle saves
warehouse space! Drop by and I'll fill you up....free!

--
-----
Larry

If a man goes way out into the woods all alone and says something,
is it still wrong, even though no woman hears him?

"P.V." <ano@nymo.us> wrote:

>"AJL" <5@fakeaddress.com> kirjoitti viestissä

>> Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
>> wrote one for receiving as well... For some reason
>> Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
>> serial port.

>Have you tried to run DOS in an emulator window under Windows?

No. I haven't used the program in over 17 years. That was back when
everyone was into Basic. It was fun project to write and use, but
after I got it working the challenge was over. (I usually work CW the
old fashioned way...by ear and bug).

> Perhaps Windows would allow accessing serial port from an emulator...

And I haven't owned a computer that has a serial port in years
either... ;)

>If you want to try that, DOSBox comes with its own version of DOS...

I thank you for your suggestion though.

>But on second thought, you said you're sending and receiving Morse code;
>that sounds pretty time critical...

Yes it was time critical. I was using a 386 at 40 MHz and it worked
quite well for as primitive as my Basic program was. For those of you
who dabbled in Basic, I used Pokes and Peeks. I poked one line on the
serial port that was attached to a relay for keying the transmitter,
and I and sampled another line for the levels from the receiver. The
simple homebrew interface took care of the levels. The timing was done
in loops with lookup tables. The top speed under good conditions was
around 35 WPM which wasn't great considering that commercial programs
of that era could do well over 100 WPM. They didn't do me much good
though cause I can't type over 20 WPM... ;)

Larry wrote:
> John Doue <notwobe******.com> wrote in news:o48Zl.138$Ie4.36
> @read4.inet.fi:
>
>> How many fries per gallon do you get?
>>
>
> Everyone wonders why it doesn't smell like french fries. Potatoes don't
> fill the oil with their own oil. They're full of water so it boils off
> at the fryer. Fish, however, are full of oil. Burning oil full of fish
> oil DOES make the diesel exhaust smell like a fish fry...(c;]
>
> There are 3 of us in the "French Fried Oil Company". I have a oil-
> powered old stepvan so am in the pickup/delivery department. I pick up
> the oil in the 5 gallon, plastic-lined, boxes it comes in. The
> restaurants each have a large strainer funnel to get it back in the box
> from their fryers. They trash the large stuff that would clog the box's
> small hole. We take the oil to George's trucking company warehouse,
> which is George's part of our little consortium, warehousing our supply.
> Mike is a great truck mechanic and he's in "Filter and Storage". He
> built, maintains and operates our filtering/pumping equipment. The oil
> sits totally undisturbed for 60 days or more, as needed, when we have a
> suction pipe to draw off nearly clean oil about 3" off the bottom of the
> settled box. The oil is drawn off slowly to reduce the sediment it
> picks up. This method has reduced our filter network refilter purchases
> to nearly zero! Clean oil with only a trace of particles in it passes
> through two massive diesel truck fuel filters/water separators drawn
> through them by a positive displacement gear pump that runs slowly to
> meter the flow. There's never been any water detected because the oil
> is kept stored inside after being kept well above water's boiling point
> for many days in the frying process. The filters are 5 microns then 1
> micron before going through the pump into the plastic barrels we use
> clean oil from.
>
> As two of us are using pure oil in Frybrid conversions:
> www.frybrid.com
> pure oil goes into some barrels. My truck is a frybrid conversion,
> totally unnecessary in South Carolina's hot climate, a total waste of
> money. My Mercedes cars ('73 220D, '83 300TD wagon), are unmodified and
> run on a mixture of 1 part mineral spirits (paint thinner I get from
> painting contractors left over from their jobs) and 50 parts clean oil.
> In winter the mixture has double the mineral spirits to ensure starting
> near freezing, about as cold as it gets here. That still strands me a
> couple of times a winter, but just wait until it warms a little and she
> cranks right up. Once the engine has heated the injection pump housing,
> it would run at 0F, no sweat unless the oil jellies in the lines,
> preventing flow from the tank. The frybrid has water-heated everything
> and a computer system...see webpage.
>
> Our problem, locally, is supply. The warehouse's supply of oil SWELLS
> over our actual usage. I joke with the other guys that we may need to
> drive back and forth to Atlanta (350 miles) all weekened to reduce our
> backed up supply. George has been experimenting with two old diesel
> trucks used to ferry containers around the city to help us use up the
> surplus. We've also considered buying a diesel genset and selling our
> excess fuel as AC power back to the power company.
>
> For this reason, we don't ever worry about how much "miles per gallon"
> we get. "DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT" is our motto. Full throttle saves
> warehouse space! Drop by and I'll fill you up....free!
>
Excellent, I love it. Some people are going your route in France,
especially in rural areas, last I heard, but France being an oppressive
country in many regards, Customs try to chase them because they do not
pay - of course - any tax on their fuel.

--
John Doue

I am glad you have a hobby and club. This however, in professional rate
wages, is the most expensive fuel ever.

John Doue <notwobe******.com> wrote in news:gLnZl.18$LV.8@read4.inet.fi:

> Excellent, I love it. Some people are going your route in France,
> especially in rural areas, last I heard, but France being an oppressive
> country in many regards, Customs try to chase them because they do not
> pay - of course - any tax on their fuel.
>
>

When confronted as a tax cheat for burning waste oil, here in South
Carolina, my statement is alwasy the same. "I pay all taxes due on every
gallon of diesel fuel and waste cooking oil I use." This is true. There
is no tax in the USA or in the state of SC on waste oil being used for
propulsion. It's not worth their while to chase after us.....yet.....maybe
some day.



--
-----
Larry

If a man goes way out into the woods all alone and says something,
is it still wrong, even though no woman hears him?

Larry wrote:
> John Doue <notwobe******.com> wrote in news:gLnZl.18$LV.8@read4.inet.fi:
>
>> Excellent, I love it. Some people are going your route in France,
>> especially in rural areas, last I heard, but France being an oppressive
>> country in many regards, Customs try to chase them because they do not
>> pay - of course - any tax on their fuel.
>>
>>
>
> When confronted as a tax cheat for burning waste oil, here in South
> Carolina, my statement is alwasy the same. "I pay all taxes due on every
> gallon of diesel fuel and waste cooking oil I use." This is true. There
> is no tax in the USA or in the state of SC on waste oil being used for
> propulsion. It's not worth their while to chase after us.....yet.....maybe
> some day.
>
>
>
France, supposedly promoting freedom (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité), has
put a twist in its rational: simply put, you cannot use as motor fuel
anything that has not paid motor fuel taxes. So I believe you can use
whatever you want, provided you pay the diesel fuel tax on it and have
the proper customs color (tracer) additive put in it ... Considering the
level of taxation there, who would bother? I guess people who come use
this kind of fuel take their chances and once in a while add regular
diesel oil to get this famous tracer into their mixture ...

Add to this automatic speed radar traps all over the place ... Believe
me, when I'm back in Florida, I breathe easier ...

--
John Doue

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:55:45 -0700, AJL wrote:

> AJL <5@fakeaddress.com> wrote:
>
>>"P J" <pj@pjama.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>Most laptops come with a lot of hardware specific drivers and software
>>>installed by the manufacturer that work with the installed OS. In my
>>>case it's Vista on an HP tablet entertainment notebook. What I wonder
>>>about is how will I be able to upgrade it to Windows 7 if HP decides not
>>>to provide updated drivers,,,
>>
>>According to reports Windows 7 is compatible with Vista drivers.
>>
>>>and software for Win 7?
>>
>>Windows 7 is backwards compatible so will (should?) run anything that
>>Vista will.
>
> And apparently W7 will even run on older computers than yours, for
> example this one manufactured in 2001, though with some difficulty...
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...e_support.html

Interestingly, I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on my desktop which is
about 5 years old. With Vista, the NForce2 chipset gave an error on that
Advisor since it wasn't supported, but Win7 Advisor says all is fine. Only
thing it was showing a problem with was my Nero 6 which it says might need
to be upgraded.

Go figure.

Patty

Patty <patty@iainttellin.com> wrote:

>I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on my desktop which is
>about 5 years old. With Vista, the NForce2 chipset gave an error on that
>Advisor since it wasn't supported, but Win7 Advisor says all is fine.

I'm guessing that this reportedly good W7 compatibility with old
machines will be useful for businesses that may want to upgrade
without buying a lot of new computers. However I doubt that anyone
here will rush out and spend $200 for a copy of W7 to run on their 5
year old laptop... ;)

On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:19:22 -0700, AJL wrote:

> Patty <patty@iainttellin.com> wrote:
>
>>I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on my desktop which is
>>about 5 years old. With Vista, the NForce2 chipset gave an error on that
>>Advisor since it wasn't supported, but Win7 Advisor says all is fine.
>
> I'm guessing that this reportedly good W7 compatibility with old
> machines will be useful for businesses that may want to upgrade
> without buying a lot of new computers. However I doubt that anyone
> here will rush out and spend $200 for a copy of W7 to run on their 5
> year old laptop... ;)

Companies usually get license deals so they probably wouldn't pay $200 for
each system. I, however, will probably just limp along with XP. ;)