[FROG member Anson Chong has pulled together a set of programs designed to be particularly useful in keeping older machines productive-- pre-hard-drive 8086's and XT's in particular.]
[Copyright FROG Computer Society.
350 Chili Ave
Rochester NY 14611-2596
BBS: (716) 461-1924
From the July 1996 LilyPad,
newsletter of the FROG Computer Society
Rochester NY
Non-profit newsletter use permitted with credit,
and copy of the results to FROG.]
Thanks to volunteer beta testers including Arthur Lowenthal, John Utz, James Albertini, John Doser, Dick Seig and James Hall, the Master Manini diskette ("Manini" is "cheap" in the Hawaiian language) has come a long way! For background information, see LilyPads of 10/95 and 2/96.
This follow-up article reports on the progress of this effort to create a free, all-on-one-disk software package for obsolete 8086 or 8088 PCs with no hard disk. The need to create this package grew out of the realization that:
(1) there are still many of those PCs sitting around in perfectly good working condition;
(2) no retailer sells software for these clunkers (because such PCs have not been manufactured for over a decade, and the perception is that nobody uses them anymore;
(3) some people might find these dinosaurs still useful if an easy-to-use software package were available; and
(4) putting unused PCs to work is a good, environmentally sound recycling idea.
Our initial version of Manini was designed for those ancient PCs with two 720K disk drives and a 2400-baud modem. Thousands of such machines were made under IBM or IBM clone labels back in the early to mid '80s. For these PCs, we came up with one Manini diskette that contained small-size freeware and shareware that could easily send/receive e-mail, do dial-ups for phone lists, do simple math and word-proces sing and do the usual file management chores, including condensing files to save disk space, as well as the usual search and retrieve tasks.
We later discovered that many people still have PCs with the 5-1/4" disk drives (360K capacity), so we developed a Manini package consisting of two floppies. It was necessary to do this because the software that fit on a 720K diskette could not fit on a single 360K floppy.
Over the last six months, our valiant beta testers found glitches and, of course, typos. The typos were easy to fix, but some of the other problems took time to solve.
A major early-on problem was getting the telecommunications software to work. We found that some clunkers were pre-set for COM1 and others for COM2. Since the software we chose had to be set by hand to either of those ports, it was necessary to ask the user to what port his or her PC was set. Often the response was "I don't know." We solved that problem by simply distributing two diskettes at a time, one set for COM1 and one set for COM2.
The telecommunications software we bundled into Manini are Procomm ver. 2.4.3 of 1985 (to get into free BBSs for e-mail) and Sidekick ver.1.56B (1984) to handle simple phone lists for automatic dialing.
The Ohio beta testers suggested a telecommunications shareware named "Banana" which "sensed" the communications port of the PC as it was loaded, and adjusted itself accordingly, but we didn't incorporate it into Manini because Banana also required some fine tuning and just did not seem as user friendly as the old and reliable Procomm, which was easy to manipulate and pre-set.
We streamlined the PKZIP and PKUNZIP routines (programs to save disk space) and pre-typed the names and phone numbers of a few free BBSs in Hilo, Cleveland and Rochester (where our beta testers reside. Thank you, Frog member Arthur Abel for getting us the up-to-date Cleveland numbers!).
With the above improvements, all a user needs to do to get started is put the Manini in the left slot of his or her 8086 or 8088 PC, turn on the machine, and follow the prompts! All the necessary information to do the various operations are on the imbedded intuitive help screens. No umpteen-page manuals to frustrate the user, that's for sure!
We have solved most of the problems that cropped up over the past six months by redesigning the software and by improving the help screens. On the other hand, there is still that occasional PC that refuses to respond to the Manini, but we keep on trying!
In the process of improving and fixing the Manini, we learned a heck of a lot about 8086 and 8088 PCs and gained a healthy respect for them!
In addition to my friend in Hawaii with his clunker, the Manini is used by a large senior citizens group in Cleveland. They report that many of their members have "obsolete" PC's which they give to their grandkids, and they find our little all-on-a-diskette package useful. The Manini is also used at an inner-city school here in Rochester (See LilyPad of 3/96, p. 9).
If you have a workable clunker and want to try our improved Manini, send a self-addressed stamped envelope with a blank 3 1/2" 720K diskette (or two 5 1/4" 360K floppies) and tell us to what COM port your machine is set (either COM1 or COM2). If you don't know what it is, double the number of diskettes you send so that we can send you both options.
My snail mail address is: Anson Chong, 184 Surrey Hill Way, Henrietta, NY 14623-3047. The Manini is free, but we do request feedback and comments so that we can improve it even more!
Reminder: The Master Manini works only on 8086 or 8088 PCs with two disk-drives (either 3 1/2" or 5 1/4"). It won't work if you have a hard drive, but then, you wouldn't want or need the Manini if you did! q
