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1990-08-30
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Sydex
RainDOS
A Device Driver for DEC Rainbow tm MS-DOS Diskettes
RainDOS
A Device Driver for DEC Rainbow MS-DOS Diskettes
Copyright 1989, 1990, Sydex
All Rights Reserved
Version 1.1 January, 1990
Sydex
P.O. Box 5700
Eugene, OR 97405
Voice: (503) 683-6033
FAX: (503) 683-1622
Data: (503) 683-1385
NOTICE
THIS IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE! If you paid a "public
domain" vendor for this program, you paid for the serv-
ice of copying the program, and not for the program it-
self. Rest assured that nothing ever gets to the
originators of this product from such a sale. You may
evaluate this product, but if you make use of it, you
must register your copy.
We offer several inducements to you for registering.
First of all, you receive the most up-to-date copy of
the program that we have--and we do update the product
on a regular basis. You also receive support for
RainDOS--which can be quite valuable at times. And
finally, we include a few utilities not included in the
evaluation package. Make no mistake however--we do not
"cripple" our evaluation software--our sample programs
are fully functional and complete.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
The non-commercial single-user registration fee for
RainDOS is $15.00 US. The commercial and multisystem
site fee is $50.00.
Send a check or company P.O. for the appropriate amount
to:
SYDEX
P.O. Box 5700
Eugene, OR 97405
Major Credit Cards Accepted
Please indicate what product you are ordering and if you
have a requirement for 3.5" media. We normally ship
5.25" 360K diskettes, but we will furnish 3.5" 720K
media upon request. Orders placed outside of the U.S.
and Canada should include an additional $5.00 for air-
mail. We can accept U.S. funds only, please.
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE
This is "user-supported" software. You are hereby
granted a license by Sydex to distribute this evaluation
copy of RainDOS and its documentation, subject to the
following conditions:
1. RainDOS may be distributed freely without charge in
evaluation form only.
2. RainDOS may not be sold, licensed, or a fee charged
for its use. If a fee is charged in connection
with RainDOS, it must cover the cost of copying or
dissemination only. Such charges must be clearly
identified as such by the originating party. Under
no circumstances may the purchaser be given the im-
pression that he is buying RainDOS itself.
3. RainDOS must be presented as a complete unit, in-
cluding this documentation. RainDOS's documenta-
tion may be not amended or altered in any way.
4. In granting you the right to distribute the evalua-
tion form of RainDOS, Sydex does not acknowledge
you as the owner of RainDOS in any form.
Any other use or distribution of RainDOS is expressly
forbidden without the written consent of SYDEX.
________________________________________________________________
"DEC" and "Rainbow" are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corpora-
tion. "IBM", "PC DOS" and "Personal System/2" are trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation. "MS-DOS" is a
trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
What is RainDOS?
RainDOS is a device driver which supports reading and writing of
MS-DOS diskettes from Digital Equipment Corporation's Rainbow tm
series computers on PC XT- or AT-compatible machines. Under DOS
3.2, the utilities FORMAT, DISKCOPY and DISKCOMP are supported,
as well as normal DOS read and write operations.
To use RainDOS, your computer must be PC AT-, XT- or IBM Personal
System/2 compatible. Computers such as the Tandy 2000 or the
Zenith Z-150 are not suitable because of their relative incom-
patibility. Further, your computer must be equipped with either
a 5.25" high-density (1.2 Megabyte) or 5.25" "quad" density
drive, such as the Teac 55F. The diskette adapter on your com-
puter must match the diskette drive characteristics. That is, a
high-density drive must be used with a high-density adapter.
Many manufacturers, such as Western Digital, produce high-density
diskette adapters for XT-style computers, and these may be used
successfully with RainDOS. Currently, we support only the first
(or primary) diskette adapter in a system.
And finally, your computer needs to be running PC-DOS or MS-DOS
Version 2.0 or later. DOS 3.2 or later is preferable, but not
required. Version 2 DOS users may find that some RainDOS func-
tions, such as formatting, are not supported.
Installing and Using RainDOS
Installation of RainDOS is straightforward. First, find the file
CONFIG.SYS in the root directory of the disk that your computer
boots (loads DOS) from. It may be possible that you do not have
a CONFIG.SYS file, in which case the next few steps will create
one. If you are unfamiliar with the CONFIG.SYS file, take time
out now and read the section in your DOS manual dealing with it,
and in particular, the DEVICE= statement.
You'll need to add a line to CONFIG.SYS of the following general
form:
DEVICE=RAINDOS.SYS /D:unit /F:format
This can be done with the program EDLIN which is supplied with
DOS, or with a text editor of your choosing. If you use a word-
processing editor, make sure that you indicate that CONFIG.SYS is
a nondocument file. If you didn't find a CONFIG.SYS, the above
line will be the only line in the file which is created.
The value of unit can range from 0 to 3 and represents the physi-
cal diskette unit to be used to read and write the Rainbow dis-
kettes. If this unit is normally called A: on your computer,
then the value of unit is 0; if B:, then unit is 1. External
drives are generally units 2 and 3.
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