Ok gurus - How to get data from dos system to XP.

[diogen]

Essentially, you have to decide between two ways of doing this:
- using a network card (the older, the better, 3Com 503/509 are my favorite) and doing FTP, SMB;
- LapLink/pcAnywhere type of software solution using parallel/serial ports (null-modem cables).

I think both are very doable and must be equally efficient for the file sizes you mentioned.

Diogen.

 

[digiblur]

Or the simple option that I think was somewhat mentioned in a round about way:

If the DOS box's BIOS can boot from USB, make a bootable USB stick, reboot from USB then copy the files directly from the PC to USB in a flash. (pun intended) without worrying about floppy integrity or file size.

 

[Hall]

I'll about guarantee that a Pentium II era machine won't support bootable USB devices. Our previous work PCs had ASUS motherboards and supported Pentium 4 CPUs and didn't support USB-boot. Some ASUS boards at the time did though.

 

[gbjbany]

doesnt have to be bootable, can just be a a device driver for a usb card.

 

[Smith P.]

You guys have certainly given me a lot of options to think about and check out. Thanks to all of you.

So, what free slot(s) the PC have ? Is your LAN card will fit in those slot ?
What exactly model/maker of the card ? Have a diskette with DOS drivers for the LAN card ?

 

[Foxbat]

This sounds a lot like the set-up we had at work (BACK IN 1989!) where AutoCAD resisted any attempts at supporting networking. Any additional drivers took memory away from the DOS environment causing problems with AutoCAD. The ProCom terminal with Kermit may be your safest bet .

You really should break down and upgrade to a modern platform. DOS? Really?

I did find this on AutoCAD's website: Autodesk : Unofficial AutoCAD History Pages. Check out the "Area 51" section (Old AutoCAD Release Gallery) where they show previous versions of AutoCAD (all the way back to R2) running under emualtion on Windows XP:

There is hope for you yet!

If you go this route (Emulation under XP) you can take your PII harddrive and plug it into a bare-bones USB2.0 external Universal drive adapter kit. That way, you're not flipping jumpers around on the drive since it's the only one on the bus and you're not digging into your "good" PC.

 

[TheForce]

Hall- I only suggested that acad could be run within a WFWG dos window but for reasons you stated I wouldn't recommend it. I tried it once with 3D Studio V4 and it worked, barely and I did use QEMM to enable the process. BTW- Back in the days of Dos Autocad and 3D Studio QEMM was the official recommendation of Autodesk and Yost Group, the developer company for 3D Studio. I was actually on the beta development team as a video engineer for Yost back then.

The actual work flow I used for Autodesk stuff was boot the machine as clean as possible and build the work files. Then I would boot WFWG 3.1 to have network access to move files around, avoiding the sneaker file transfer process. If I needed to do more work in autodesk stuff I'd reboot the computer. In those days a reboot took a few seconds.

The pharlap dos extenders were integral to autocad stuff and were required to enable the application to access large amounts of ram for its needs automatically. In virgin dos, other applications would create ram disks with additional ram.

In 3D studio v4 it supported render farm capability and we had a dos version of a LAN software that enabled network connections but this was not compatible with windows that I recall. It came with a basic ISA network card and a disk. Now WFWG 3.1 would see the nics IT is the network software I used for render farm work. The network used the older thin net coax with terminators. I ran 8 render machines at the peak of my 3D Studio days. I'm drawing a blank on the brand name of those old cards. Maybe Hall recalls them. The name Lantastic ring a bell? I just checked and that was it. This may be an answer to your network needs as I see it is still sold.

I understand your reluctance to switch to a windows autocad. I went through it too when Yost departed DOS and developed 3D Studio MAX. I resigned from the group at that time. I continued with V4 until the college kids were competing so bad I couldn't make any money in the 3D animation business. I moved into TV production and retired my 3D Studio hardware.

 

[Hall]

I'd heard of Lantastic but have/had no experience with it. The network design you're referring to may have been more than that name. We used it with Sun workstations as well as a Novell Netware PC network. I thought it was 10Base-something like modern networks.... Turns out it was 10Base-2. I've still got sold old ISA NICs that have dual-connectors, one RJ45 and one twist-lock type.

Regarding the old version of AutoCAD he's using, if it does all he needs, I'd stick with it if I could. That has to be BLAZING fast !! I have a DuoCore E6600 CPU, 4gb of RAM, etc, etc and it's depressing how long it takes AutoCAD 2006 and 2008 to launch. I did use ACAD r10, as I recall, in college, on i286 machines running DOS 3.3.

 

[Hall]

Autocad is very graphics intensive, so it is possible that it works with video hardware directly, and may have problems with VirtualPC - give it a try though.

I believe that all DOS-based programs expect to have direct hardware access. The design of DOS allowed that.

As for upgrading to a Windows-based version of Autocad, first, he'll have a real hard time finding/buying a copy. Autodesk keeps a tight clamp on people selling their old software. You'd have to find someone privately. I'd recommend r13 or r14 or even 2000.

Go here, Autodesk - Discussion Groups - AutoCAD Groups, for possible help with running a DOS version on Windows. He surely isn't the only person doing this or wanting to do this.

 

[Hall]

I did find this on AutoCAD's website: Autodesk : Unofficial AutoCAD History Pages. Check out the "Area 51" section (Old AutoCAD Release Gallery) where they show previous versions of AutoCAD (all the way back to R2) running under emualtion on Windows XP:

There is hope for you yet!

Gosh, looking at those DOS versions of AutoCAD reminds me that ProENGINEER still had that type of interface a few years ago !! In fact, as they GUI'd the interface, some features still reverted back to that type of menu-driven interface. They simply hadn't built a GUI for the function yet.

 

[Neutronite]

YOu should remove the your post and open a new thread with your question as it's OFFTOPIC.

I apologize if I insulted a genius like you...

 

[Smith P.]

Again ? Strange person...

 

[TheForce]

Hall- I do believe Lantastic could be the best solution. All he would need to do is load it on his DOS machine with Dos 5.0 and then he could see all the other windows machines as long as the workgroup was the same name and sharing was on.

There may be a gotcha on this. If the newest network cards are ethernet cat 5 then no problem but I had a mix of thin net and cat 5 in my building. I still do! I bought a simple cat 5 to thin net translator. I use one at each end and it now feeds just my color laser printer. It restricts the speed to 11 mbs but that is plenty for the printer. I bought a wifi box for the printer but haven't hooked it up yet. That thin net used to support 8 computers and two printers but not anymore.

 

[waltinvt]

I'm amazed at what you guys know - so far over my head. I'm afraid when it comes to computers, I need it explained in simpler terms. I can / have done things like add remove cards, HDDs, etc if someone explains it to me but your network talk is a little more techy than I can grasp.

I do know Autocad fairly well though - at least for my application which is detailing for steel fabricators (stairs & miscellaneous mostly). I started (pencil) drafting in '68 but moved to Autocad Release 2.6 around '85 on an IBM PS2 286 with Dos 3.2 I think.

I do have Autocad 2004 on my good XP machine but use it mostly for up-converting dwgs for customers or minor revisions. The Rel-12 for dos version with all my lisp routines and 16 button digitizer is just way more productive.

One thing that does work on my dos machine is called a "Commuter". It's a portable HDD that's connected via parallel port and works great to back-up my HDD. The manual says it's supposed to also work in Windows (95) but I've never been able to figure out how to do it. I was thinking if I could also get it to work in XP then maybe I could hook up another parallel cable with an "A/B" switch.

 

[Larry1]

This site (these 3 are much the same)
USB with DOS
USB under DOS
Yes, there are USB drivers for DOS... - The INQUIRER
looks like you could use a USB hard drive or flash drive to copy the files to.
USBDRV
This backup program claims to backup under DOS
Easy Backup - A DOS program and runs OK under all versions of Windows
and runs ok under all versions of Windows. I have not tried it, but it gives you something to look into.

 

[Anole]

When I read the first page of this thread, I jotted down a few ideas.
I see some of them have been explored on subsequent pages, but here they are for what (little) they're worth:

1). hook up a CD burner to the DOS machine.
Sounds like most of your files would fit fine, and you'd have a nice backup library of anything transferred.

2). if you can go the FTP route with a card in your old machine, then Cerebrus FTP server is Free for personal use and would run on your XP box.

3). back in DOS days , I had batch files which managed how I booted.
I had entire boot configuration libraries which could be invoked by a simple command.
The short version is, I could boot to DOS, with a scanner drive, with max memory, to Windows 3.11 with LAN support, etc.
So, if you don't mind the rebooting (even make it simple by booting with a floppy), then use Win 3.11 networking to pass the files.

4). You are running on a PII, and say that system is "faster".?
Only after I read farther did I discover how you had customized the old system.
I've participated in projects or jobs where we moved data from one type of system to another, or upgraded the system tremendously.
Generally, the best solution is to move your tools to the new platform, and if in this case it means your custom Lisp, so be it.
A new computer with something like an Intel Core 2 Duo e6600 (two cores), will so blow away your P2, you'll wonder why you waited.
Most likely, the q6600 or similar four core cpu wouldn't give a great gain.
Of course, it wouldn't cost much more, either.

Sorry if #4 (get a big computer and move on) seems cold, but in the end that's probably the best solution.
I both have and support old systems, and they do eventually die.
What will you do when that happens?

 

[waltinvt]

When I read the first page of this thread, I jotted down a few ideas.
I see some of them have been explored on subsequent pages, but here they are for what (little) they're worth:

1). hook up a CD burner to the DOS machine.
Sounds like most of your files would fit fine, and you'd have a nice backup library of anything transferred.

2). if you can go the FTP route with a card in your old machine, then Cerebrus FTP server is Free for personal use and would run on your XP box.

3). back in DOS days , I had batch files which managed how I booted.
I had entire boot configuration libraries which could be invoked by a simple command.
The short version is, I could boot to DOS, with a scanner drive, with max memory, to Windows 3.11 with LAN support, etc.
So, if you don't mind the rebooting (even make it simple by booting with a floppy), then use Win 3.11 networking to pass the files.

4). You are running on a PII, and say that system is "faster".?
Only after I read farther did I discover how you had customized the old system.
I've participated in projects or jobs where we moved data from one type of system to another, or upgraded the system tremendously.
Generally, the best solution is to move your tools to the new platform, and if in this case it means your custom Lisp, so be it.
A new computer with something like an Intel Core 2 Duo e6600 (two cores), will so blow away your P2, you'll wonder why you waited.
Most likely, the q6600 or similar four core cpu wouldn't give a great gain.
Of course, it wouldn't cost much more, either.

Sorry if #4 (get a big computer and move on) seems cold, but in the end that's probably the best solution.
I both have and support old systems, and they do eventually die.
What will you do when that happens?

Well where do I start.......to recap all the information you apparently missed in the thread?

Not so much "cold" as just telling me the "shoulds" but obviously not having listened to my "whys".

I HAVE a Core 2 Duo. It has everything and screams with speed. It has the XP version of Autocad 2004. In fact, I have at least 4 XP computers that are better than the hardware I run my cad workstation on.

I choose to do my main production work in the old Release 12 for Dos version of Autocad because I am much faster, more productive and most importantly - more competitive with it. If (when) it dies, I will probably format another system, restore from backup and keep working.

I started the thread because I was looking for a way to transfer data back and fourth to the newer system that was faster that floppies.

I know that I probably should migrate to a newer version of Autocad but frankly it's a big learning curve and supporting a family of 10 requires a certain amount of "billable" hours every day. Plus at 61, along with my free time, my energy level is also limited. I can however do a fair amount on the newer system and who knows, I may eventually find ways to be just as productive on it - if I don't croak or retire first - neither of which can I afford to do for the foreseeable future however. And pleeeeease people - no "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts" about the size of my family either.

Oh and as for your # 3, I've written batch files for all kinds of things over the years and currently have "if, and , or" options in my autoexec and config files to manage my boot-up. Of course I wrote this stuff years ago and might be hard-pressed figuring them out today.

 

[Smith P.]

Walt, we can do a practice work instead of spend time for posting .
I will dig my junk and fire up old PII motherboard and will make a boot floppy for MS-DOS with NIC card.
I need some answers: what MS-DOS version you're using ? What info mem command show before you start CAD ? I'll need your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT also.

 

[waltinvt]

Walt, we can do a practice work instead of spend time for posting .
I will dig my junk and fire up old PII motherboard and will make a boot floppy for MS-DOS with NIC card.
I need some answers: what MS-DOS version you're using ? What info mem command show before you start CAD ? I'll need your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT also.

Was off line for a while. Nice offer - thanks.

Attached are both autoexec.bat & config.sys but with extensions changed to .txt plus a copy of norton's system info.

Thanks again Smitty and Merry Christmas.
View attachment CONFIGSYS.txt

View attachment SIREPORT.TXT

View attachment AUTOEXECBAT.txt

 

[docthy]

hi, may I suggest getting and old ISA RJ-45 compatible Network Card, 3com looks promising, check price over search.

This is the example that might help you:
3Com | Support Windows 3.x procedures for installing and configuring the NIC; The pages show picture that you could follow for installation and how the software will look like.

If you decide for the card or just for curiosity before buying any card check the drivers availability at 3com 3Com Support Library - Network Interface Cards Home so you are sure the card has support. Sometimes the site jump quickly to a no support pages after it shows the drivers, try hitting the stop button at you browser.

ok, got the card, set it up, cat 45 crosscable (to communicate with the other machine___ I know you know) and like the others said, a ftp server, I used filezilla ftp server easy, free, and lets you add account so is secure. Well good luck and hope your situation get a happy ending.

I checked you are saying that AutoCad is resource eater, after everything is installed (if you choose this way) try saving from autocad, if not happening, then exit autocad and ftp to server from Prompt to put the files on xp.