Mail Archives: opendos/2002/01/17/14:47:13.1
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| Message-ID: | <000501c19f8f$4cb11d20$c03dfea9@atlantis>
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| From: | "Matthias Paul" <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
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| To: | <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
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| References: | <000c01c199a2$545cbcc0$af32ed18 AT anchorageak DOT net>
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| Subject: | Re: PCMCIA drivers for DR-DOS
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| Date: | Thu, 17 Jan 2002 19:59:50 +0100
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| Organization: | University of Technology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
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On 2002-01-10, John Ross wrote:
> [...] I was mildly surprised and pleased to "discover" this firm is
> offering CardWare for DOS/Windows version 6.0.012 Unicore lists the
> software for US $69.95 plus $9.95 shipping. Shipping to Canada $25,
> outside US $35.
> [...]
> I am not connected in any fashion with Unicore or their affiliates.
> The information is offered to DOS users wanting data regarding CardWare.
> I presume others will be interested in the same information I sought.
I think some users will find this info very useful, indeed.
Thanks for taking the time to sum it up for us.
Since John didn´t mentioned it in his original post but in private
email to me, I take the opportunity here to add the link to an
OEM version of SystemSoft´s CardSoft (DOS) for some IBM ThinkPads:
(remove the possible line-wrapping)
http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/DSHY-3NPU8M.html?lang=en_US&page=brand&brand=IBM+ThinkPad&doctype=Downloadable+files&subtype=Cat&up=unknownuser973053588
According to the PCTPCDOS.TXT (from 1999-12-20) on this page this is
the CardSoft OEM version 5.32.23.HS4.
IBM PC DOS 7 and 2000, however, ship with Phoenix CardManager Plus 3.01
from Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. as PCMCIA SS & CS driver stack.
> Users can obtain a 15 day evaluation version or purchase the software
> at http://www.tssc.de/products/cwdos/cardware_dos.htm .
What´s most interesting is that this downloadable CardWare 6.00.12
evaluation version was last modified on 2001-11-11, that is, the product
is still being (at least partially) maintained by the German company:
APSoft
Sonnenstrasse 26b
D-85622 Feldkirchen
Germany
FreeCall: 00824672467
Phone: +49(89) 900 479 0
Fax: +49(89) 900 479 11
(Their mantra "We help computers work" reminds me of the old
Digital Research phrase "We make computers work", somehow... :-)
It seems, Unicore is only the distributor, not the manufacturer,
so for European or German users it might be cheaper to directly
ask APSoft instead of Unicore. (The TouchStone and Award marks
in the outdated docs do no longer apply.)
A few more comments on the CardWare 6.00.12 distribution:
I find it rather odd that a Win32 pre-installer is used to create
the installation floppy disks or the file set for a product which
is intended for DOS 3.2+ (DOS 5.0+) and Windows 3.1x (according to
the docs CardWare supports the 16-bit part of Windows 95/98 as well).
Further, Windows 3.1x+ is required to run the normal installer
(SETUP), which ships inside the archive.
There´s also a DOS-only installer (INSTALL), but according to the
docs this installer is out-dated and no longer being maintained.
It is possible to manually install the files; the README.TXT refers
to a CARDWARE.WRI file (Windows Write format), which describes how
to achieve this. However, the CARDWARE.WRI file is still compressed
and must be decompressed with
EXPAND CARDWARE.WR_ CARDWARE.WRI
first. All the other files with *.??_ extension can be decompressed
with EXPAND as well:
*.DL_ -> *.DLL
*.EX_ -> *.EXE
*.HL_ -> *.HLP
*.RS_ -> *.RSC
*.TX_ -> *.TXT
*.WM_ -> *.WMF
*.WR_ -> *.WRI
Just for the records, the DPMS.EXE driver shipping with 6.00.12 is
Novell´s issue of DPMS 1.44 from 1995, so this is almost up to date -
a very welcome change compared to older issues of CardWare and to
the long outdated DPMS.EXE drivers shipping with some other vendor´s
products (like Stacker or PC DOS 2000). IIRC, only very few changes
are present in the Caldera DPMS 1.44 issue. I still recommend it,
because it´s newer.
It is probably interesting to compare the DOS memory footprints
of the SystemSoft´s CardSoft, Phoenix´ CardManager, and Award/
TouchStone/Unicore/APSoft´s CardWare driver suites.
The old CardWare 2.5 (the first issue which supported DPMS)
could be reduced downto a DOS memory footprint of 11 Kb with
full Plug & Play enabled. A full installation required ca. 33 Kb.
The following comparison is taken from the German book: Bernd Mielke
"PC-Card Anwender Lösungen", 1997, Franzis Verlag, ISBN 3-7723-4313-9.
The memory gain with DPMS is quite impressive, I think:
Award CardWare CW 1.01 CW 2.00 CW 2.50 CW 2.50 CW 5.00
1993-11-16 1994-06-01 1994-12-01 1995-08-01 1996-06-26
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
DPMS N/A N/A 1632 1808 [1.4] 1600 [1.44]
PCSS/SSPCIC 3296 3072 688 1200 5584
PCCS 48656 57520 43552 7872 12272
PCENABLE 41552 19328 19568 2816 3024
PCDISK 20144 22304 22304 22016 11360
PCATA N/A N/A N/A N/A 4592
PCSRAM N/A N/A N/A N/A 4592
=========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ==========
Total Bytes 113648 102224 87744 35712 43024
Phoenix CardManager 3.0 SystemSoft CardSoft 4.2.00 (1996-03-14)
--------------- ----------------------------
CNFIGNAM/PHOEN 448 SSTPIC95 4688
PCMSS 5920 CS 59200
PCMCS 35600 ATADRV 11120
PCMRMAN 0 MTSRAM 3024
PCMSCD 18080 MTDDRV 10480
CARDID 26304
============= ================ ======== ==========================
Total Bytes 60048 Total 114816
This should give a basic overview...
Greetings,
Matthias
--
<mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org
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