[REQUEST] MS-DOS 5.0 Italian

[Battler]

This is I think one of the only Italian DOS versions missing. We have 3.x, 4.x, 6.x, but no 5.x.

So if anyone has any, it would be greately appreciate if they could provide us a copy.

[xelloss]

Got my Kryoflux today and immediately put it to test on MS-DOS 5.0 Italian.
After some panic when the first floppy drive I tried shortcircuited, melting the Y extension cable to the power supply and apparently nothing else (!) the process went smoothly: all the disks were read perfectly.

However Kryoflux complains that, in the vast majority of the tracks, "extra data was found hidden in unused parts of the block header". I'm not sure how to interpret this, although KF suggests that those tracks have probably been modified. Back in 1993 I hadn't learned yet that floppies should be write protected unless you really mean to use them for writing, sorry!

Will upload the images later in the afternoon.

[mrpijey]

The information that they are modified simply means that it's either a bad mastering (i.e not mastered on a purely clean floppy, if the floppy was pre-formatted before the floppy was mastered then it will indicate this) or the data has been removed and re-written on the floppy. Pure originals only had data written on the floppy once (i.e no pre-format or anything) and would show up green, otherwise it will show up as modified.

Usually this shouldn't be a problem if all timestamps are correct etc, but it could also indicate it's not a pure original but has at some point been rewritten.

[Battler]

- mrpijey: Well, bear in mind that according to xelloss, this DOS is an OEM version from some low-key OEM, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if such low-key OEM's used preformatted floppies to put the OS'es on, as that's certainly cheaper than having them properly mastered onto purely clean floppies. I think they might have even reused floppies too to save further money.

But still, I'm eagerly waiting to test that DOS. I've been waiting for it for years.

[mrpijey]

Of course, that's why I mentioned that the floppies were pre-formatted, it's quite common with OEMs that don't have a distribution agreement with a manufacturing plant. If all timestamps are fine and the floppies look otherwise unused and original then it's usually not a problem. But the modified marker can also be a hint that the floppy has been modified in some way, for example a modified setup.ini in a Office 4.3 floppy set etc. So whenever a modified bit props up in the KF software it's always safe to do an extra check and see if it's because of second hand OEM copy, or modification of mastering copies.

In this case however I believe it's like you say, an OEM copy made with preformatted floppies. We'll just see when the KF streams arrive and we'll get an excellent and rare copy to the archives as well.

I hope we get good scans with it too .

[xelloss]

Sadly, it appears that I have tampered with disk 1 a couple times.
In 1998 I dumped some boot sector (maybe the boot sector of that disk) to a file named BOOT.COM. In the year 2000 I edited CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, apparently later restoring the contents, but still corrupting the timestamp.

The other two disks are probably as good as new. Most of the "modified" warnings from KF are probably the OEM's responsibility.
A photo of the disks, until I can scan them properly:

http://1drv.ms/1tTYL3T

[xelloss]

About the "Vegas" OEM: this version of DOS came with a "white box" PC I bought in June 1993, assembled by a local shop.
Why the disks are branded "Vegas" (not the name of the shop, nor of a chain of shops as far as I know) will forever be a mistery.

The MS-DOS manual (of which I have no photo for the moment) had no logos on the cover: just a writing "OEM computer".

[Battler]

- xelloss: Vegas could simply be a brad of floppy labels. Or a brand of floppies and the OEM had labels left off and used them on these 3M floppies.

Also, even if you tampered with Disk 1, it's still more complete than the one I have which lacks AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM, IO.SYS, and MSDOS.SYS completely. So I'm still eagerly waiting for it.

[xelloss]

- xelloss: Vegas could simply be a brad of floppy labels. Or a brand of floppies and the OEM had labels left off and used them on these 3M floppies.

Also, even if you tampered with Disk 1, it's still more complete than the one I have which lacks AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM, IO.SYS, and MSDOS.SYS completely. So I'm still eagerly waiting for it.

It's uploaded already.

Inspection of BOOT.COM and of the current boot sector suggests that BOOT.COM was (probably) the originaly boot sector. Presently, the OEM string at the beginning of the boot sector has been changed from MSDOS5.0 to something else.

To my best knowledge, the content of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT is exactly the same as it was originally (yes it has always been lowercase).

EDIT:
I've seen that BA has a spanish MS-DOS 4.01 by Vegas, so I assumed this OEM actually existed (whoever they were).

[Battler]

- xelloss: Could you also please upload a .ZIP file with only those 5 files I mentioned in my post above?

[mrpijey]

Battler, just grab the release yourself and extract whatever files you want, it's on the FTP.

[Battler]

- mrpijey: It is? I thought it wasn't on the FTP yet because the release log wasn't updated. If it is then, nevermind my request.

Edit: I just compared it with the incomplete one I had before (labeled "by Supremo Anziano") - the file dates are identical. But while this one comes on three 3.5'' 720 kB disks, the one by Supremo Anziano seems to have come on two 5.25'' 1.2 MB disks. But I need to verify that.

Edit: Yep, it seems the one by Supremo Anziano is indeed the 5.25'' 1.2 MB version. With those 5 files taken from xelloss' version, I can now complete it (comaparing the files I did have with what is listed in PACKING.LST confirms that the folder contents correspond to floppy contents and that only those 5 files were missing), but I'm not sure if it would be acceptable for BA.

[xelloss]

Edit: I just compared it with the incomplete one I had before (labeled "by Supremo Anziano") - the file dates are identical. But while this one comes on three 3.5'' 720 kB disks, the one by Supremo Anziano seems to have come on two 5.25'' 1.2 MB disks. But I need to verify that.

Edit: Yep, it seems the one by Supremo Anziano is indeed the 5.25'' 1.2 MB version. With those 5 files taken from xelloss' version, I can now complete it (comaparing the files I did have with what is listed in PACKING.LST confirms that the folder contents correspond to floppy contents and that only those 5 files were missing), but I'm not sure if it would be acceptable for BA.

Back in 1993-1994, I also got hold of an Olivetti OEM version on two 1.44MB disks. This one was peculiar in that it included some custom utilities (among them, a READER.EXE allowing to view a text file in a more evolved way compared to the "type" command; this was also used by the installation program to show the readme file); it also used boot files named IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM rather than IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

Unfortunately it is long gone.

[Battler]

Ah nice. Well, the one I have has no custom things, only standard MS-DOS files. Disk 1 is ~998 kB, and Disk 2 is ~660 kB, pointing at 1.2 MB floppies. Also, its PACKING.LST confirms the boot files are supposed to be named IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

If mrpijey is OK with it, I'm going to upload my now-complete 5.25'' 1.2 MB copy onto BA.

[mrpijey]

Yeah it's fine, just pack it up and image the floppies nicely. And I don't update the log after every release I make... once the DB is up the log will be more on-the-fly (probably a cron running once every hour) that updates the log more often, but for now I run the scripts whenever I feel I got enough new releases for an update.