Software utilities

These are some of the must-have utilities when dealing with ANY computer. Each program you can find here is in this site because I've needed it some times, and I've lost minutes or hours looking for it.

Compressors

The next files aren't compressed. All of them are for using with MS-DOS.

• PKZIP.EXE
• PKUNZIP.EXE
• PKZIPFIX.EXE (Most preciated utility if there are errors in the ZIP files)
• ZIP2EXE.EXE ZIP to EXE utility
• ARJ 1.0 (runs in 8086)
• ARJ 2.8
• RAR 2.0

Floppy disks

• Disk to image dumper (DISK2IMG.EXE): Disk1
• Image to disk dumper (FDVOL.EXE): Disk1
• Floppy drive emulator (DISKSS.EXE): Disk1
• 2M Superformat: Disk1

Hard disks

Here you got most of the things I've needed while dealing with hard disk drives. I've mostly worked in MFM and IDE buses.

• Maxtor's Hard Disk Detection and Geometry Configuration (MAX BLAST)

  Nice tool, but it doesn't work in some old machines. Save it in your hard disk, put a blank 1.44Mb floppy in your floppy drive, and then run it. It will create a boot disk with Maxtor's MAXBLAST.

• DrivePro

  I used it to set up a non-IDE/MFM HD in a 8086 Commodore, and it worked perfectly! I also used it for booting HDs that aren't in the 1-46 table for being used in a bios without user-defined hd geometry. The best HD detection tool for old computers. It uses Caldera OpenDOS 7 boot. Image1

Networks

• Novell Netware Lite 1.1 IPX Layer and server/client software for sharing files and printers under DOS. It needs old versions of novell netware NIC drivers. I've been using it in a 8086 with a NE1000 NIC, and I can even play the war maze game that comes with NWLite.
• IPX for Packet Drivers which provide IPX layer network under dos without the need of Novell Software. They are free (please read the docfiles). The ipxpd.com is the ipx provider when you have a nic packet driver loaded. There are many packet drivers in the zip file, but you will find your best driver in your NIC's floppy disk.

Operating Systems

Nowadays it's hard to find operating systems installation disks, and those may help in booting old machines.

• DR-DOS 7.03, from Digital Research. It was the previous version of Caldera OpenDOS (which was free to download). It's EMM (aka EMM386.EXE) do not work as fine as MS-DOS one. Maybe people knew MS-DOS EMM486.EXE bugs, and tried to avoid them; that may be the cause of normal hangs in DR-DOS. It also comes with a network client (IPX) and basic multi-taslking. Five 1.44Mb disk images: Disk1 Disk2 Disk3 Disk4 Disk5

Viric compilations

There two basic folders in my DOS directory structure, that are also included in the PATH environment variable. These are their contents.

• COMPRES: Lots of compressors for DOS. Zip File, Zip Contents
• UTIL: I need these utilities, in order to have a friendly DOS session! Zip File, Zip Contents

Started 06/08/2001 / Updated 2003-09-17 01:30:38.000000000 +0200

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