Re: DOS3.3 questions

[nparker@cie-2.uoregon.edu (Neil Parker)]

In article <59f4pb$2uc@news.ysu.edu> be404@yfn.ysu.edu (Adalbert Goertz) writes:
>
>I have always worked with Prodos and begin to set up games for our youngsters
>which are either DOS or something else(Pascal?).

The Pascal disks are usually easy to recognize--they fill the screen with
inverse @-signs briefly during boot.

>Anyway I am puzzled about the DOS games:
>Some are selfbooting, others are not.
>I have not figured out why some are selfbooting and why others are not and
>give a message
>THIS DISK HAS NO DOS TO BOOT.
>INSERT ANOTHER DISK AND PRESS A KEY TO REBOOT.
>I know that in Prodos booting, the computer looks for the PRODOS file.
>What file is required to make DOS booting possible?

All "normal" DOS 3.3 disks are bootable.  DOS 3.3 doesn't reside in a file...
instead the first three tracks of a DOS 3.3 disk are reserved for a DOS
image.

But not everybody wanted every single DOS 3.3 disk to be bootable, so some
disk utilities have options to format new DOS 3.3 disks without the DOS 3.3
image, or to delete the DOS 3.3 image from an already-formatted disk.
These utilities usually replace the boot sector with something that prints
an error message like the one you saw (if the normal boot sector were left
in place, trying to boot a DOS-less disk would have strange and unpleasant
results).

Removing the DOS image from a DOS 3.3 disk frees up an additional 8K of
disk space that you can use for files.

>Do I ALWAYS have to run the Master disk first? I dont think so.

If a disk is unbootable, then you will (of course) have to boot some other
disk before you can use it.

               - Neil Parker
-- 
Neil Parker, nparker@{cie-2,cie}.uoregon.edu, http://cie-2.uoregon.edu/~nparker
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