Did someone say "Bernoulli"? Well, I did! I recently received some new old stock 20MB disks from overseas. Let's revisit our past disk adventures and see how these new ones pan out! Time for another 🧵
So, first, I decided to start with this disk. We knew it had bad sectors from the last time we explored it. Okay, no surprise there. Sadly, though, a few new ones are bad now too. Oh well!
After running scandisk, I copied some files over, ran chkdsk, and then copied some more. We received a visit from good ol' General Failure, that guy is never nice to us! I did fill up the entire disk, but those failed file copies are a sign that things will not get better!
I was able to quick format the disk when done. I couldn't recall if that would render the disk useless or not. We had to try it for science... after all, this is a Bernoulli disk! (Science. Bernoulli. Get it? Good! 🤣)
On to the next disk. I like this one since it is a "classic" compared to the others. But, alas, it is no good. A format doesn't work. Using the Iomega SCSIUTIL to format it doesn't work. It's still a lost cause, naturally. Boo.
So, as such, I'll mark it bad, but I am keeping it since it has that cool older disk aesthetic compared to the rest!
On to the next disk, which has known bad sectors. If I pass the right commands into scandisk, it won't bug me every time it finds a bad sector, it will just fix it. Here's to hoping...
Oh man! When scandisk made it to the bad sectors, the drive sure was angry! Have a listen!
So in the end, 18 new bad clusters were patched. Sheesh, these disks get worse every time we use them. Best that we not store anything important on them!
The next one, I had regrettably formatted it with the SCSIUTIL in the past. And this left it in an unusable state. I don't think it's supposed to work that way, there might be something wrong with my drive perhaps.
Alright, let's try one of the new disks! The directory listing shows the usual README suspect! That's good. And scandisk is off to a good start. Oh man, this is going to be a nail biter!
And... kaboom... about halfway through, some bad sectors. I am not going to patch it though, I am going to abort this experiment, I am starting to suspect the drive may have an issue, and I don't want to wreck any more disks.
So, I think to myself, I'll see if eBay has any drives. What do I find instead? THREE new packs of Bernoulli disks for sale... LOCALLY. Wait, what?? Yes, that's right: after having disks shipped from overseas, apparently there are now some available locally! Unbelievable 🤣
Anyway, special thanks to @jk86tech for sending me the disks from overseas! I think I'll work to source a new drive before I open up any more of them. And rumor has it that even more disks MIGHT be on the way now 🤣. To be continued. Thanks for following along!
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Let's get back to installing OSes on the PS/2 Model 70 386. I installed NetWare 3.12 w/ IBM Classroom LAN Administration System on top of it! And I decided to make the Pocket 386 the client! This install didn't go as planned, but we got there. Let's talk about it in a 🧵here!
So, first of all, before I get too far, if you ever feel the inkling to set this up, I do have a video that covers the subject, more or less! I did have to make some modifications for this Microchannel PS/2 with an ESDI drive, but the concepts apply.
For the NetWare 3.12 install, there are basically two phases. The first phase lays down the NetWare server in DOS, and the second phase sets up the NetWare volume which clients access. And the first phase went nice and smooth.
So, someone left a comment on an old YouTube video of mine today. The question: "Can you show me how to set up a Renegade BBS that people can access over telnet"? Why.. YES... I totally can. Let's have some fun and explore how to do it in a 🧵here! Let's go!
So, step 1, we need three pieces of software! First is Renegade itself, and someone has packaged it up nicely. Second, we need a special fossil driver called rlfossil. And third, we need a packet driver for our network card. And, yes, this all runs under DOS!
There is a great resource online that talks all about Renegade BBS and setting it up! It does try to link to some Renegade setups that people have done, but the links are broken. However, I'll list it anyway since it is a great Sysop resource! renegadebbs.info
Earlier today, I posted asking: Which OS should we install on the PS/2 Model 70 386 next? 16K views later, I now have a list of 35+ OSes, and growing!. Some apps were also requested, and, since my brain is tired, we're going to start with an app tonight: Microsoft Bob! 🧵
Fortunately (?), Microsoft BOB can be found online, and it runs under Windows 3.1, which we already have installed on the Model 70 386!
I actually ended up installing the in-store demo of BOB just to keep things simple!
Ahh, OS/2 Warp Connect 3, installed and running on my Model 70 386 (with a 486 DX/33 upgrade). This was quite the ordeal, and I learned a lot.. right, wrong, or indifferent. Let's talk about all of the problems and successes I had in a 🧵 here!
So, first of all, I decided to go with the "Blue Spine" version: this gives us DOS and Windows 3.x support, which I always thought was pretty neat!
So, for installation, I connected up a CD-ROM drive to my McIDE-CF. I had to take out my Kingston memory expansion card so that I had a spot to plug in the power for the CD-ROM drive.
Okay, another successful experiment: Windows NT 4.0 Workstation installed on the PS/2 Model 70 386 with a 486 DX/33 upgrade! Let's talk about it in a 🧵
So, first, just like when we installed NT 3.51, settings are important. Here are my settings for my McIDE-CF and ESDI hard drive. Channel A (secondary) is my CF card. Channel B (primary) is where I connected up a CD-ROM on the slave channel. And the ESDI is primary!
I booted up into DOS and loaded CD-ROM drivers, and then used the "/b" flag to do a diskless install of NT 4.0 (I learned about the "/b" flag from a great online article!)
Alright, admittedly I did a TERRIBLE job trying to copy and preserve these disks! What did I do wrong? Well, pretty much everything. Let's talk about what I missed and just how terrible I did in a 🧵
So, first, I used a 1.2MB drive for 360K disks. While this isn't a totally terrible sin, we'll be much better off using machines with 360K drives due to the size of the read heads of the drive. As such, I've enlisted my Tandy 1000 HX and Compaq Portable II to help!
So, first sin? Not checking for hidden files. Using the attrib command, I found that all disks have them, and now I know why disk 2 was "blank." I should have caught this: when I ran the virus scanner yesterday, I saw additional files, but just figured they were in an archive.