If you think I should include any information, let me know. Questions with answers are prefered.
Started on October, 11th, 2000 last update on March, 7th, 2007
This webpage has been accessed
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If you have a solution or an answer which is not covered here or you have a correction or an amendment to an existing answer or any comments, please let me know and send an email to this adress: olivers-at-mac.com |
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If you have a question or problem with your DOS or PC Compatibility card that is not covered here, you're not lost yet. The first step should be to investigate a little on your own. Read the manuals for the type of card you have. Most problems are covered there. If you still lack some information, you could for example go to Apple's Tech Info Library and search for "pc" and "compatibility". This returns about 50 hits that very probable cover your question. Searching for "dos" and "compatibility" returns as many hits. (Update: TIL no longer exists! Try http://kbase.info.apple.com instead - you need a free login) At the bottom of this page is a list of URLs that might be of assisstance as well.
If this didn't help, you can try to ask in the forum that deals with this kind of problems:
Apple had a forum for the DOS/PC Compatibility cards as well, but with the last restructure of their support website, they introduced the duty for registering and allowance of cookies and since then I am not willing anymore to monitor this spot. |
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Once upon a time, Apple started producing Compatibility Cards that were code named "Houdini" and could be placed into Quadras. This period of time can be located in the first half of the nineties. As this lies before myself being proud Mac owner, I won't comment on this time, but I'd rather start in 1994/5, when Apple delivered a special model of the PowerMac 6100 with a DOS card:
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The (Nubus-slot) DOS Compatibility card included
The (PCI-slot) PC Compatibility card included
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As Apple's servers were re-organized several times, I currently don't know of a FTP address, where to get the drivers, but you can try this location: http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/DOS-Windows/DOS_and_PC_Compatibility_SW/ Make sure that you download both the disc images 1of2 and 2of2!
Let me remind you that the above is the link to the US version. If you want a different localisation of the drivers, go to http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/, choose your localisation and click on The latest version that Apple released is 1.6.4. View the Read Me file for the US version of PC Setup 1.6.4 in order to find special clues applicable only to your card/version. The Quadra 610 requires version 1.0.2 of the PC Setup, which can be found in the same directory as the link above. |
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You can get more recent drivers from FVDCS/Discovery Software's website under the following URL:
http://www.pcsetup2x.com Check out their website for licensing information, new features and (un-)supported systems. Update: They are giving away the software for free! See their website for a license code. Update of the Update: As their website is down now for quite some time, here comes the license string: Authorization Code: UEV-EVZ-7TU License Name: FREE License Site: 469 The following site has the drivers archived: http://www.alksoft.com/personal/stuff.html or try http://www.alksoft.com/downloads/ |
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You should not throw away things you might need again, but in the case of the manual, you might get away lucky. Apple offers most of the manuals for download at the following adress (search for "compatibility"):
http://www.apple.com/support/manuals/
You could find a lot relevant manuals via this direct link:
Maybe the following links may help and persist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~strahm_s/manuals.html |
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Whilst reading the fabulous webpage of www.68kmla.net , I came across the article of Phil Beesley (www.vintagemacworld.com), that includes almost every information you can think of about the DOS and PC Compatibility cards. He gave me permission to include his article here, so here it comes:
Thanks to Phil for this great compilation of knowledge! |
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Depending on your card, the cable is three- or four-ended. The Nubus card (e.g. for the PowerMac 6100) does not feature a joystick port on the board of the card, so that this port was integrated into the cable. Concluding, we have one thick plug that is attached to the Mac video out, one short end plugged into the VGA out of the PC card, one end towards the monitor and for some models one end for the joystick. This setup applies for a single monitor setup.
If you have two monitors available, you could hook up one directly to the Mac and one directly to the PC card. For the PC Compatibility cards, you won't need a special cable (except possible adaptors depending on your monitor), for the DOS Compatibility card, you will need the three ended cable in order to be able to attach the joystick.
For more details and photos of the the monitor cables of the DOS and PC Compatibility Cards, check this out:
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Read this warning from Apple first:
Well, who knows if the card works in YOUR Mac. I can't give any guarantee, but some information: The 12" card with the 166 Cyrix CPU (the CPU runs at 133MHz, but is called 166, because the Cyrix processor's performance is copmarable to that of a 166MHz Intel Pentium CPU, therefore Cyrix labeled this CPU with PR 166 - PR=Pentium Rating) was sold in combination with or for only few Mac models. To my knowledge, the only two models were the 4400 and the 7220. The 7220 was not sold in Germany, probably in the US only. This 12" card with the Cyrix processor was sold at the same time as the much more expensive Pentium card. If you plug the Cyrix 12" card into a Mac different from the two above-mentioned (e.g. a beige G3) and start up the Mac, the "PC Setup" control panel tells you that this card does not work in this Mac. You could speak some swearwords to your monitor, but you could also try to trick your Mac: Every Mac model has a unique Gestalt ID that allows software to identify the machine it runs on. The "PC Setup" control panel seems to query that Gestalt ID and consequently works, or refuses to work, depending on the Mac model you have. There are tools that modify this ID during startup of the Mac, for example "Wish I were". I do run a Cyrix card in a beige G3 for more than a year now and had no trouble related to the card, but it's your own risk if you try this trick. The "Wish I were" software should be available on common internet sources for Macintosh shareware and with some fumbling, you could create a working preferences file (there is no setting for the PowerMac4400 included), but you could also download this package that includes a working 4400er prefs file already. Applying this trick did not affect my computer in any negative way. I've never experienced that any other Mac software refused to run due to "Wish I were".
I doubt that the 4400 or the 7220 have an extremely strong power supply and the other Macs don't and can't satisfy the demands of the Cyrix card regarding the amount of power that goes into the card. (In fact the 4400 has a 150W power pack according to Apple-History - check the power supply of your Mac there as well). Furthermore, I doubt that the 4400 and the 7220 have a specially modified PCI bus, which the other Macs don't have, so that it can carry the enormous power. But be warned. Vincent Quinn tried to run that card in his 7300. With Wish I were, the Mac started and the card ran fine, but on the fifth re-boot, his power supply died, so be warned!!!!! It is the life of YOUR Mac that your risking!!! |
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If you are running MacOS 8.5 and above and get the warning "version of Open Transport too old to network the PC environment" or something like this, you have two possibilities to get rid of it:
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Your SCSI-CD-ROM drive was too slow/defect and you upgraded to a newer/better/working one from a third party manufacturer. In the MacOS environment, you got the drive running by using a driver like CD ROM Toolkit, CD ROM Speedtools or alike, but in the PC environment, the drive is not recognized. What can you do?
Two things to tell: One bad thing, probably you wasted your money for the CD ROM driver under the MacOS. The good news is that you might get it working in both environments:
If you have multiple CD-ROM drives/recorders connected to your SCSI chain and/or IDE controller, the MacOS CD-ROM driver drives all of the drives, but hands only one over to the PC card. So check out which one is handed over and use that one for the PC. If you have external drives, you can force not to use external drives, by switching them off (or better: not switching them on when booting the Mac). |
LH A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDDRVR /L:E
DEVICEHIGH=A:\CDROM.SYS /D:CDDRVR
mode con cp prepare=((850) ega.cpi)
mode con cp select=850
keyb gr,,keyboard.sys
country=049,850,country.sys
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Here you go. That should boot the PC Compatibility card to a DOS prompt with a loaded and working CD driver. To conclude, my boot disc includes the following files:
ATTRIB.EXE, AUTOEXEC.BAT, CDROM.SYS, CHKDSK.EXE, COMMAND.COM, CONFIG.SYS, COUNTRY.SYS, DEBUG.EXE, DISPLAY.SYS, DRVSPACE.BIN, EDIT.COM, EGA.CPI, FDISK.EXE, FORMAT.COM, KEYB.COM, KEYBOARD.SYS, MODE.COM, MSCDEX.EXE, REGEDIT.EXE, SCANDISK.EXE, SCANDISK.INI, SYS.COM, UNINSTAL.EXE
And the file AUTOEXEC.BAT looks like this:
and the file CONFIG.SYS looks like this:
This applies for a German system. The blue lines may be different or not present at all for other localisations of DOS/Win. If you edit the files CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT in the MacOS environment, make sure, that the files are saved with DOS CRs and LFs. You can accomplish this for example with "Tex-Edit Plus". |
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This one is easy, but time and hardware demanding: A way to get around this problem would be that you plug the PC card into an older PCI-Mac that has a floppy drive, install Win9X till the point where you don't need a floppy drive anymore, move the card to your new Mac and transfer the drive container to the new Mac as well (over the network or a hard drive).
If your PC environment hangs during startup, this is because the card checks boot drives in the order A: (floppy) and then C: (hard drive), but can't find drive A:. It was a solution for some persons to install a driver for an USB-floppy drive - no matter if you have one or not. When the PC card asks the Mac for drive A:, the Mac returns: no floppy and the PC side resumes booting. Don't nail me on the manufacturer of the USB-floppy drive driver, but please tell me, if you succeed with one. |
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Yes and no. Yes, it is much more easier to access the BIOS than with a PC as the BIOS is stored in the resource fork of the "PC Setup" control panel, but no, you can't access any of the settings within the BIOS as all you can find is binary code. |
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I can't really tell you why, but I can tell you that there is an issue with OS 9 and creating drive containers. The drive containers created under OS 9 and above don't work when you try to use them. The workaround is to create the drive containers under OS 8.6 or below.
If you created a second drive container under OS 8.6 and it does not work anyway, you can try the following: At a DOS prompt type " FORMAT D: /S" - this should make the drive bootable.
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If you think that your drive container is too small or too big or you simply want to copy the content of one drive container to another one, you can do the following: Create the target drive container (see note on creating containers), assign drive letter D to new container, boot into Win9x of your old drive container and use the XCOPY command in a DOS box as follows:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /S /E /C /H /KThis means that you call the application XCOPY and order it to copy everything ("*.*") from source drive C:\ to destination drive D:\. Afterwards, "everything" is specified more closely in the options, which mean in the given order: Copy all files and subdirectories, continue going on errors, copy hidden and system files, and keep the file attributes. It is important that you do this in a Win9x-DOS box, as this is the only way to keep long filenames. But you're not done yet! There will be a few open files, that are not copied that way. To rescue these over on the new drive container, it is necessary to shut down Win9x into DOS mode and manually copy these few files onto the new container. While doing that, you should take care of possible long filenames. Anyhow, don't trash the old drive container before you ensured that the new one has all files and is running. This info was contributed by Henry Donzis. |
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In the manual of the Compat Cards, Apple says that, instead of using drive containers on Mac volumes, you can as well use partitions on SCSI devices that are PC-formatted (FAT16, that is) as C:\ or D:\ drives. This is correct, but read on! I once tried it and used a small SCSI hard drive. It worked for me, but was not too practical, because unlike with the drive containers, you can only access the partition from either the PC or the Mac side. If you want to copy files inside this drive from the Mac, you had to restart the Mac. If you want to use the new files from the PC side, you had to restart the Mac again. This seemed to me impractical. If, however, you can live with this state, you should not neglect the paragraph in one of Apple's service guides: "If you use a dedicated PC-formatted partition or SCSI device instead of a drive container, you may experience some disk read/write errors. Apple recommends using drive containers on Macintosh-formatted partitions or SCSI devices as your primary method of data storage." So be warned and have a backup! |
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If you have a PC Compatibility card with a Cyrix CPU PR 166, 133MHz, running the 1.6.4 drivers and want to play the best car racing game ever, Geoff Crammond's "Formula 1 Grand Prix 2", the following problem might occur: The installation of the game under DOS works fine. You can start up the game and choose a track to race on, but when the game fades in the racing screen (or shortly afterwards), the system freezes.
If you have the above-mentioned problem and really, really wanna play that game, you could try the following:
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To my knowledge, it is not possible to run Linux. There was a project that went in that direction, but I haven't heard that they did find a successful end of that project. Check their website: Linux...on a DOS Card! FAQ (meanwhile website down)
For WinNT, no is the answer as well. 32 bit drivers were the problem and still, after the release of PC Setup 2.1.7, NT is not supported on the cards. But relax: NT would have been a hog on the cards anyway, just as Win98 is - to my opinion. |
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Short answer: No! Longer answer: When you are running Linux on your Mac, you would need drivers that adress the card. This would be no problem if anyone wrote these drivers, but there are none. If you are running MacOS within the MOL emulator (Mac on Linux) on a Linux system, you would have the problem that the emulated hardware cannot adress real hardware. Technically, this would be possible, but again, noone has yet written the code for it. If you are running Mac OS X PB, you can't access the card as well. There are no drivers for OS X yet that can deal with the card. Randall Venhola (the guy behind PCSetup2.X) stated that he might be doing OS X drivers if he got about 100 pre-orders for the software, so give feedback to him, if you want these drivers. If you are running OS X and think: Ha! My card runs under OS 9 and OS 9 is classic in OS X, then both these statements are right, but the card won't run in classic anyway. The classic environment in OS X can't adress hardware directly, but has to do hardware requests via OS X and as there are no OS X drivers... You can mix these points and get the answer for the same question concerning BeOS, FreeBSD, or whatever OS you want to use. |
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Henry Donzis pointed out a solution what to do when the sound is fragmented under Windows95:
If you hear fragmented sound after installing Windows 95, you may need change the settings of your Creative Labs Sound Driver. Follow these steps:
1. In Windows 95 click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Control Panels.
This should do the trick. The info was found in the TIL and now is found under: |
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The print jobs from a Windows application are sent from that application to the print manager of the Windows operating system. Then, the print manager sends them to what Win thinks is a parallel interface LPT1. In reality the data that are sent to that virtual parallel interface are caught by the Mac environment, to be more precise by an application called "PC Print Spooler" which can be found in the system extensions. This print spooler does a little converting of the Win print job and passes it over to your Mac print system, so that it is spooled for a second time and finally printed. If you start the PC Print Spooler, you see in the preferences, that you have the choice between an EPSON printer and a postscript printer. Select here what is appropriate for you. If you do not have a PostScipt printer and your printer does not come from Epson as well, try the EPSON setting.
According to your selection in PC Print Spooler, you have to chose an appropriate printer driver under Windows. I think I remember to get at least some results with the EPSON LQ 2500 if you have an EPSON printer connected to your Mac and to get results with the driver for an old LaserWriter (e.g. Apple LaserWriter II NTX for PostScript level 1 and LaserWriter 630 for PostScript level 2), if you have a PostScript capable laser printer connected to the Mac. In any of the cases, you should go to the printer sttings in Win and "Disable bi-directional support for this printer" and disble the option "Check port state before printing" if available. These options should be disabled as a direct communication between Windows and printer is not possible. So disable any further communication before, while or after printing (like "Send CTRL+D before" and "after Job") and hope that it still works. Please tell me about your success with printing. Though it is very likely to get at least some printing done on that way, it would be rational to try getting more complex print jobs done on the Mac side, if possible. If you experience problems with the common way of printing under Win, it might be adviseable to install Adobe's PostScript printer driver on the PC side and "print into a file". You should be able to transfer this file to the Mac environment, where it might be easier to handle this file (send to PS printer directly by dragging on its desktop icon / creating easy-printable PDF-file by distilling / display (and print) with Ghostview). If your print jobs never get printed, have a look inside the "Spooler Rejected" folder inside the Preferences and move files outta there. |
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There are some keyboard commands specially related to the DOS and PC Compatibility Cards, such as:
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According to Christopher Yeleighton, it is not possible to use MSBACKUP in the usual way on the Compat Cards. The reason for this is that it bypasses BIOS using hardware ports directly, which is not possible on the Compat Cards. The remedy to this problem is to select compatibility mode:
in Backup To: list, select (*) MS-DOS drive and path: A:\ Everything should work fine in this setting. |
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I received this hint from Jonas:
I used a 486 overdrive chip (NOT the pentium overdrive!!!). It is a drop-in replacement for 33 MHz 486 chips that gives you a 100 MHz 486. Unfortunately, the DOS card runs at 66 MHz, which as near as I can tell causes the CPU to run at 200 MHz. As of yet I dont know, but it seems to work, and it may be possible to underclock the DOS card to a more reasonable speed.
Thanks Jonas for contributing! |
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Try these:
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nothing down here...