PCs04 -Enoki Sensor

My old personal computers 04

This page contains Japanese characters
My old PCs

106 JP keyboard
After formatting HDD of 66 MHz machine, I did a boring work to install DOS/V6.1J, Win3.11 and Windows 95. I allocated C: for all the HDD. This time No.7 or No.8 disk of DOS/V6.1J was unable to be readed. I had installed the disk after a few retries. How long is liability of FD? I have a lot of old FD. I had better select newer FD to diskcopy.

I always irritate to use the different 101 US keyboard. I usually use 106 JP keyboard with 400 MHz machine. But '=' and '+' keys are fatal to type on blind touch. I took another 106 JP from attic. It was covered with dust. But it works. DOS/V and Windows 95 Japanese edtion can use it. OADG decided poor standard^[10]. Why did OADG ignore ASCII US keyboard, though IBM Japan advocated its standard. I think that the decision makers were not familiar with programming. Most of symbol keys are different between 101 US and 106 JP. I do not know why OADG made a barrier. The decision makers of IBM Japan did not think free programmers, didn't they? Strangley '!' is the same. How often do ordinary programmers type '!' to program?

I missed Windows 95 CDROM disk. I happened to see final beta release of East Asian Edition of WIndows 95. I installed it. After installing it, A message showed expirated. Microsoft thought that we would not change clock of PC. I looked for a regular Japanese edition. The installer showed to a new directory Windows.000. I agreed. Windows.000 occupies 60.4 MB. The biggest files are font files of MS gothic & MS proportional gothic and MS Mincho. They are 4.1 and 5.0 MB each. Naturally Western languages does not need the big complicated font files. I remember a Chinese doctorate researcher. We were researchers in the same labo. He said, "Enoki san, we cannot overwhelm Western civilization, while we use complicated letters." US school boys can read English if they learn 52 letters. Japanese boys have to learn 80, 160 200, 200, 185 and 181 kanji for 6 years^[11]. And input method of Japanese of computers are ridiculous than Western languages. Long time ago China was proud of her civilization. In a word, China is a country of sentence ( 文 ). Although Meiji Government of Japan adopted Western technology and laws, she desired to be a true contry of ( 文 ) like old Japanese dynasty in Heian era. Heian Government also abolished army. Now Japan has no military power in the written document again. Eastern Asian civilization disliked military ( 武 ) originally under Confucian thought.

Heian Government established new organization beyond law, Ryouge no kan ( 官 ) to handle military or police power. We call the same bureaucats special official servicemen now.

If Chinese people give up their complicated letters, China will not be independent from other nations. I think why Communist China could not give up old letters. Japanese mass media are eager to kanji. We call Educational ministry Sentence ( 文 ) Departement proudly even now. School teachers teach more than 1,000 letters. Chinese children have to learn more than 2,000 letters. Japanese teachers keep bureaucrat system using old complicated letters. So are Chinese teachers? Oh, Japanese children learn a letter that means bureaucrat ( 官 ) in fourth grade.
14:17 Oct03 (GMT+9)

VB3 Std Edition cannot install mscomm.vbx?
I downloaded mscomm.vbx to install in VB3 from Microsoft online^[8]. But VB3 showed a message,

License for custom control not found. You do not have an appropriate license to use this custom control in the design environment.

I installed MSDN in 66 MHz machine. The result was the same. I ran VB4 on Windows 98. I selected

Tools -> Custom controls -> Microsoft Comm Control I found a telephone icon in the control palette. I confirmed to pase the control in a form. I gave up to implant TL.EXE of Tektronix on VB3 Standard Edition. I will program on VB4 of Windows 98 machine. I do not know how to use MSCOMM. A site shows a little^[9] But the 400 MHz machine has a male Dsub 9p conector. If I installed VB4 in 66 MHz machine, I do not need change the RS232 cable. Installer of VB4 showed no disk space. I ran fdisk. I deleted non-dos partition for FreeBSD. I created 100 MB space and fdisk allocated it D drive. I assigned to install VB4 in the D drive. But the installer failed no space because VB4 needs much space of dll filed in Windows/system directory. I determined to change basic partition size. I learned that I have to format to erase history of install of OS version using BIOS utility.
21:20 Oct01 (GMT+9)

Timer of VB has to work in a form
I imported RS232IO.BAS for BASIC by Tektronix into VB. There is a timer code in the RS232READ subroutine,

On Timer(Timeoutsec%) GOSUB Timeout I created Timeout subroutien. I replaced 'On Timer' for a property of VB. VB showed extended error. I tried moving the RS232READ subroutine into Form1 of VB. VB automatically extended it as RS232READ subroutine. I will have to rewrite the subroutine to work in Form1. I changed it for RS232READ function. The result was the same. There are RS232WAITCOM, RS232WRITE and SENDBREAK subroutines in RS232IO.BAS. It will be complicated to see at once, if I rewrite the subroutines into a component. And RS232READ uses Timer in infinitve loop. CPU cannot other job while working Timer^[7]. Windows 95 should do multi tasks.
11:44 Oct01 (GMT+9)

Tough to implant TL.EXE on VB3
I found how different conventional BASIC and Visual BASIC. RS232READ or RS232WRITE are sub routines. VB does not approve of conventional declare COMMON variable. Had I better write a new code using MSCOMM? Looking into the code by Tektronix, the code seems a good text to learn communication programming for me. I will make a tiny VB3 program and import the Tektronix code step by step
8:43 Sep30 (GMT+9)

TL.EXE by renewed RS232 cable

Connection
TDS Color PC

2 red 2 SD

3 black 3 RD

4 yellow 6 DSR

5 GND 7 SG

6 blue 20 DTR

7 green 8 CD
5 CTS

8,1 white 4 RTS

I removed male Dsub 25p connector from my old RS232 cable for PC98. I soldered as follows, I ran TL.EXE from DOS prompt of Windows 95. TL worked. It means that COM2 port of 66 MHz machine and RS232 port of TDS 310 work good. I have not used the function more than 15 years. I tried some commands written in TDS programmer's manual. They works.

I clicked Tl.bas file. VB3 showed the code of Tl.bas. It uses unknown some RS232*** functions. I think these are BIOS functions to control COM2 port. VB3 needs a program called by MSCOMM. Microsoft allows us to download. While VB4 has already included mscomm32.ocx. I am to replace VB3 for VB4 in 66 MHz machine, am I?

Cramp Cable

22:19 Sep28 (GMT+9)

I upload two photos of cramp and RS232 calbe. The cramp is usefule to solder pins of connector. The cable is 2.8 m long.
10:53 Nov11 GMT+9

Font size and history of Sea Monkey on Puppy Linux
Default font of Sea Monkey shows 'i' as 'l'. Simply dot and bar of i letter looks together.I set up 90 % od font size and 75 %. The bar seperated and showed 'i'. The next day Sea Monkey showed the same bar again. I looked for another setup.

編集 -> 設定 -> 日本語 In the menu, I changed 16 for 13 point and サンセリフ for セリフ. I also found the way to show history of browsing as well as IE6.
0:55 Sep28 (GMT+9)

Save as file in VB 3.0
Sample program of TDS 310 by Tektronix was written in BASIC, and I have VB 3.0. I am to implant the sample program and modify it for my application. I installed VB 3.0 in 66 MHz machine. The VB 3.0 occupied 5.47 MB. Free space of HDD was 20.2 MB only. Because I use 80 MB for Windows 95 partition. The other space is for FreeBSD. I ran VB 3.0. I tried a project file in D drive of 400 MHz machine via LAN. I clicked Network... button, but the menu did nott show any drive suitable to save in 400 MHz machine. I thought that VB 3.0 was too old. VB 3.0 does not recognize a directory of long name, for example Program files.

So I installed VB 4.0 in 400 MHz machine. I tried the same thing. VB 4.0 can select a network computer.
0:16 Sep25 (GMT+9)

Register TSR
To run Sakura clock as TSR, I have to register it in starup programs of Windows 98.

Start -> Setup -> Task bar -> Setup start menu -> add 22:51 Sep24 (GMT+9)

NTP clock
I found that server stamped time correct, when I upload some files at once. As I said before, My 400 MHz machine date clock gains far faster than 66 MHz machine. I downloaded a program to fix time correct by NTP ( Network Time Protocol ). The program set up time every 30 minutes by default. The program name was Sakura tokei (clock).
18:50 Sep23 (GMT+9)

DSUB 25p of COM2

Assignment for DSUB9P Key side
NC 8 CTS 6 DSR 4 DTR 2 RxD

9 RI 7 RTS 5 GND 3 TxD 1 DCD

I confirmed the back panel of 66MHz machine. There is a male DSUB 25p. Although Tektronix shows how to connect PC and TDS310, README does not show how to use a DSUB 25p. I confirmed conntection between DSUB 9p and 2x5p header on mother board by a tester at first. Next I looked up the DSUB25P. I revised the table because JIS is not popular among PC world on Jan19 2013.
Assignment for DSUB25P Key side
NC 5 CTS 6 DSR 20 DTR 3 RD

22 ? 4 RTS 7 SG 2 SD 8 CD

A site shows pin assignment of DSUB25P by IBM. It shows No.6 pin wrong, maybe. I think DSR is correct.

I made a DSUB 25p cable a long time ago. But this was for NEC comptible female. My 400 MHz machine has a DSUB 9p for COM. I had better not adopt 25p. 400 MHz machine also will record measured data of TDS310, if I make a DSUB 9p cable.

Therefore, DSUB 25p and 9p connection are,

^{Revised 25 Dec 2012}
TDS PC 9p PC 25p

2 3 2

3 2 3

4 6 6

5 5 7

6 4 20

7 1, 8 8,5

8 7 4

Sep22 (GMT+9)

TL.EXE bundled with DSO TDS310
I have a DSO of Tektronix TDS310. It has a communication por of RS232C. I want to get measured data of TDS310 on 400 MHz machine. Tektronix bundled some programs to work on MSDOS. TL.EXE is a talker-listener program to check the status of RS232C. I tried commandline in MSDOS prompt screen. The screen stayed all black. I typed Ctrl+C. MSDOS replied *Break* characters. So I restarted MSDOS mode from Windows 98. The result was the same.

I ran the TL.EXE on MSDOS mode of 66 MHz machine. The machine replied the message, as follows,

TDS 300 Series TL (Talker-Listener) Program - Version 1.2
*** RS-232 parameters should be set to default values:

Baud Rate: 9600 EOL: LF Delay: 0 s
Hard Flagging: On Parity: None
Soft Flagging: Off Stop Bits: 1

These parameters can be changed in the
UTILITY System - I/O RS-232 menu.
*** Press (1) to use COM1 or (2) for COM2

I found that TL.EXE would not work on Windows 98. I accessed Tektronix site and looked for an alternate program that works on Windows 98. But I could not find such a program, when I accesssed Tektronix cite^[5]. But googling, WSTRO hit. Now WSTRO works Windows 98SE, ME, Windows 2000/XP Pro. Old WSTRO version worked on Windows 95.

Sony Tektronix was seller in Japan, when I bought TDS310. Sony sold its share to Tektronix on 1 October 2002^[12].

Compare Seamonkey with IE6
Seamonkey is a browser and is bundled on Puppy Linux. I have not been able to access AMAZON account. I had to wait for seeing a Wikepidea page because of poor Javascript of IE6. How about Yahooh.co.jp ? Seamonkey is slower than IE6 to see a Yahoo page. Yahoo declares support of IE6 in the bottom of the top page. Seamonkey improved in accessing G mail. But IE6 shows all most of my bookmark sites faster than Seamonkey. Why? Seamonkey recommends fast CPU than 500 MHz^[4]. My old PC is 400 MHz.

How does Seamonkey look? The fonts of Seamonkey look bold fonts of IE6. So the pitch of characters is bigger than IE6. A page of my site did folding in spite of none of IE6. This improves when the size of charaters is 90 %.

I have changed on-line HTML editor of Yahoo for Hidemaru to write a frame form. Seamonkey showed a HTML file wrong. Seamonkey does not show Japanese code, if meta expression is not written correct. I rewrote its euc-jp for Shift_JIS.

I wanted to import my bookmark of IE6 to Seamonkey. Ah! Seamonkey does not show the Japanese titles correct, though the Seamonkey shows menus in Japanese. I changed Japanese characters for Roman characters about 20 titles. How stupid! Seamonkey cannot show bookmark on a frame as IE6. And Seamonkey does not show history of browsing sites. As the result, I will use Seamonkey to browse a few sites. In case of Wikipedia, I do other operations for a minutes.
11:56 Sep20 (GMT+9)

Puppy Linux 4.3.1 recognizes PCI Realtek NIC
I asked Puppy Linux forum to recoginize Ethernet adapter. A helper told another module. I do not know what module is. I looked for modules in my Puppy Linux. I found MODULESCONFIG /etc/rc.d. I rewrote 8150 and 8139 in rtlxxxx:rxxxx. But Network wizard did not recognize. Another helper told lspci and that I should use Puppy431 at first. I downloaded and burned iso file of 431.

I ran Puppy431 with my reserved configuration file. Two icons of editor appeared, and Network wizard did not show a module. I shutdown and rebooted without my saved configuration. Network wizard recognized eth0! it setup DHCP properly. I opend a brower called Sea Monkey. I accessed AMAZON and Wikipedia. The Sea Monkey responded Javascript far better than IE6.
14:33 Sep15 (GMT+9)

On-line HTML editor of Geocities does not support "frame"
I tried writing a html with a frame. I had tried before and could not write. I looked into frame this time. Ah, Geocities' on-line html editor does not support frame^[4]. I decided to use Hidemaru to write html. I had not used it for more than 10 years, because Notepad of Windows 98 was enough to edit a litte text file. I have to upload written html files to Geocities. Geocities introduces a free program for ftp. I had used it some times. I downloaded ffftp. Although it does not support Windows 98 now, it works except saving of personal setup.
20:12 Sep11 (GMT+9)

Install Yamaha DS-XG driver and Lhaplus
I had not used Yamaha DS-XG since restore of Windows 98 on 400MHz machine. Device manager of Windows 98 shows "?" on the device. I checked Dell Dimension Resource CD. I had to prepare 4 formatted blank floppy disks to check the device. I looked old used ones. There is an archive file of lzh. I downloaded an archiver file (lpls157.exe, 1.71MB) from Mado no Yashiro. I ran Lhaplus and confirmed the contents of the lzh file.

I copied 4 disks. I clicked setup.exe, and Yamaha DS-XG check program ran. It seems the sound function works. I looked device manager of Windows 98. It showed correct, as follws,

Yamaha DS-XG PCI Audio CODEC is IRQ9. I ran Puppy Linux, though I don't hope. Puppy does not recoginze NIC. When I look at PCI interface of Puppy hardware interface information from Puppy Linux,

Description Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ Although PupScan program of Puppy recognizes the NIC, setup program of NIC does not work. The program shows that we will have to set up by manual, I have already tried Windows wrapper.

I accessed Dell Support again, it hit 9 programs! They are four 4Coms, two Aironet and 3 Intels. I suppose Realtek is compatible with 3Com. I choiced 3Com at first. One of four 3Coms is html. Omitting it, 3 drivers are,

Date of the three drivers is 2000/08/15. I donwloaded the three drivers. I ran Ed04d3.exe and read README.TXT. I thought it was not related with my problem.
15:30 Sep10 (GMT+9)

Create partition for Puppy Linux and install it to HDD
Selecting GParted from Menu-System, I ran GParted. It showed size of 149.05 GB as /sda. D drive of FAT32 is shown as 603MB of VFAT. I created swap-linux, ext2, ext3 and ext4. I found that vmlinuz and initrd.gz are,

I tried install Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux recommends to install ext2 or ext3 rather than FAT32. So I installed in ext2. BMR is necessary to do dual boot. I tried setting up BMR. There are 3 options of Grub, GrubDOS and BootManager. BootManager showed that I had to set up saving personal configuration (PupSaveConfig). I saved at ext2.
23:03 Sep08 (GMT+9)

Create expanded partition for Windows98 and Puppy Linux
Puppy Linux and Windows 98 can use FAT32 partition one another. So I created expanded partition. It occupies 82 % of 65,533MB. 65,533MB is the maxium capacity recognized by Windows 98. I had replaced HDD with 160GB before. Although the maxium logical MSDOS drives are 60, Linux limits 20 partitions^[3]. I created D logical drive of 600MB. Because I use 640MB MO disk to back up.
16:46 Sep08 (GMT+9)

Booting priority of devices
I tried CD of Puppy Linux on Windows 7 machine to check the CD. The machine ran Puppy Linux, so my 400MHz machine proved not to work well. I also tried a starting floppy disk. The result was the same. I remember that the machine booted the starting disk. I accesed download support of Dell site. It automatically showed necessary BIOS, thought the response was extraordinarily slow^[2]. I think that it is the same as accessing Wikipedia. I have found that I can revise BIOS.

When downloading this file, click on RUN FROM LOCATION. This will allow the program to be downloaded and the diskette creatation utlity will run. Have a blank 1.44 diskette that has been formatted ready. The disk creatation program will create the bootable disk you need to flash your bios. When the program has finished making the disk, reboot your system with the Flash BIOS disk in the A: drive. Then follow the directions to flash the bios.

How do I reboot with the Flash BIOS disk, however, I cannot reboot with a floppy disk now. Do I have to unconnect HDD to revise BIOS? I tried downloading. Dell recommends Dell Driver Manager. I selected it and downloaded it. But it does not work. The Dell Driver Manager does not support Windows 98. I downloaded BIOS again by IE6. The file name and size are dimv_a08.exe and 638kB.

I pulled out a flat cable connector on mother board to HDD. I restarted the machine. Reading the floppy disk, the guidance wrote,

Press Y to replace "A07" BIOS with "A08" BIOS I confirmed to be able to run from a floppy. I found that it took a long time to start booting. But the machine cannot boot from CDROM drive. I confirmed BIOS setup for booting sequence. Ah, the new BIOS rewrote sequence order. I set up booting sequence order again, as follows,

I could run Puppy Linux CD. It meant that dld BIOS of 400 MHz machine did not recognize But Puppy did not recognize LAN card, while freeBSD could do automatically.
11:41 Sep09 (GMT+9)

Instantaneous power off
My 400MHz machine stopped 3 times at instant in 30 minutes because of thunder the day before yesterday. I bypassed ADSL modem and The machine restarted automatically and Windows 98 began scandisk in blue screen. I will plan battery backup for 10 seconds. Do cheap backup powers respond instantly?

My family TV of Mitsubishi did not restart from remote control and main switch. I pulled out the power plug to initialize it. The TV restarted.
8:09 Sep09 (GMT+9)

Puppy CD doesn't work
I downloaded pup-430JP.iso and burned the iso file using CD Manipulator in Windows 7 machine. The transfer rate was 70 kB/s. CDROM drive of my 400MHz machine is read only. I setup CDROM drive as the first boot device using BIOS setup. I tried running Puppy linux from the new CD. But Windows 98 runs. Looking into contents of CDROM, GRLDR might be MSDOS.SYS or IO.SYS.
21:23 Sep07 (GMT+9)

Router Corega CG-WLR300NM firmware
I had to power off Corega CG-WLR300NM of router once every day to restore it. I had downloaded Ver1.10 before. I downloaded Ver1.20 a few months ago. The bug was removed.
15:19 (GMT+9)

Restore CDROM drive
I have unconnected internal CDROM drive of 400MHz machine. Because FreeBSD did not support Mitsumi CDROM drive. It seems that Puppy Linux may support Mitsumi. I connected a flat cable and power cable of the drive with mother board. I ran Windows 98. The CDROM drive works.
21:06 Sep01 (GMT+9)

[1] CG-WLR300NM firmware rireki
[2] Dell OptiPlex System BIOS
[3] Partition bunkatsu program
[4] System requirements
[5] Download finder
[6] DOS/V pasokon pin assign
[7] hossy no Visual Basic kouza
[8] VB3: MSCOMM.VBX control ga riyou kanou desu
[9] Serial tsushin no programming houhou
[10] OADG
[11] Shougakkou de narau kanji
[12] Sony tono 合弁 wo 解消 shitaTektronix 社 CEO ni 聞 ku