OrangePCi DOS

I received a dusty hand-me-down DOS card, an OrangePCi Model 440, upgraded to a 120 Mhz Pentium. I had no end of trouble getting it to work, especially creating a new functional hard drive container. Having used both Apple DOS cards and Orange DOS cards, I can say that Orange uses quality hardware, but Apple really integrates the two platforms and provides ease of use. I used to wish I could mount the Orange hard drive container on my Mac the way I could the Apple hard drive container! Although it's not as simple as double-clicking, Disk Copy will mount Orange PC drives. I used Disk Copy 6.3.3 on a PowerMac G4/400 (AGP) running the stock Mac OS 9.0.2 and a drive (file) I had been using with Orange PC 3.4 successfully. Mounting did leave a trail of Desktop and Finder.dat files, same as for the Apple/Reply card, but I got support for long filenames! My PowerMac G4 still has an annoying echo of all keyboard input more often than not, so DOS is much harder to use now! I am currently having trouble getting any updates installed because every update seems to cause Windows to hang tight on the next boot. I haven't really got this DOS card in a PowerMac G4 working with OrangePC 3.4.2. Anyway, I originally got things working after much suffering with the OrangePC 3.3 software on a PowerMac 8600/250. Here's how:
  1. Create a new hard drive container in the OrangePC Setup.
  2. When asked, insert the first DOS install disk. (I had been trying the Orange Setup disk first. That doesn't work.) HINT-> Since you can download the necessary disk images from Orange Micro, it's really easier to mount a disk image as a "floppy" to the DOS card. Use CMD-F (on the DOS side, pops you into selection on the Mac) to select the disk image, and you're ready to go! I love using disk images this easily! Just as easily, CMD-E in DOS ejects a floppy or floppy image.
  3. Install DOS. (You're on your own.)
  4. README-> According to the Orange ReadMe, you should modify autoexec.bat to look like this at the obvious line:
    C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE
    (I did.)
  5. Make sure it works! Quit the application, and start over. If it works (you have a functional DOS boot), back up (make a copy) of the current hard drive container with DOS. A simple mistake will have you starting over from scratch otherwise. I'm glad I did! (If it doesn't work, start over now.)
  6. Insert the OrangePC Setup floppy disk (image). Install the OrangePC software.
    a:
    install
    I selected only CD and Shared Volumes at this point. I got error messages anyway, device driver not found: CDROMOPC, but I could reboot and pretty much get things to work.
  7. Mount the image of the Orange Windows9x boot floppy. (Or insert the real floppy.) Also mount the Windows95 install CD-ROM. (You will see the CD on the Mac side too, or else you will have problems.) Reboot the DOS card.
  8. Exit Setup. (It's a pain, but easier than changing the autoexec.bat on the floppy disk image.) Don't worry about it. Change to the E:\> directory and run setup yourself.
    cd..
    setup
    TIP-> Don't let Windows do anything installing network or sound, video, and multimedia for you. Let Orange handle this later.
  9. Reboot as necessary. Check that it works, and back up. Seriously, this is a good time to save a copy that doesn't get touched later. You can delete it later.
  10. Mount the OrangePC Windows9x Setup floppy disk (image). Double-click My Computer, 3.5" Floppy, Setup to run the setup. (Or choose Run from the Start menu, and run a:\setup to do the same thing.) Answer the questions, update, install, click OK many times, the usual routine.
  11. I ran into a problem with a black screen instead of Windows95 (or locked after Windows Logon), but it went away after I booted into Safe Mode, and puttered around in the Display control panel.
And now I have a DOS card that I can actually use! Unfortunately, I spent months trying to accomplish this, and I finally just had to spend most a day fighting with DOS and Windows95 (luckily I've done this before) to get this list. I found some very helpful information in Appendix A of OPC/PCfx!User'sManual.pdf and in Appendix A of OPC_Users_Manual_500_Series.pdf so download and read those too.
REMEMBER-> Don't install Windows network or sound when asked by the Windows install. Use the floppy disk (image) of OPC Setup or OPC Driver 1 instead.
STARTUP-TIP-> Boot into Safe Mode by tapping F8 while DOS is counting memory. Choose Safe Mode, #3.
STARTUP-TIP-> Bypass startup files by tapping F5 while DOS is counting memory. I did some troubleshooting on this setup this way.
KEYBOARD-TIP-> Since Macs use a single-button mouse, use the command key on the Mac, CMD (or flower or fan) key gif (67bytes), when you need the right mouse button. Windows 95 hides all sorts of goodies under the right mouse button.
KEYBOARD-TIP-> Use control-escape (CTRL-ESC) for the Windows key on new Windows keyboards. For instance, that will pop up the Start menu.

I may be beating a dead horse, but the obvious trademarks belong to the parent company, and doing something as scary as running DOS on your Mac means you're charting your own territory. (Although I hope my reference helps someone else not lose as many days as I did.)

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Created: March 10, 1999
Last Revised: July 5, 2000

This URL: http://www.bme.unc.edu/~hope/linx/mac/dosorange.html
Copyright 1999 by Joni Julian