HP200LX CF cards

[BruceH]

(03-27-2024 05:12 AM)fy789 Wrote:  Hi all,

I recently acquired a used HP-200LX 2MB to enhance my
pocket/handheld computers collection, but I found it
quite difficult to move files into the 200LX due to
legacy OS format incompatibility with Win 11.

First thing I try to achieve is to create a CF storage,
but I found out that DOS5.0 cannot "see" anything
bigger than 512MB (?) and the machine is very picky
on the CF cards. Some HP200LX related sites suggest
using a program "acecard3.com" to overcome the
first problem.

So first thing, I am trying to download "acecard3.com"
to my Win11 PC, and write it to a small 64MB SanDisk
CF card.

The problem now is that I can format this 32MB CF card
in my Win11 PC, and put "acecard3.com" on it, but my
200LX cannot see it.

It's acecard3.sys not .com.

And you need to have it pre-loaded before you insert the card so simply including it on the card is not enough. You need it stored in the 200LX's C: drive and edit config.sys to load it on boot up. A nice chicken and egg problem. :-)

Quote:I try to work from the other end, and format the 32MB
CF card on the 200LX with fdisk100, but my Win11 PC
cannot recognize it.

So nothing will work, as DOS is not compatible with Win11.

Is there any solution to solve it?
This should be a very common novice user problem.
Please feel free to explain and share how do you work
around this.

Win 11 is still quite new so people may simply not have come across the problem yet.

You might try a cheap Linux box like a RaspberryPI with an external SD Card reader as that can be used as a "staging post" i.e. transfer file from Win11 to RPi then from RPi to card.

Or, if you'd rather not bother with a separate box, then maybe try an older Windows running in a Hyper-V virtual machine under Win11? XP would be of the same vintage as the 200LX or maybe WSL2 and Ubuntu?