Omnibook 430- Other Operating Systems

[matthiaspaul]

(01-07-2017 04:27 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  That got the OmniBook booting 6.22. Hurray!

That's great, as it means you could also install DR-DOS on the Omnibook 300, which would give you more sophisticated memory management, multitasking and more.

Quote:When running in 386-enhanced mode, it would hang shortly after startup, requiring a visit to the reset button. [...] it appears you have to disable 32-bit disk access in SYSTEM.INI to prevent the system from hanging.

If this would be down to the Omnibook's disk hardware being non-standard (which, I think, is quite likely), it could well be that there is no other solution. Is it still necessary to disable this on later Omnibook models like the 430? I take it that you have to disable 32-bit disk access completely, and that disabling 32-bit disk write access, but keeping 32-bit disk read access enabled doesn't work, right?

Quote:I still can't get OBSTATUS.EXE working, though; it dies with a GPF as soon as it launches, implicating OBCONFIG.DLL for some reason. Start Windows in standard mode, and it comes right up.

Is the OBSTATUS for the OB300 different (older) than the version for the OB430?
Where is the OBCONFIG.DLL installed on your system?

Quote:On a related note, the Logitech TrackMan Portable works great on the OmniBook.

Does this TrackMan require the standard Logitech "MouseWare" DOS mouse driver (which version?), or does it use a special trackball driver?

Quote:Just tweak SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI as appropriate to choose either the built-in mouse, or the Logitech. Keep the lines for both mice in each file, and just comment out the one you don't want to use.

You could also set up two versions of the files and copy the desired ones to the proper place depending on which mouse you want to use. The copying could be easily made dependable on your choice in a DOS boot menu.

Does the built-in HP mouse require the OBMOUSE driver under DOS, or does it also work with more "generic" DOS mouse drivers? Background of the question are possible optimizations - some mouse drivers are smaller / better than others, but they might not work for the built-in mouse, if it uses proprietary hardware.

Greetings,

Matthias