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Good morning and welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to vintage computers and electronics! Today we are still dealing with the Commodore PC10... because the hard disk is missing! It is a computer that was sold to me without the hard disk: the model did not have one, in fact it has two 360 KB (5.25) floppies. Finding an original hard disk is quite onerous and complicated, so I decided to install this XT-CF Lite v4.1 card. You know that I like original computers, so basically I would have chosen a nice original hard disk with the sounds... the nice full-bodied ones, of a mechanical hard disk, which give great satisfaction! One reason that pushes me to install this card, apart from the fairly modest price, is the fact that, instead of the hard disk, it has a CF (compact flash) slot.
So you can buy a compact flash, install it on the card which will then be mounted inside the computer on an 8-bit ISA slot and this card will become as if it were the computer's hard disk. As for the CF (compact flash), once we have initialized it, installed the operating system and everything, it will be compatible with modern computers. So, if you have a modern computer with a compact flash reader at your disposal, you can also go and take the files from the card, put new ones on it, etc... Therefore have a passage of communication, data, software, programs, games from a modern computer (where you can also download them from the Internet) to the vintage computer.
As I had already described to you in my blog www.valoroso.it, it is not the only way to transfer files from a modern computer to a vintage one. On other occasions, I have used Fastlynx which allows you to connect a modern computer to a vintage computer via serial port. However, a file must be installed on the hard disk of the vintage computer. So, first there must be a hard disk. Secondly, you also need to be able to pull the file in to transfer the files in, so it's all a bit of a dog chasing its tail. Another reason to opt for the XT-CF Lite as a card instead of a mechanical hard drive could be that the hard drive does not always have a standard IDE connector. There are, for example, computers including the IBM PS/2 model 30, which have proprietary connectors in which both data and power pass inside the connector, and it is therefore not like the classic IDE interface which has a 40-pin connector and additionally a separate power supply. Finding such a hard disk is increasingly complicated, so a card like this, if you have ISA slots, may be right for you. Where to find this XT-CF Lite bet slip? You can find it on eBay, for example, from the seller RetroBit 4004.
Let's then proceed with the installation of the XT-CF Lite inside the Commodore PC10. Let's see which compact flash to choose, let's see if there will be problems - and there will be problems - then how to solve them, because the installation is not exactly easy easy easy. Finally, let's install MS-DOS version 2.11, which came with the computer.
I have already opened the computer case and positioned the monitor next to it, so we can go and install the XT-CF Lite card inside this free slot. This slot once housed an additional video card; I removed it and now there is a free space. As you can see, they are all 8-bit ISA connectors and therefore compatible with the XT-CF Lite slot. Together with the card, which therefore emulates the hard disk, there are also two supports. These supports will then be screwed onto the card and are used to keep it inside the appropriate slots. There's a black one and a, well, brownish one... So I'll choose the brownish one because it reminds me more of the color of the computer. Even if it is behind, in short, it is not noticeable. You could easily use the black one. So the first thing will be to screw the support onto the card in this way, so that the compact flash can then be inserted inside the appropriate slot.
Ok, now the slip is complete. Let's see if inserting the compact flash works. Yes, I would say everything is completely fine. So, before inserting the card into the computer, it should be noted that there are some settings to be made on the DIP switches. I won't do them because, as indicated in the card manual, it is already configured to have the BIOS memory address CA00h, which should not conflict with any other card inside the computer. Other addresses could conflict with the video card, rather than other cards that may be there.
It is also an input/output address of 300h (in hexadecimal base) and is the base address for the primary hard disk. Also in this case you have to be careful that you don't have other hard drives inside the computer. I have nothing, I don't have any hard disk, which is why all the operations we are going to carry out are related to the card with the base input/output address of 300h hexadecimal and the address of the XTIDE BIOS at CA00h. We insert it inside the free 8-bit ISA slot: it must fit perfectly both front and back. Before pressing, you need to check that the various contacts on the card are completely inside. At this point we can press down to insert it completely inside the ISA slot. Then we can go and screw the support.
I already told you: I also put a test card inside my Commodore PC10 because sometimes the ignition stops, so I'm trying to understand, little by little, how to solve this problem. Should this happen, just turn it off, turn it back on and it starts again. The card is now installed. I'll show you later what it looks like and how to insert the compact flash. Here is the back of the computer. Now you can see the crack, see? I chose the beige/brown colored support because at least it fits a little with the style of the computer. The compact flash cannot be inserted both ways: there is one way to insert it, which is this one, and once inserted inside, all the contacts are completely inserted. Do you see? Now I try to remove it from the outside, internally the contact comb shows up again. But now we are interested in leaving it inside because we have to install the operating system.
The choice of compact flash is not a casual operation. First of all, you need to choose one of a size compatible with vintage hard drives. For example, on this computer I will install MS-DOS version 2, which supports 32 MB hard drives. In theory there should have been 16, but who knows why this Commodore one also reaches 32 MB. So I bought some 32 MB cards, I also have 64 cards and a 128 card for any other tests. I bought a few because they told me that not all cards are compatible, so it could also be that one doesn't work. As I mentioned before, it is not enough to just format it and then install the operating system on top; in reality it will be necessary to carry out other operations which we will see.
XT-CF Lite version 4 installed inside the computer and with its 32 MB compact flash card already housed inside the connector. We insert the MS-DOS version 2.11 operating system diskette, obviously a 5 1/4 inch diskette, into drive A:. Then the correct sequence, which you remind me of every now and then because I don't always remember it, is: first turn on the monitor, then turn on the computer. The RAM count exceeds 256 KB because, as we showed in the last video, I did the expansion and even there there were some tense moments trying to do it. Now this is the XTIDE BIOS, I told it to start from floppy A: by pressing the A key on the keyboard. Because we still haven't configured the hard disk, the hard disk intended as compact flash.
Okay. This is an MS-DOS in English, so I have to configure the Italian keyboard with KEYBIT, so I can easily use colons, semicolons, whatever I want, without having to invent where the keys are on English keyboards. Ah, a little step back for the more fussy: in front there is the hard disk light with its connector. Unfortunately, it is a three-pin connector; There are only two here, so it's a little awkward to get in to see the light flash. Well, I know, now you'll say to me: Eh, but you connect the connectors with the computer turned on, and you're also right, it's not done. This thing I just did, you shouldn't do it. You turn off the computer well and then connect all the connectors. Okay. Obviously, the LED is off, both the internal one and this external one, which then represent the activity of the hard disk when there will be a reading and writing operation.
Before going to configure the compact flash, therefore using the FDISK utility, using the FORMAT command and transferring the operating system, the first thing that must be done is to delete the master boot record (MBR) of the compact flash, because they are used cards, they may have been formatted by other operating systems, or perhaps they contain data that cannot, let's say, be interpreted by this computer.
The first thing the computer does when it turns on is to read the contents of the master boot record (MBR) and execute it, because it is really a code. Every now and then viruses can also nest inside the master boot record, so let's delete it. There are several options for deleting it: insert the compact flash into a modern computer and use special utilities, but you may not have a modern computer with a compact flash port. Or, you can use the FDISK /MBR command, but in my case I can't use it because the MS-DOS version is 2.11, while FDISK /MBR is an option that exists from MS-DOS 5 onwards. So, luckily I found an operation that can be done directly in assembler, and on my website www.valoroso.it, in the article accompanying this video, I will write you exactly what the commands are. Now you see them on the monitor anyway.
Warning: I am carrying out this operation without having any other hard disk inside the computer, nothing at all. If you are going to carry out this operation with a computer that has the hard disk inside, be careful because maybe you are going to initialize the hard disk one and not this one, which we have to do. Once you have deleted the MBR, the master boot record of your hard disk, you can forget about recovering the data you have inside; you have to redo all the formatting, etc., because it also loses the partition table, so it no longer remembers what's inside. Please note: only the card with the compact flash, no other mass storage memory.
Let's run this code. So, first of all, DEBUG, which is a DOS command, is there in all DOS, and it enables the ability to write in assembler. Here it is, there is the line down here that indicates that we are inside the DEBUG command. Let's now type the little program that is used to set all 512 bytes that make up the master boot record to zero. So F CS:1000 1200 00.
Be careful not to confuse Ls with 1s, because they can seem similar. Anyway, inside my site www.valoroso.it I will show you exactly what to write. The initial part of the address can change, however, the part after the colon (which is 0100, 0102, 0104, etc.) remains the same as what you see on the monitor, where I typed the commands. Now I write G=100 to execute it. Sending. Let's see if the little light here flashes... Yes! Something did, then he accessed the compact flash, the activity LED flashed a warden. So, I expect that now the compact flash should have the master boot record, that is, the initial part, the initial record, the first bytes of the compact flash, all zero. Let's go and check it: there is another little program to type to check it.
Here, once you have created a well-made compact flash, at that point you can search on the Internet to see if there are already compiled programs that do this job for you. You put them on the compact flash using a modern computer and, at that point, if you want to copy them onto floppy disks, etc., to create other compact flashes, you don't have to be typing this thing here all the time. Now we are still inside the MS-DOS DEBUG, so we type A 80. Ok, little program all set. G=80 to go to this part of code. Ok, he did something. So what should he have done? He should have taken the master boot record of the compact flash and copied it into RAM. Now let's see the contents of the RAM. D 0100 01FF. Yes, they are all at zero. D 0200 02FF, to also see the other bytes. Perfect, now the contents of the master boot record of the compact flash are completely erased. We can proceed with the rest of the commands.
So, to exit DEBUG, I press Q.
Let's set up the partition, then use the FDISK command. Obviously he starts to tell me that the master boot record, which he calls the boot sector of the hard disk, has not yet been defined and therefore, first of all, he will create it. And it's a positive thing, because we have set everything to zero, but he instead writes the correct software that the computer must run as soon as it is turned on. Perfect, now let's create an MS-DOS partition. Command 3: Do you want to use all available space? Yes, because there are 496 cylinders, so I press Yes.
So we created partition number 1, DOS type, starting from cylinder 0 and ending at cylinder 495, for a total of 496 cylinders. The memory card is 32 MB, so I expect to have around 30-32 MB of hard drive. Now we have to make it active, because an active partition, with status A = active, is the one that can then be started; otherwise, the computer will not boot from that partition. Then, we select the command to change the state of the partition, we indicate the number of the partition to be set as active: 1. Ok, so partition one is now in the active state. We go back to DOS and he wants to restart the computer, so he tells me to insert the diskette and press a key. Now, after the reset, in reality, when the XTIDE BIOS comes out, we should tell it to go and boot from the floppy disk, because otherwise it tries to boot from the hard disk and there is nothing in the hard disk. Okay. A button.
In fact, now it's still starting from the diskette... Italian keyboard... perfect.
FDISK done, so the C: partition should in theory already exist. Oh yes, it actually exists. Let's go back to disk A: and format C: by transferring the operating system. I format it because in this way at least it sets all the sectors correctly and finds the defective ones, if there are any. In theory, you could also just do SYS C:, but I instead do FORMAT C: /S, which is used to format the hard disk and transfer the operating system. It doesn't transfer the entire operating system, eh, it only transfers the system files; then we copy the others by hand. Do you really want to format the hard drive? Be careful, eh, these were things that once made you shiver when you heard these questions. Yes, anyway, Yes, and press any key. Now, formatting can take quite a bit of time. You can't see it, but the LED is flashing for a moment, it's flashing very, very delicately; you can barely see it, but it flashes. I've trimmed some of the length off this formatting, but it's really taking up a lot of time. I mean, 32 MB… we're not talking about 76 TERA of stuff to format. 30 MB... I'll format it for you by hand, if you want. Ah, I'll go to sleep first... you wake me up when it's over.
Well, a shame is that you can't hear the noise of the hard disk, while it formats it would have been nicer. I had done ASMR; if you go and look for it in the @ValorosoIT channel you will find it, on the IBM PS/2 model 30, the formatting of the hard disk was really a nice sound.
Oh, formattazione completata. Era anche ora. E ha anche trasferito il sistema operativo. Quindi noi andiamo in C:, sicuramente non troviamo file, eh… Ah, ha messo pure il COMMAND.COM, quindi qualcosina c'è. Andiamo a copiare sia l'AUTOEXEC.BAT che il CONFIG.SYS, poi creiamo la cartella DOS nella C:. Vediamo le cartelle… Ve lo ricordate il comando PROMPT $P$G, così vediamo il percorso completo. Quindi CD DOS e andiamo a copiarci tutti gli altri file. Eh beh, ci copierà ancora il COMMAND.COM, l'AUTOEXEC.BAT, il CONFIG.SYS, ma chi se ne frega. Infatti, se proprio vogliamo essere precisi, poi ce li cancelliamo a mano questi tre file che stanno già nella C: e non in C:\DOS.
Ecco, a me piace mettere i file del sistema operativo all'interno di una cartella specifica, non tutto così a caso nella C:. Poi, era il DOS 2.11, quanti file avete? 300? Allora DEL COMMAND.COM, DEL CONFIG.SYS, DEL AUTOEXEC.BAT. Li sto cancellando dalla cartella C:\DOS, ma perché ce li abbiamo nella C:.
In my opinion, we can do the test, that is, let's take the disk away. The operating system has been ported; there will definitely be errors in the AUTOEXEC.BAT, because we changed its DOS directory. Then maybe we'll go and edit it, but first I would like to see if this operating system starts. What do you say? Shall we restart the computer? Ok, now I don't press anything, so it must start from C: please... Yes, it's starting! Full of errors, but who cares, it's not a problem.
Allora, mi dice mancante ANSI.SYS. E vabbè, ma perché lo va a cercare in C:, e invece io voglio che lo trovi in C:\DOS. Quindi cominciamo a sistemare i percorsi, così questo viene letto da quals… Ah, la Keyb… Vabbè, CD DOS, perché così… no, sono troppo emozionato, ho sbagliato pure a digitare KEYBIT, perché ho la tastiera italiana. PATH C:\DOS, poi andiamo nella C:. Siamo proprio sicuri che sia in C:\? Sì.
EDLIN CONFIG.SYS to edit the config. We are inside the EDLIN command. Obviously, it was beautiful! Luckily, then some slightly more user-friendly editors arrived because these ones were truly crazy. That is, see with L the list of lines present within the file. So let's go and modify line 1. I have to rewrite it all: device=, let's see if we can put the path here, if not, we will have to put the file inside the C:.
Let's see… And to go out and save, perfect. Let's reboot and see if we have resolved the first ANSI error. It must start from C:… yes, the error is gone. Perfect! Now let's edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT to make it, in short, a little more useful. First of all, let's load the Italian keyboard. Then we go back to C:, that's right, EDLIN AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Ah, giusto, perché EDLIN sta nel percorso C:\DOS. Era quello che dovevo mettere all'interno dell'AUTOEXEC. Ce la facciamo? Allora VER, DATE e TIME. Ok, cambiamole tutte, quindi:
1 ECHO OFF so you don't see while typing the next commands.
2 PROMPT $P$G, che poi è per vedere C:\ il percorso completo al prompt dei comandi.
3 KEYBIT Italian keyboard. No, because then he gets angry!
Because it doesn't find it in C:, it finds it in DOS. So let's go back to line 3
3 PATH C:\DOS, così qualsiasi file che non trova nella cartella corrente lo va a cercare in DOS.
4 KEYBIT e…
5 No, because… no, INSERT 5. ECHO www.valoroso.it, we'll do some advertising.
6. Nothing. So CTRL+BREAK, let's go back, list, then ECHO OFF… Don't show those commands that I'm going to type next. The command prompt with the full path. If you don't find a file inside the current folder, when you start the computer in C: you go to look for it in DOS. At this point KEYBIT for the Italian keyboard, will not find it in C:, and therefore will look for it in DOS, and then writes my advertisement: www.valoroso.it.
And to save.
Okay. Now we can reboot and see if the computer really starts.
Ok, I don't press anything, so it starts from C:. Since it shows www.valoroso.it, it means that it has already executed all the rest of the commands. In fact, you can see the complete path in the prompt and, at this point, if I type a random MS-DOS command, it will also look for it in the DOS folder even though we are in C:. So, what command can we do? GWBASIC to enter BASIC. That's right, we are in BASIC. Which means it looks for it in the DOS folder.
Perfect! We installed the MS-DOS version 2.11 operating system on the hard disk, which is actually a Compact Flash, using the RetroBit 4004 XT-CF lite card. We did it! Now, a nice thing we can do is take the Compact Flash out of this computer and take it to a modern computer that has the Compact Flash adapter and see if we can transfer some files. For example, we could try putting Norton Commander in there, which is very nice. Do you remember it? I had made a short video with the Norton Commander. And then maybe CHECKIT, that little program used to check the speed of the processor. If you remember, I also made the video with the speed of vintage processors compared to modern ones. And let's check what the speed of this computer is.
Here it is, the 32 MB Compact Flash. Let's go and put it into a modern computer. The modern computer obviously must be equipped with a Compact Flash reader. In this case, my computer has the Windows 10 operating system. I installed the Compact Flash reader internally, but there are also external readers that connect to the computer's USB port. This internal is also connected to USB, however it is an internal USB rather than an external one. We insert the memory card... the LED lights up, and now we move to the computer screen to see the files inside the Compact Flash.
We see the Compact Flash directly here in Windows 10's Windows Explorer. How can we recognize it? Well, in my case it's very simple, because I call all the drives by my name. The one without my name is the one we formatted earlier, so the USB G: drive is the Compact Flash. We do not see the system files, because obviously Windows is not configured to see them, but we see the files that are normally visible, those with the normal file attribute, without it being hidden and without it being system. These are the files we copied from the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk inside the computer.
However, if we want, we can also go and see the system elements. So, here on View, let's go to the view options and search among the various options… Show…. Where is it located? Show/Hide. Here it is. Here it says Hide protected system files (recommended). We remove it because we don't care about your advice. Apply... ok. And then we show the hidden elements here and miraculously we see all the elements we need to see. Then the system files: IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Then there are the two .BAK files, therefore backups, because when we made the changes with EDLIN, evidently in addition to saving the file, it also saved some backups.
This folder here is a folder that Windows 10 creates, so it definitely wasn't created with DOS when we worked with the Commodore PC10 computer previously. Evidently it was created now by the new operating system, Windows 10, because, in short, Windows wants to make folders for nothing. Alright...
Now let's do a first test. First of all, let's copy some files that I have already prepared here into this other folder: the CHECKIT, as I was saying, which is used to view the speed of the computer and compare it with others. If you go and watch the video I made, you will find the speeds of the various computers; I also made a table on my blog, so go and see that which is very nice and compare it with that one. And then the Norton Commander.
So, first, we select these two file folders and copy them into the Compact Flash. I do Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, but you can copy and paste with the right mouse button, as you prefer. On the other hand, however, we can also do the opposite, so go and copy files that were already present inside the Compact Flash and put them in the folder of this computer. So, now I find myself with the DOS folder which is located both in the Compact Flash and in the folder that I had prepared for Commodore. Instead I moved the other two. I realized that I didn't do Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, I must have done Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V, but never mind, at least we'll make them go back.
So, CHECKIT, NC (Norton Commander), copy. So, Ctrl+C... this time I press, you don't see me, but I pressed Ctrl+C and now Ctrl+V inside the folder on my computer. So, in the computer we find all three folders. In the Compact Flash we find all three folders, plus this Windows one that he created and which he shouldn't have created. I would leave her at the moment. Then, if we see that it creates problems and the Commodore computer doesn't start, we delete it.
We can also open files, for example the AUTOEXEC.BAT that we modified before with EDLIN, we can also try to see its contents. Here it is, and we see exactly what I had typed before.
Ok, now we have our Compact Flash with some programs inside that have been downloaded from the internet. You had them in other media, you decided to put them on the Compact Flash and therefore they can be loaded from our vintage computer. Before inserting the Compact Flash inside the Commodore PC10, and seeing if we managed to transfer the file, I invite you to subscribe to the YouTube channel and activate the notification bell. I'm not only on YouTube, I'm also on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook and remember the blog www.valoroso.it where I will indicate all the commands we typed before on the Commodore, as well as all the steps we are taking now to correctly install this XT CF lite.
Obviously the computer is turned off... no, inserted incorrectly... ok, now it's correct. We can check inside... in fact all the contacts entered correctly.
In this case it took a double attempt because he hadn't given the Ready signal. You can see it from the card inside, with all the LEDs and displays flashing so randomly. And this is the problem that I talk to you about every now and then and that up until now I still haven't been able to solve. Not that I hit my head too much, but I already tried to change one chip, nothing changed. So let's boot from the hard disk, so hard disk C: which is already set... ok, it's booted.
So this computer doesn't care about that extra folder that Windows 10 created, and honestly we don't even see it, maybe it's hidden, who knows. Let's see the two folders that I copied from the other computer: therefore NC which is Norton Commander and CHECKIT which is to control it. A little zoom on the screen and we start them...
Here it is, Norton Commander works, beautiful! Do you remember it? With this you could navigate inside the hard disk. Here is the folder that the other computer created, let's see if we can delete it. Then F8... Do you want to delete this folder? Definitely yes. Ah, it can't because it's not empty. Oh well, I thought you could empty it yourself! Let's go again and delete every single file... Always F8, F8, let's go back... F8. If there were 300 files what should I do, one by one? Well, in the meantime the folder has been deleted.
So we have the DOS folder that we had created before, with all the MS DOS files inside. Then the CHECKIT folder, the NC folder of the Norton Commander that we created with the modern computer, as well as all the files. I think that we can also delete BAKs, backups. So F8... it was really convenient, eh, the Norton Commander... and CONFIG.BAK, obviously we're not going to delete the .SYS and the .BAT... from .BAK to .BAT it changes a letter but it makes all the difference in the world. Ok, let's start CHECKIT, so we can see the speed of this computer.
What could it be? CHECKIT.EXE... here it is, go!
Now it's doing a little scanning of the computer to see what's there and what's not there. If we go to benchmarks, we have the first one which is Main System, which is what we also used last time. Let's start it now to see the speed of the computer. Afterwards, if you want, as I was telling you, you can compare them with those I had already tested with other computers. In any case he will give us, in my opinion, already an idea of how fast this computer is: 344 Dhrystone and 6.6K Whetstone. Again in that video in which I also wrote the accompanying article, I explained what both Dhrystone and Whetstone are. It's two bars, not just one. The first is the IBM PC XT and the second is current. IBM PC XT and current.
So we see that it is exactly equivalent: this computer is worth exactly as much as an IBM PC XT. But in my opinion if we go back and see the performance of the hard disk, we will have some nice surprises here, I think. Because in short, a Compact Flash does not have a mechanical head that must move between the various sectors to search for them, and once you have given the address... Ok. In terms of data transfer speed, we see that we are 2.88 times faster than an XT PC. So an excellent result. Instead these are times, so we are talking about milliseconds: the longer the time, the slower the computer and in this case the hard disk; the shorter the time, the faster it is. We see that our computer is really very fast, because it has a media and trace search time that is very low compared to an IBM PC XT. So it is a really fast hard disk compared to the original mechanical one.
Well, we have reached the end of this content-rich video. We have seen why to install an XT-CF lite instead of a hard disk, how to install it, how to delete the Master Boot Record of the Compact Flash card, how to install MS-DOS, how to take this Compact Flash, put it inside a modern computer, take out the files of the vintage computer and put other files in so that it can run programs that perhaps you don't have on the diskette. So, we have done a truly 360° overview of the usefulness of this modern interface card, which obviously not only works with the Commodore PC10, but also works with all other vintage computers that have an 8-bit ISA port, even 16 bits, but you only use the first 8 bits, the others remain empty.
I hope you found this video useful and enjoyed it. If you liked it and found it useful, remember to subscribe to the channel, activate the notification bell and we'll see you in the next video. See you soon! Bye bye.