Windows3.1/A2386SX Help
8 messages in this thread
I just bought the A2386SX Bridgeboard (I couldn't resist the price) and I'm
having a heck of a time trying to install Windows 3.1. I'm assuming it can be
done, since there are drivers (albeit for Windows 3.0) for the mouse and CGA
display emulation. Has anyone out there done this already? If so, can you fill
me in on the steps I need to follow? In particular, how do I get Windows to
recognize the above mentioned drivers.
Thanks.
Dave M.
Hi David,
I helped a buddy install 3.1 on his A4000. The trick we used was to install
Windows 3.0 first, then do the upgrade from within Windows. This worked fine.
If you don't have Win3.0 it could be a problem. But someone surely could help
you from that end.
—– donald
Donald (& David),
One of the cool things about Windows is that you can become a real hacker
just by editing ASCII. One of the BAD things is that you can also cripple
it catastrophically.
Today I had some video drivers for 3.0 that wouldn't install in 3.1 by
following instructions. You were supposed to copy a SETUP.INF file to the
Windows dir (actually Windows\System dir). Of course, WinSetup said that
the file wasn't right. Good thing I renamed the old one, eh!
I cut the appropriate [display] lines from the bad .INF and pasted them
into the old .INF and edited them till they looked right. Voila! Working
3.0 drivers under 3.1.
This was a first. I'd never worked with SETUP.INF before; only WIN.INI and
SYSTEM.INI.
Malcolm
Thanks for the tip, Don, I do have Windows 3.0 and I'll give that a try.
Dave
Dave,
Can you be specific about the problem you're having? I installed it on
mine without any problem, but I have VGA display, not CGA. I don't know that
the Windows install program will work in CGA, but then I've never had an
experience with that. As for the mouse, once you install windows you need to
go into the System.INI file and change the mouse driver. A few lines from the
top of that file should be a line whichs reads "mouse.drv= " followed by
whatever mouse was chosen at installation. Change the driver to
"c:\janus\amouse3.drv". This assumes your hard drive has a Janus directory
with the janus files for the PC side. Beyond that I'm not sure what to advise
you do unless you tell me more about what difficulties you are having.
Steve,
I'm planning on getting a video card for the BB with my next paycheck,
but until then I had hoped that I could use the CGA driver supplied on the PC
Janus disk. My problem is that I'm not sure how to let Windows 3.1 know where
the driver is because it doesn't appear that 3.1 directly supports CGA.
Someone else (Don) responded to my plea and said that he did it by
upgrad- ing from 3.0 to 3.1 (Windows). I'll give that I try. If you have any
other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.
Thanks for responding, Steve.
Dave
Dave,
The trick for letting windows know where a driver is is to put the
driver on a floppy disk (for the PC side, of course) and when Windows goes
through the install and asks for the default driver, you can then load the
driver when it requests you insert the driver disk in A:. However, that won't
do you much good if windows can't install from a CGA screen. Again, I don't
know if you can start the install in CGA mode. I would suggest that you might
try running the install from CGA mode and see what happens, if you haven't
already done so. If Windows will install, then when you get to the point of
selecting a Windows driver select the one for CGA (if there is one). Of course
that won't be the right one, but windows will have inserted the driver line in
System.INI. When you exit you can then edit the System.INI file and replace
the driver name with the path and name for the bridgeboard replacement driver,
just as I told you to try with the mouse driver. I don't know if that will
work, but ….
OK, first off I doubt that the CGA video driver will work. I have heard
that there are CGA drivers for 3.1 available in the Windows forums online,
but I have not seen or tried these myself. To use the mouse drive you need
to edit the system.ini file in your windows directory. There is a line in
the system area that says mouse.drv= just place the path of the janus
driver in there and reboot the system. Something like this:
mouse.drv=c:\janus\amouse3.drv
Also I think you need to add the amouse command to your autoexec.bat file.
That will give you none windows mouse emulation. You then press
RIGHT-AMIGA-P to activate the Windows or MS-DOS mouse.
Greg
Greg Givler – CBMSER Sysop
"By the way, don't eat the figs", Lydia, 'I Claudius'