[thingstodo]

Software is so much fun!

The programming software that Allen Bradley used in the bad old DOS days was called 6200 series software. It was free. No copy protection because it was free. When the software moved to windows, that all changed and the various bits of software required purchasing, licensing, service contracts, and all that expensive stuff.

Since I'm not spending $5000 to purchase RSLogix5 software, I'm going to put in some effort and try to get the free DOS 6200 series software running on one of my extensive collection of old computers. Hopefully that computer will be a laptop. I'll use it for programming, I will need to move files to and from it for backups, but that's about it. The software runs in DOS mode on XP, so I can do most of the required typing that way, but XP does not appear to allow DOS tasks access to serial ports so I can't make it work. The serial protocol is timing critical, so windows is not a good choice in any case.

So it's time for me to take a trip down memory lane and try to remember how to set things up, figure out where I can find such old versions of drivers and such, and locate DOS drivers for hardware that is compatible with the hardware that I have.

Some results to report ...

I downloaded Freedos and installed to one of my older computers (Pentium 4, came with XP, no floppy, no serial port). It installed from CD fine, but no USB drivers so exchanging data is a pain. No PC Card support so I can't use my serial add-in card. The old drivers that I have from PC dos 6.22 don't work. Freedos appears to be a bust on this computer.

I still have a few things to try:

- Bart PE, which is used with Norton's older Ghost products, boots a command-line XP environment with USB drivers for hard disks and USB sticks, optional mounts for FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, etc. Perhaps I can configure that environment to work with the PLC programming software. There appears to be hope for this method. Since it uses XP install files ... it may still lock out the serial ports.

- Locate some old floppies, hope they work, and install Dos 6.2 or Dos 7, where my old drivers work, and get the PLC software to work. Then multi-boot to win98 - if I can find my old CDs and they still work - and use win98 drivers for wireless or network or usb sticks to exchange data

- If all else fails, I can use one of my old desktops (486, pentium 2 vintage) with a real serial port. Still need working DOS disks and win 98 or BARTPE to exchange data, but it would work.