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If you use the /gpp command switch, the program will run a hardware detection routine to see if a Gravis Gamepad Pro joystick is connected.  If it doesn't find one, then it'll complain that there's no joystick.   That's the only time that message is supposed to be displayed.

Are you using any command switches?

Morely,

The thin client looks kind of neat, but I don't think I'll be using one in the car-computer project.  I'm going to need at least 2 serial ports, and I doubt the thin clients are going to support > 133gb hard drives.

I might get one anyway, though.  I can think of at least one other project where one of these would come in handy.

As for the controller, I know many like using numeric keypads, but I'd be swearing at mine.  Besides, I have no good place to mount one.  Playstation-wanna-be 10-button gamepads don't look very cool, but I find them really easy to operate.

Wow, I didn't know anyone was still using that.  Good to hear that it's still working.

Lately, I've been working on the software that I plan to use in my next car computer.  It'll be version 3 of my VCC program.  The configuration program and the VDIP support have been written.  The TSR still needs some more work, though.  Mainly it's a matter of fixing bugs.  I might add Car2PC support too.  Still debating that one.

I'm definitely going to keep using DOS and MPXPlay.  They work so well, I have no reason to switch to anything else.

My program is a DOS program.  It needs a COM port (either COM1 or COM2) in order to run.  I don't know if it's compatible with the ELM323 (I'm using the ELM322).  I've never tried running it in Windows, so no promises there either.

If you're using Windows, check the device manager under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers", and make sure the USB/Serial converter is listed.  Also check under "Ports" to see which COM port number (if any) is being assigned to it.

VCC doesn't support ID3 tags, but MPXPlay does.  The TSR program doesn't touch the music files, it just reads what MPXPlay has on the screen and uses that.  In theory, track naming should still work.

One place where you would have trouble, though, is in the vcc.exe program.  It expects to find a file called discinfo.txt, in each album directory.  It reads the file to get its album naming information.

Bottom line: Feel free to try it out, but keep in mind that I haven't tested in that configuration.

I dug around a bit, but I couldn't find any DOS driver for that card, either.  The only thing I can suggest is to try running MPXPlay with the -sct command switch, and hope that it is able to recognise the card.

If that fails you could try asking MPXPlay's author to add CS4299 support to MPXPlay.  The chances aren't good, though, unless he owns a motherboard (or soundcard) that has this particular chip.  Doesn't hurt to ask, though.

You could try Opus Solutions.  A number of mp3car.com forum members are using these:

http://www.opussolutions.com/" target="_blank">http://www.opussolutions.com/

The DOS Network stuff posted here is mainly for connecting to Windows-based networks.  Those drivers  use up a lot of conventional memory.

Section 3.2 on this page:
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~eclnj/rallyfaq.htm" target="_blank">http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~eclnj/rallyfaq.htm
describes how to load the IPX drivers under plain DOS (not a dos-box under Windows).

But then you'd still need to find some DOS drivers for your sound card.  You probably won't have time to do this before tomorrow.

An idea for next time:
If your network cards have boot ROMs in them, you could setup a PXE server then boot off the network straight into DOS.  

If you want, you could still load xmsdisk to create a ramdisk, then copy the game directory off of the server to the ramdisk.  In theory this should all be possible.  In practice, I've never tried it before.

The MaxFileCache trick seems to help most people:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253912&Product=w98

If you still get "Out of Memory" errors, you can also try a setting called maxphyspage:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q181862/" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q181862/

Found their English site http://techworld.dyndns.org/discus/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0>  Looks like M.A.X. is an old DOS game.  They say that it won't work in Windows 2000/XP, but works fine in DOS/Win95/98.

It should work, as long as you can get Windows 95 up and running.  If all else fails, you could boot from a DOS boot disk and install the game on the hard drive.  Then you can use the boot disk to get into DOS, then run the game off of the hard drive.  That should work, as long as you have a DOS IPX driver for your network card.

Sal,

If you call it system.dat it'll probably boot, but then Windows likes to use the copy of the registry that's on c: drive.  That's fine, until you make the cd, and try booting from it, on a Windows 9x system.  Then you may start running into problems.

http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/" target="_blank">http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/
http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page10.htm" target="_blank">http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page10.htm

I've never tried allocating more than 256megs with XMSDisk, but it's supposed to support ramdisks up to 2gb.  You can change the ramdisk size by editing the autoexec.bat file.  You'll also need to resize the compressed drive if you're using drive compression.

I'm not aware of any way to get around having to restart after installing software.  For creating the boot cd, I like to use an old drive that I don't need for anything else.  Then if I need to make changes to the boot cd, I plug in the old drive, boot from it, make any changes that need to be done, then copy the drivespace.000 file and burn a new cd.

Hope this helps,

Brent

You still need to patch the io.sys file on the floppy disk.  Open up a dos window, then type:

edit /70 a:io.sys

You'll see a bunch of garbage characters.  That's normal.  Look on line line 247 for "SYSTEM.DAT".  Change it to "SYSTEM.TAT"  Save and exit.

Don't patch the io.sys file on your hard disk, just the one on the floppy disk.

Try the following:
Go into the BIOS setup and make sure "Plug and Play OS" is set to "No"

MPXPlay can talk directly to the card, but some computers' bioses don't configure the card proprerly.  If setting "Plug and Play OS" to "No" doesn't help, you'll need to download/install the DOS drivers for the card.

No, RealScan was written to communicate with OBD-II interfaces that use the ELM chip.  The Multiplex Engineering devices use a different chip, so the commands would be somewhat different.

RealScan is pretty basic.  It reads codes, and it clears them.  Nothing fancy, but it does what I need it to do.

Matthias:

Lfn playlists should be working now, eliminating the need for adding a bunch of entries to fileinfo.cfg

For the audio files, though, it still uses the short names.  If I were to add support for lfn audio files, it would involve making a number of changes to mpxfdb.pas  Heck, at point I'm not sure what half of the functions in mpxfdb.pas do.

Congratulations on dumping Windows.  Someday I'd like to dump it completely, but for now I use it for transfering files to the player, use VNC to control it remotely, and use the Windows defragger to defrag the drive.  

Matthias:

I have another test version ready.  I'd tell you what was in it, but that would spoil the surprise   http://techworld.dyndns.org/discus/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0>

Hint: Look under [player settings] in mpxt.cfg

Anyway, when you get the chance, let me know how it goes.  If it seems fairly solid, I'll call it "Beta 3" and post it on the web page.


http://techworld.dyndns.org/download/mpxttest6.zip">  http://techworld.dyndns.org/download/mpxttest6.zip