Project of the day - Windows 3.11 386Enh on a floppy
Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide I found (which was a two-disk solution). The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish megabytes. There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32
How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. ) Interesting challenge ! On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide I found (which was a two-disk solution).
The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish megabytes.
There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it.
I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-)
Rich
--
Rich Cini
Yeah, I thought of that too. I did this within Parallels on my Mac (so, going back and forth between Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22 running as virtual machines) and Parallels doesn't support DMF (or anything other than 1.44MB). Neither does VirtualBox interestingly. It might be possible to do it on a real PC, but not sure. Yes, that extra 200k would make a huge difference in what could be included. Another way, that I haven't dried, is using Doublespace to create a virtual drive on the floppy. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:23 PM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. ) Interesting challenge ! On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge > was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy > disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using > files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more > challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide > I found (which was a two-disk solution). > > > > The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small > ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be > exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish > megabytes. > > > > There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no > multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you > could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a > temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. > > > > I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) > > > > Rich > > > > -- > > Rich Cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 > > > > > >
Ha, just pulled out a copy of Stacker 4.0 and compressed a floppy disk. 2.8MB free. That's a lot of room :-) Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:28 PM, "Richard Cini" <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote: Yeah, I thought of that too. I did this within Parallels on my Mac (so, going back and forth between Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22 running as virtual machines) and Parallels doesn't support DMF (or anything other than 1.44MB). Neither does VirtualBox interestingly. It might be possible to do it on a real PC, but not sure. Yes, that extra 200k would make a huge difference in what could be included. Another way, that I haven't dried, is using Doublespace to create a virtual drive on the floppy. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:23 PM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. ) Interesting challenge ! On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge > was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy > disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using > files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more > challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide > I found (which was a two-disk solution). > > > > The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small > ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be > exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish > megabytes. > > > > There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no > multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you > could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a > temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. > > > > I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) > > > > Rich > > > > -- > > Rich Cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 > > > > > >
Very nice! That's stackering the Win 3.11 boot disk itself? I am curious how much that compresses.. Also, would that work on a 'modern' PC - such as a Socket 7 system? (of ~ Pentium MMX era/vintage)? I have a K6-3+ BIOS modded Socket 7 system I use for fun. (OC'd to 75 MHz bus = 450 MHz). On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 8:33 PM Richard Cini <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote:
Ha, just pulled out a copy of Stacker 4.0 and compressed a floppy disk. 2.8MB free. That's a lot of room :-)
Rich
-- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32
On 9/5/20, 7:28 PM, "Richard Cini" <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, I thought of that too. I did this within Parallels on my Mac (so, going back and forth between Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22 running as virtual machines) and Parallels doesn't support DMF (or anything other than 1.44MB). Neither does VirtualBox interestingly. It might be possible to do it on a real PC, but not sure.
Yes, that extra 200k would make a huge difference in what could be included. Another way, that I haven't dried, is using Doublespace to create a virtual drive on the floppy.
Rich
-- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32
On 9/5/20, 7:23 PM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. )
Interesting challenge !
On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge > was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy > disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using > files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more > challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide > I found (which was a two-disk solution). > > > > The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small > ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be > exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish > megabytes. > > > > There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no > multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you > could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a > temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. > > > > I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) > > > > Rich > > > > -- > > Rich Cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 > > > > > >
It *almost* worked with Stacker. You can create a bootable DOS disk and Stac the floppy. When doing “DIR” it says about 2.7MB free, which is great, but YMMV depending on what you put on it because of the varying compression rates for files. In my experiments last night, the Stac volume fit all files EXCEPT win386.exe (which of course is required). Win386 is about 545K in size and all that was free on the Stac volume was about 230K. I tried maximum compression and “optimizing” the volume, but that didn’t help. The footprint of a basic, clean, install of Windows 3.11 is 6.3MB. I pared it down to 2.5MB (2,403.6K to be exact). The size of the boot files (not the DOS system files) is about 107.4K (pkunzip, HIMEM, CDROM drivers, RAM drive driver, etc.) if using the “unzip to a RAM drive” method rather than Stac. Together, the boot files are 235K (after removing DRVSPACE.BIN), leaving 1.222.6K for a ZIP file. I played around with it again, and I can get 386 Enhanced working using the PKZip method. There isn’t a lot of free space, so it doesn’t do much, but it has 55MB free without virtual memory. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/6/20, 11:47 AM, "John Heritage" <john.heritage@gmail.com> wrote: Very nice! That's stackering the Win 3.11 boot disk itself? I am curious how much that compresses.. Also, would that work on a 'modern' PC - such as a Socket 7 system? (of ~ Pentium MMX era/vintage)? I have a K6-3+ BIOS modded Socket 7 system I use for fun. (OC'd to 75 MHz bus = 450 MHz). On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 8:33 PM Richard Cini <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote: Ha, just pulled out a copy of Stacker 4.0 and compressed a floppy disk. 2.8MB free. That's a lot of room :-) Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:28 PM, "Richard Cini" <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote: Yeah, I thought of that too. I did this within Parallels on my Mac (so, going back and forth between Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22 running as virtual machines) and Parallels doesn't support DMF (or anything other than 1.44MB). Neither does VirtualBox interestingly. It might be possible to do it on a real PC, but not sure. Yes, that extra 200k would make a huge difference in what could be included. Another way, that I haven't dried, is using Doublespace to create a virtual drive on the floppy. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:23 PM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. ) Interesting challenge ! On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge > was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy > disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using > files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more > challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide > I found (which was a two-disk solution). > > > > The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small > ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be > exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish > megabytes. > > > > There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no > multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you > could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a > temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. > > > > I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) > > > > Rich > > > > -- > > Rich Cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 > > > > > >
I forgot to answer your original question about systems. I built the disk using DOS 6.22 and Windows XP, both running on Parallels (on a Mac). Parallels emulates a standard PC but uses virtualization to work. Anyway, I would expect that if runs on that, it will run on any PC after 1992. Here’s the file list: Volume in drive Z is MS-RAMDRIVE Directory of Z:\WINDOWS . <DIR> 09-06-20 5:38p .. <DIR> 09-06-20 5:38p ACCESSOR GRP 2,206 09-05-20 7:52p CONTROL EXE 15,872 12-31-93 6:11a CONTROL INI 3,824 09-05-20 6:38p DOSPRMPT PIF 545 09-05-20 2:14p DRWATSON EXE 26,864 09-06-20 12:14p MAIN GRP 5,115 09-05-20 7:52p MOUSE INI 24 09-05-20 2:12p NOTEPAD EXE 32,736 09-06-20 12:14p PRINTMAN EXE 43,248 09-06-20 12:14p PROGMAN EXE 115,312 12-31-93 6:11a PROGMAN INI 168 09-06-20 12:37p REG DAT 2,556 09-05-20 2:14p STARTUP GRP 44 09-05-20 7:52p SYSEDIT EXE 19,472 05-26-95 6:57a SYSTEM INI 1,501 09-05-20 7:52p SYSTEM <DIR> 09-06-20 5:38p TASKMAN EXE 3,744 09-06-20 12:14p WIN COM 44,170 09-05-20 2:12p WIN INI 3,424 09-05-20 2:14p WINFILE EXE 146,864 12-31-93 6:11a WINFILE INI 96 09-05-20 7:02p _DEFAULT PIF 545 09-05-20 2:14p 24 file(s) 468,330 bytes Directory of Z:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM . <DIR> 09-06-20 5:38p .. <DIR> 09-06-20 5:38p COMM DRV 9,280 12-31-93 6:11a COMMCTRL DLL 48,112 05-26-95 6:57a COMMDLG DLL 97,936 12-31-93 6:11a CPWIN386 CPL 104,816 12-31-93 6:11a DOSX EXE 32,682 12-31-93 6:11a DRIVERS CPL 41,440 12-31-93 6:11a GDI EXE 220,800 12-31-93 6:11a KEYBOARD DRV 7,568 12-31-93 6:11a KRNL386 EXE 76,400 12-31-93 6:11a LANMAN10 386 8,786 12-31-93 5:11a LZEXPAND DLL 23,712 12-31-93 6:11a MAIN CPL 148,560 12-31-93 6:11a MMSOUND DRV 3,440 12-31-93 6:11a MMSYSTEM DLL 61,648 12-31-93 6:11a MOUSE DRV 10,672 12-31-93 6:11a SETUP INF 60,594 12-31-93 6:11a SHELL DLL 41,600 12-31-93 6:11a SND CPL 8,192 12-31-93 6:11a SYSTEM DRV 2,304 12-31-93 6:11a TTY DRV 30,496 12-31-93 6:11a USER EXE 264,016 09-05-20 2:14p VER DLL 9,008 12-31-93 6:11a VGA 3GR 16,384 12-31-93 6:11a VGA DRV 73,200 12-31-93 6:11a VGAFIX FON 5,360 12-31-93 6:11a VGAOEM FON 5,168 12-31-93 6:11a VGASYS FON 7,280 12-31-93 6:11a VTDA 386 6,816 12-31-93 5:11a VTDAPI 386 5,245 12-31-93 6:11a WIN386 EXE 544,789 12-31-93 6:11a WINOA386 MOD 49,248 12-31-93 6:11a WSWAP EXE 16,302 12-31-93 6:11a 34 file(s) 2,041,854 bytes Total files listed: 58 file(s) 2,510,184 bytes 5,738,496 bytes free Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/6/20, 11:47 AM, "John Heritage" <john.heritage@gmail.com> wrote: Very nice! That's stackering the Win 3.11 boot disk itself? I am curious how much that compresses.. Also, would that work on a 'modern' PC - such as a Socket 7 system? (of ~ Pentium MMX era/vintage)? I have a K6-3+ BIOS modded Socket 7 system I use for fun. (OC'd to 75 MHz bus = 450 MHz). On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 8:33 PM Richard Cini <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote: Ha, just pulled out a copy of Stacker 4.0 and compressed a floppy disk. 2.8MB free. That's a lot of room :-) Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:28 PM, "Richard Cini" <rich.cini@gmail.com> wrote: Yeah, I thought of that too. I did this within Parallels on my Mac (so, going back and forth between Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22 running as virtual machines) and Parallels doesn't support DMF (or anything other than 1.44MB). Neither does VirtualBox interestingly. It might be possible to do it on a real PC, but not sure. Yes, that extra 200k would make a huge difference in what could be included. Another way, that I haven't dried, is using Doublespace to create a virtual drive on the floppy. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/5/20, 7:23 PM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: How about using one of the extended disk formats - 1.68MB or whatever format IBM Used for their OS/2 floppies? or is that not bootable? (This format was at least readable by standard 1.44 MB drives using standard 1.44MB disks.. ) Interesting challenge ! On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Not really sure what applicability this really has, but today’s challenge > was to get Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode running from a single 1.44MB floppy > disk. There are easy ways to get Standard mode running, including using > files from “precopy.cab” on Windows 95 or 98, but this was way more > challenging. I started from a full install and pared it down using a guide > I found (which was a two-disk solution). > > > > The boot files and required extras (HIMEM, PKUNZIP and a very small > ramdrive driver) took about 300K, leaving only about 1.2MB (1.156MB to be > exact) for a complete install. A normal no-frills install is about 3-ish > megabytes. > > > > There are significant compromises – no virtual memory, no networking, no > multimedia, only system fonts, and only a few apps, but once running you > could run them from another floppy. I discovered that 386Enh won’t put a > temporary swapfile on a RAM drive, so it runs without it. > > > > I guess you could call this the 1992 version of PortableApps :-) > > > > Rich > > > > -- > > Rich Cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 > > > > > >
participants (2)
-
John Heritage -
Richard Cini