Here's some info that might be interesting for you Rainbow owners: (Even though some of you perhaps already knew about all this...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ First of all I have tried two programs that were ment for IBM compatible PCs, but works just fine on a Rainbow with MS-DOS (version 3.10b). It's the 'Norton Disk Test 4.50' and 'Borland Turbo Pascal 5.0'. The 'Disk Test' program checks your harddisk and floppies for bad sectors and corrupted files. It must be runned with Code Blue. The 'Turbo Pascal' compiler (command-line version) can be runned on the Bow without any extra programs (such as Code Blue). Combined with the PD stuff for 'Turbo Pascal' - for example, the graph and crt TPUs - it makes a great programming tool... (well it's only Pascal, but hey, one can't have everything !! :-) I will also make an attempt on the 7.0 version of TP. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Second, I wanted a nice and small C-compiler and tried the 'Borland Turbo C' - It did not work :-( Anyone having suggestions on other compilers ?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Third, I have had some problems with my Bow when it comes to bigger harddisks (20Mb and larger). There were some troubles getting it to boot and it appered to be a lot of bad sectors on my disks... After reading two articles from the Bellevue Users Group Newsletters, one written by Andrew Taylor and the other originally written by Robert Catt, I found out that the problem could have something to do with the harddisk cable. I followed the schematics for making a new cable and compared with the original one. All connections were the same, *but* on the original cable two lines had quite a remarkable resistans (pin 10 and 12 on the big disk-connector). The two lines are signals from the disk called 'track 00' and 'write fault'. No wonder it didn't work properly !! So, I made myself a new cable and installed a ST-225 disk. I installed MS-DOS, CCP/M-86, Windows, lots of utility programs and some games. No problems that far... Using the disk for a couple of days, convinced me it worked properly. Therefor I installed a 40Mb NEC D3142 disk (3.5", 615 cyl, 8 head) and uploaded almost every program I have on three partitions with MS-DOS 3.10b, CCP/M-86 and CP/M-80. The 'wutil 3.2' program did not report any bad sectors, nor did the 'Norton Disk Test'. Right now I have used the current setup for about a week, without any troubles what so ever. Here's the schematics: r = Red mark on flat ribbon cable. M = Mark on the connectors (for pin nr 1). o = PIN which is used. / = PIN not used, do NOT cut the cable line, it's the pin on the connector which is not used... Cut between as shown________________________________________ | | | | V V V V 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 FLAT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 RIBBON | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_______ o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | o o o o o o o o o o | | |________ \ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_________ \ \ r | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |__________ \ \ to 20 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \ \ pin card r | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \ edge | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | connector r | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|______________ | r | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 4 _1_|_3_|_5_|_7_|_9_|_1_|_3_|_____7_|_9_|_1_|_3_|_5_|_____________3_4_ |M | | 34 PIN CARD EDGE CONNECTOR | --------------------------------------------------------------------- The 20 pin card edge connector: 2 2 2 3 Cable line 7 8 9 0 numbers | | | | | | | | 1 1 | 1 1 | 1 2 ___2___4___6___8___0___2_|_4___6_|_8___0_ |M | o | o | | o o | ----------------------------------------- 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 Finally the 34 pin connector for the controller card, just make sure the red mark on the cable is lined up with the nr 1 pin on the connector. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------