well if no one is able to find the last version of the ASAP demo/update from 2001/2002 I still have it. I got it off of the MicroTalk website before it went down years ago and now it appears the domain name was taken by a domain snatcher. As far as running dos off of a USB thumb drive it wasn't that hard and I was surprised no one has ever done it before. Still everyone I tell about it is very amazed and impressed so that's nice *grin*. First of all the computer I did this on was made before USB was very popular it was running win 95 version A when I got it so it had no concept of how to boot from a USB port. After I put a USB PCI card in it what I did was to take a win 98 boot disc I had lying around and put some USB mass storage device drivers for dos on it. I also put some other things like generic cd drivers on it. After that I used gnu/Linux to format the USB thumb drive with a fat file system. I next took my USB thumb drive and copied to it all my old dos programs and utilities from my very first computer's hard drive which I still have even though my first computer it's self is long gone. Lastly I booted from the floppy with the USB thumb drive plugged in and after typing "sys c:" I added "SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM" to a:\autoexec.bat as well as adding the correct paths for everything to it. Now when ever I want to boot it up I just have to be sure the floppy is in the drive and it will boot automatically. After it is done booting I can remove the floppy and I won't need to stick it in again till the next time I need to boot dos. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Baechler" <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 8:20 AM Subject: Re: 4DOS > Hi, > > This is unofficial and you shouldn't take my word for it, but I have > information from an undisclosed source that Larry Skutchan, (spelling?) > doesn't really care what happens with Microtalk products anymore since > they're long gone out of business anyway. I didn't get this from him > and this specifically didn't mention ASAP, but I doubt if anyone would > complain if a registered version was floating around somewhere. > Vocal-Eyes is still being sold for $250 but I wouldn't buy it. > Fortunately I still have it from when my parents bought it for me > several years ago. > > How do you play TADS and Glulx games in DOS? I had to compile > interpreters under Linux because the DOS programs worked so poorly. > Mostly it's a problem with direct screen writes (apparently ASAP handles > this better than most other screen readers) but it's also a memory > issue. TADS has a plain mode but that gives no status line and breaks > menus. It would be nice to find interpreters which support sound and no > graphics. Also, how did you set up the USB to boot and actually work in > DOS? What DOS version are you running? > > Nick Stockton wrote: >> jaws for dos can be gotten from the following URL >> http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/jdosfree.exe >> I do not like it ASAP is much better IMO but I guess if you can't buy >> asap >> any more then jaws for dos is better than nothing. >> I'm so lucky my mom knew her 5 year old son would one day be a hobbyist >> in >> to old computer systems and bought me a copy of ASAP and a litetalk back >> when they were still being sold in the 90s. >> I have a giant old computer from the 90s in the other room I put a very >> old >> USB card in and after some messing around with dos drivers and a win98 >> boot >> disc I still have, I now have a entire dos system running off of a cheepo >> 1-gig USB thumb drive complete with loads of games mainly z-code as they >> are >> best played in dos using ASAP. >> You can play them under gnu/Linux using frotz but some times it wants to >> reread messages it already read so playing using dos frotz with ASAP for >> me >> is better. >> ----- Original Message ----- > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
