Using !PCConfig

5 Using your PC Card

Once you have

Installed the PC Card hardware
Installed the !PC and !PCConfig programs
Used !PCConfig to set up a hard disc partition or to enter details of your IDE or SCSI PC-format hard disc
Checked any other setup requirements and additional options in !PCConfig which apply to your system

you are ready to start using your PC Card.

5.1 Starting the PC Card

The first time you run !PC, you should insert your DOS boot/install floppy and ensure that the Enable Boot from floppy option in !PCConfig is on. DOS stands for Disk Operating System and loads from disk rather than being in ROM as RISC OS is. Once DOS is installed onto a hard disc you do not need a boot floppy disc again.

Run !PC by double-clicking Select on its icon.

!PC will start up. Exactly what you see varies according to the Start up option that you selected in !PCConfig. In all cases the !PC icon appears on the icon bar like any other RISC OS application.

If you selected Start up on Icon bar as your start up option, then nothing more will happen immediately.

You have the choice of clicking on the icon (to start multitasking or Window mode), or selecting Single task from the icon bar menu to start single tasking (or Full Screen) mode.

If you selected Start up in a RISCOS window then it starts up into multi-tasking mode immediately. This starts as a black window.
If you selected Start up in full screen then it starts up into single-tasking immediately. This starts as a completely black screen.

Starting up the PC

You should now see the PC Card startup messages: Aleph One Universal PC Card BIOS

followed by a message showing the type of processor and cache detected:

for expansion cards:

CPU Type : 486SLC

CPU Cache : Enabled

for Mark I second processor cards:

CPU Type : Cx486DX/DX2

CPU Cache : WriteBack

then the following messages:

Total RAM : 4096K

Main RAM : 640K

Extended RAM : 3072K

After these messages will be messages showing that a numeric coprocessor has been detected where one is present.

Other, future, cards may display slightly different messages.

If these messages do not appear then refer to Troubleshooting on page 67.
Next you should see the message:

Booting from floppy disc

If things do not go as they should then check the Troubleshooting chapter and Readme file for relevant details.

Aleph One Ltd.

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