Bau eines CncPlayer Kabel (Dokument Version 0.97)

To avoid as many as possible pitfalls I strongly recommend the following step by step guide! Later, when everything works fine change it to your hearts content but for now PLEASE stick with my recommendation. Thank you.

New: In the meanwhile there is a Disk Image available on the download page at www.cncplayer.com. That could save you much time. For more information see www.cncplayer.com. With the Disk Image you can skip the instruction below!

1: Create a boot disk:

Take an empty floppy disk and format it as a boot disk. Enter:
FORMAT a: /s /u
at your DOS prompt and hit <Return>. "FORMAT a:" formats the disk in drive "a:", "/s" copies the system files that make your formatted disk a boot disk and "/u" tells to erase the previous disk content and makes it (the previous disk content) unrecoverable. You may omit "/u".

2: Test the boot disk:

Insert your newly created boot disk into your disk drive (if it is not already inserted) and press your computers RESET button or better yet, turn the PC's power off, wait 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. and turn power on. Now your PC should boot from disk drive a: and you should get prompted for "Date" and "Time". Simply press <Enter> each time, do not make any entries. Did your PC boot from floppy disk? If yes, congratulation. Turn off your DOS PC and please continue reading at 3:

If your PC didn't boot from disk but from harddrive then the boot sequence order in your PC's BIOS is probably set to "c: a:" or something like that. Change the BIOS' boot sequence order to "a: c:". With that "a: c:" entry your PC looks during start up in drive a: first and if there is a disk inserted it boots from a:. If there is no disk in a: your PC continues to boot from c:
Did this BIOS hint fix your problem?

3: Is it COM1 or COM2?

Ok, your PC booted successfully from floppy disk. That's very fine. Do you know at which COM port you plugged your CncPlayer cable into your DOS PC? You have to know it. You are the administrator. Is it COM1 or COM2? Well, to have the program CPC.EXE automatically started after booting we create a text file named AUTOEXEC.BAT on floppy disk. That file must contain the following single line:

CPC.EXE c2 b9600

The parameter "c2" after the word CPC.EXE represents COM2. If you use COM1 please substitute "c2" by "c1". For COM1 your line should look like that:

CPC.EXE c1 b9600

The AUTOEXEC.BAT file AUTO EXECutes the file CPC.EXE and passes two parameter to it. Yes, you can omit the whole AUTOEXEC.BAT file but that would force you each time you start CPC.EXE by typing:

CPC.EXE c2 b9600 <Return> (or CPC.EXE c1 b9600 <Return> in case of COM1)

at the DOS prompt. Pretty inconvenient.

Well, the two files
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CPC.EXE
should be now on your boot disk, too.

4: Start CPC

You created a boot disk and copied two files to it. Now insert this disk into your disk drive and press your PC's <Reset> button or turn power off and on. Your PC should now boot from disk and start CPC.EXE. You get a screen with some text lines. The last line displays:

Waiting for connection ... (exit with <Esc>)


Immediately before this line is displayed you hear a beep. This is normal and once you run your DOS PC without monitor this beep tells you that CPC has been started. The beep is intended to be an acoustic indicator.

Well, if you have only one monitor in your household it is now time to unplug the monitor from the DOS PC and connect it to your Windows PC. There is no need to have a monitor connected to your DOS PC. CPC doesn't do much screen output. CPC is written to be controlled completely remotely by the Windows PC. (Well, since everything is still under construction actually it is yet recommended to have a monitor on the DOS Pc.).

5: Hints

As already mentioned CPC doesn't require a monitor (except for the first time setup). If you have no monitor connected to your DOS PC maybe you get "4 beeps" (long short short short). These are BIOS error beeps indicating "no monitor found". It's inconvenient to listen but nothing to worry about. Note that different BIOSes might created a different beep pattern. I just described my DOS PC.

Also CPC doesn't require a keyboard. If you want to run your DOS PC without a keyboard you have to change your BIOS settings to "No keyboard available"! Otherwise your DOS PC won't boot because of error "No keyboard found".

You can run CPC from a floppy disc since CPC doesn't read from nor write to disk. So no harddrive is required.

No mouse is supported. No mouse is needed.

Of course you can also run CPC on your DOS computers hard drive. I just insisted to use a boot disk because this eliminates a lot of potential conflicts. CPC takes control over several interrupts and implements e.g. it's own keyboard handler at low level. All these might conflict with any of your already installed progs and drivers on your DOS computer. Booting by disk bypasses these possible problems. If this boot disk thing works you can change to whatever you like.

Known problems:

As of now CPC got a problem with the DOS clock. When you terminate CPC then your DOS PC might show the wrong time. Booting your PC should fix that problem. If not set the proper time manually. I'm working to fix that problem soon ...

This documentation is NOT a guide to work with CP and CPC. It is just a guide to establish a connection and test your CncPlayer cable. Please see my other sources for general CncPlayer information.