In Forum: General Discussion
By User: Battler
The thing with VMWare and VPC and even VBox is that, they just work without ridiculous setting up. On PCem, everything looks right, but it rarely ever does ANYTHING, just a black screen. Even when it does do something, it takes 627 years, and I can't get it to boot up a floppy (ex. MS-DOS 2.11). It. Doesn't. Work. Get It? All settings look correct, I created an HD for it with the program. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK!!!!! On a real computer that you buy, you just boot it, and it works. This doesn't. It does not work. You boot it, and you get a black screen. Or you boot it, and 627 years later, you get a screen, but then it freezes. You can't get it to boot a floppy. It is an impossible program, you know that very well. How is anybody just wanting to emulate old operating systems supposed to use it, when you can't. You can't use it. It won't boot. It is just a black, sometimes beeping screen. IT WON'T BOOT. It just will not boot a floppy. VPC and VMWare will. VPC and VMWare actually work. They work, PCem doesn't. VMWare and VPC are 36782364823765x better than PCem. I have tried it a few times through several years, and it doesn't work.
First off, it's clear you've never had a new computer from the period emulated by PCem. The woes were all there. In fact, it was worse. In PCem, you increase the RAM and the machine automatically sees it. On a real machine of the period, you could add more RAM, but set the jumpers wrong and you see the wrong amount in the BIOS. Go read the manual for how to properly set the jumpers. Adding/changing any components? To the CMOS Setup you go, to make sure everything matches your current settings.
Really, considering noone else is having problems using PCem, I would say you're doing something wrong.
First, what BIOS are you using? Second, is the floppy drive configured correctly in both PCem settings, as well as CMOS Setup if applicable? Remember to set it to 360k for the earliest IBM PC. In VMWare or Virtual PC, any floppy will read regardless of settings because their FDC emulation is so inaccurate that it doesn't know what data rate and RPM are. On the other hand, PCem emulates real FDC and floppy drive behavior. And guess what, on a real PC, you can't even insert the wrong type of floppy into a drive (eg. 5.25" disk into a 3.5" drive).
And if you're trying to use, say, the Bochs or QEMU BIOS with PCem, well, then of course you should expect it to fail, and miserably so.
Second, a hard disk won't work with older machines unless you have an XTIDE BIOS, and even then I recommend limiting it to 32 MB, as that's going to work best.
Grab this:
http://citadel.rol.im/pcem101_experimental.7z
as it has all the ROM's included. Just set both floppy drives to 5.25" 360k, machine to IBM PC, graphics card to CGA (Old) (you won't get anything other than a black screen if you try a too modern emulated graphics card with such an old machine), RAM to 640k, and insert a floppy disk that is 160k, 180k, 320k, or 360k. Be patient as the machine is slow (and it's supposed to be slow, as it emulates a machine that *IS* that slow). When you see the XTIDE screen, keep pressing A. Be patient again, and then welcome to the DOS prompt.
Though yeah, it would also help if you didn't expect an emulator emulating PC's from the 1980's and 1990's to give you the ease of use of a 21st century PC. The architecture of the period simply doesn't allow that.
- user99672: Or he's simply using the wrong BIOS. Chances are, he's simply trying to use the Bochs or QEMU BIOS with the wrong PCem emulated machine, resulting in a black screen.