dos based cnc software

[flyingmike]

Yes, all the text that comes up when the computer boots up is also confined to the center. Could different drivers for the display solve the problem?

Mike

[fyffe555]

Mike,

You've got a common problem with laptop LCD screens and DOS. Depending on your model laptop the natural screen resolution is 800x600 or 1024x768. Windows loads a driver for the screen at installation and so you can run at the resolutions possible with the driver, usually the natural screen resolution. Under dos without an LCD driver specific to your laptop loaded you'll default to ega or vga or 640x350 or 640x480. In your config.sys you're loading a default ega driver under device.sys. Without an appropriate driver the lcd will display at ega screen size at the natural resolution of the screen, centred. So if your monitor is 1024x768 natural you'll use only the centre 640x350 at 16 colours and the surrounding pixels will be unused and show as a 198-209pixel wide black border.

The proper answer is you need a dos driver for your lcd on your laptop to be loaded in your config.sys. Just as you would to load a mouse or other hardware driver in dos. Have a look on the Tosh support websites for your specific laptop model for drivers;


An alternative, depending on the dos version you have is to replace the 'ega' def with 'LCD' in the config.sys. This is a std dos switch option from dos 5 onwards. i.e. 'Device=c:\windows\COMMAND\display.sys con=(LCD,,1)' problem is the results are unpredictable depending on your hardware, it might not change anything, might increase the screen size or might not work the screen at all and be blank. In which case you've have to boot to windows and edit the config.sys from there.

EDIT: forgot to add, depending on model some Tosh laptops had a bios setting to set the lcd display resolution size.

good luck..

Andrew

[flyingmike]

Hi, I think I have found the source of my problem, which I think is what fyffe555 is talking about.

The software is running at 800 x 600, therefore on my 1024 x 768 laptop the display is small. I tried loading the software in its higher resolution mode but the screen just goes black. I have not yet had a response from the makers of the software at step four but maybe they will be able to clear this up.

I have connected an external CRT monitor and the picture quality was greatly improved compared to the LCD display of the laptop.

At the moment I feel that a LCD or TFT display is not suitable for the step four software, a serious problem with the way monitor technology has progressed.


Mike