Please help a new guy at this

[Chrono86]

Hey everybody~
I'm new to all this stuff, and any help would be appreciated.
I'm planning on assembling a computer in my car to play music, and I need an LCD display. I am probably going to use MPXPLAY and MPXF to route the display to the LCD screen. Now, if I buy, lets say, a 20x4 screen, hook it up to the parallel port, and run both those programs (with a little tweaking in the config files, this is where I need the most help lol), in theory I should get the display, no? And one other thing, does anybody know the minimum amount of files I need on the comp to sucessfully boot it? I'm guessing 'autoexec.bat', 'config.sys', 'command.com', and the sound card drivers. I know this isn't a computer forum but maybe somebody would know
Thanks
~Adam
oh and by the way, I probably won't be using Windows, just DOS, is this ok?

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[spock]

DOS

Hi there! The absolute minimum for DOS is:
IO.SYS .......... (these two are hidden system files and visible)
MSDOS.SYS ... (only with a DIR /A:H command ! )
CONFIG.SYS
and, optionally:
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
and probably you'll need:
HIMEM.SYS
EMM386.EXE
and, if you're planning on CD-ROM, of course:
SOME-CDROM.SYS
MSCDEX.EXE
and, as you said, the sound card drivers, IF they exist, as in DOS, sound cards required no drivers, just (MAYBE) a config utility, or even a TSR mixer!
That's all!

 

[Chrono86]

thanks for the fast reply!
Should I just be able to stick those files on the harddrive from my Win98 boot disk?
I'm going to edit the autoexec file so it loads the soundcard drivers (Awe64 card, easy to configure in DOS ) then the mpxplayer.

 

[spock]

No!

Just copying the files does not make a disk bootable. Instead, you should make a bootable disk from WIN98 command prompt using FORMAT A: /S and then copy the SYS.COM from ../WINDOWS/SYSTEM directory on that floppy, and use the SYS x: command on the new disk (where x is the letter of that disk). Then, you *could* also copy ATTRIB.EXE (from the same location) and use this command as well : ATTRIB *.BIN -S -H -R on the new disk, after the SYS commad, and then, DEL *.BIN ! This way, you'll get rid of the stupid DRVSPACE driver that Windows copies by default!
Jeez... lots of secrets told today.... !

 

[Chrono86]

ok then, I think I got that, thanks!
should I use a parallel or serial LCD display?...I'd prefer parallel since it's cheaper lol

 

[spock]

Go!

Since it's a dedicated computer, I'd go for parallel. Cheaper, and nice too! Besides, I never liked the serial port...