[Offer] old PC Tools 1.x and 2.x versions

tarlabnor

There are some old Central Point PC Tools versions that were found in different sources.
Unfortunately it's not floppy dumps but program files only, original disks are still to be found.

In any case it's better than nothing. This attachment contains the following versions: 1.01, 1.03, 1.10, 2.02, 2.03. It's unknown what else was (if anything) on original disks other than pctools.exe file.

There's also some infomation about older versions that are missing (yet) on WWPC:
3.0 - mentioned in InfoWorld (May, 18th 1987)
3.01 - mentioned in InfoWorld (July, 6th 1987)

Another really rare version is 5.0 from late 1988. Most of "PC Tools Deluxe 5" floppies on ebay are either different builds of 5.1 or 5.5.

callmejack

thanks very much for those old versions !

callmejack

I have this IMZ for v1.1, don't remember where it comes from.

tarlabnor

@callmejack

Thanks a lot ! Very interesting.

First of all exe is slightly different from the one I posted earlier, but both are working.
Secondly, the image contains IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM which aren't look like standard system files from IBM DOS. Moreover, both these files are binarily equal. That's a bit weird.

SomeGuy

The IBMBIO and IBMDOS files are placeholders. Early MS-DOS could not SYS a disk if there were already files on it because the files had to be at the beginning of the disk. The workaround many software vendors did was to make dummy placeholder files (with any random garbage in it). Then SYS would work. And most early application floppy disks were intended that the user would make the original bootable.

Anyway, that image looks genuine enough to me.

tarlabnor

>The IBMBIO and IBMDOS files are placeholders

That makes sense. Still wonder about a purpose of empty DIRS\SUBDIRS that we see on this disk (and on genuine PC Tools 3.xx disks as well).

SomeGuy

As I recall, they put empty sub directories on the Apple II Copy II Plus Disks as well.

I think they referred to those in the manual, so they should show users how to navigate sub directories, without having to have users create them first.