Windows 1.03.04 (DEC Rainbow OEM)

1.03.04

Build of Windows 1.0
OS family
Architecture	x86 16-bit
Compiled
Timebomb
Works in	MAME
About

Not to be confused with Windows 1.03.04.

Windows 1.03.04 is an unofficial port of Windows 1.03 made by DEC in 1987 for their Rainbow 100 computer.

Installation

The only emulator that currently emulates the DEC Rainbow is MAME (models 100-A, 100-B and 190-B). It is recommended to use MAMEUI64 for easier configuration. To install this build, you need to use the 100-B model.

There are known problems with booting from the hard drive image, thus, we'll use the MS-DOS 3.10b floppy disk for booting the machine and the hard disk as a Windows path.

Creating CHD image using the chdman tool

1. Open Command Prompt.
2. Type chdman createhd -o [filename].chd -chs 306,4,17. This will give you a 10MB hard disk image.

Machine configuration

1. Run MAMEUI64.
2. Right-click on the "Rainbow 100-B" machine and select "Properties".
3. In "Configuration" set at least 512KB or 640KB of RAM.
4. Save the settings and run the machine.
5. Press Tab ↹ to open the main menu. If Tab ↹ does not work for you, press the ScrLk key and then Tab ↹ again.
6. Go to "DIP Swiches" and set "DEC HARD DISK (#1)" and "GRAPHICS OPTION" to On.
7. Go to "File Manager" and set your MS-DOS 3.10b disk image to "floppydisk1". Then set your CHD image to "harddisk1".
8. Reboot the machine and press "A" to boot from the MS-DOS disk image.

Hard disk configuration

To initialize the hard disk, you need the WUTIL utility.

1. Open the main menu, go to "File Manager" and set your WUTIL disk image to "floppydisk2".
2. Go to drive B: and run WUTIL, press F7.
3. Select "Format and Initialize hard disk" and follow the on-screen instructions.
4. When finished, eject the disk and reboot the system.
5. When MS-DOS boots up, run FDISK. After the system reboots, type FORMAT E: /s and format the hard drive image.

Windows installation

This OEM version was most likely never officially distributed on floppy disks, and is only available as a pre-installed copy. Its files are compressed in ARC archives. To extract them, you must use an utility like PKXARC.

For extracting the archives and copying them into the Rainbow-specific floppy disk images, you need the 86Box or PCem emulator with an existing installation of MS-DOS (version 3.30 recommended) with two 5.25" 360KB floppy drives configured. You also need to make 5,25" 360KB floppy disk images containing every single ARC archive, and find several Rainbow single-sided 5,25" 400KB disk images where to put the extracted Windows files.

Using RX50DRVR and PKXARC

1. Download RX50DRVR and PKXARC.
2. Run your MS-DOS machine.
3. Copy the files from the floppies to C:.
4. Add the following line into your CONFIG.SYS file:
   DEVICE=RX50DRVR.SYS.
5. Reboot the system.
6. Insert the Rainbow floppy disk into drive A:, and a floppy with the ARC archive into drive B:. Please note that RX50DRVR will automatically assign specific drive letter for the Rainbow floppy disks. You can access them as drive D:.
7. Type RX50INIT D: [volumename]. This will initialize your Rainbow floppy disk for the first use.
8. Type PKXARC -E B:\[filename].ARC D:\. This will extract the Windows files from the ARC archive into the floppy disk.
9. Follow these steps with every other ARC archive.

There is a chance that there will be not enough space on the floppy disks for the Windows files. In this case, you have to extract the ARC files with an extracting utility for Windows and manually add the missing files to the 5,25" 360KB floppy disk images. Then you can copy the files from with the COPY B:\*.* D:\*.* command.

Copying Windows files

1. Run your Rainbow 100-B machine.
2. Set the floppy disk with the Windows files into "floppydisk2".
3. Type COPY B:\*.* E:\*.* and follow all these steps with every other floppy disk.
4. Reboot the system.
5. Press "A" to boot from the MS-DOS 3.10b floppy disk.
6. Navigate into drive E:.
7. Type WIN.

Gallery

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  Boot screen