DOS Palmtop: Sharp PC-3000/PC-3100 Extras


UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES:

o Character set changes:
When PopUp is installed, Fn-F6 will toggle between the normal (thick) character set and a thinner-lined set

o Also when PopUp is installed, the clock is available by Fn-T (Time) and the calculator pops up with Fn-C

o Boot Options:

To avoid running D:\CONFIG.SYS and D:\AUTOEXEC.BAT on a boot (to recover from a problem in those files, for example), reboot by Ctrl-Alt-R-Del. That is, hold down the R key, as well as Ctrl-Alt-Del. The PC-3x00 will use CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT from drive C: instead. This will also rename D:\AUTOEXEC.BAT to D:\AUTOEXEC.BAD. It also puts you into the INSTALL program: just Esc out of it and your data will be intact.
A cold boot (just like the very first start, or REBOOT /F) can be done by Ctrl-Alt-C-Del-B, all down in that order. (i.e. Hold the B key down within two seconds of the boot)

o CPU speed:

May be set to any speed from 1 to 10 MHz, except for 9 MHz. Just use SETUP /sn , with the speed for n.




Flash cards/Compact Flash cards

OK you can use SOME CF cards using a PCMCIA-to-CF adaptor (Like 10 bucks on ebay).
But you will need to get the appropriate DRIVER (click to download) onto the palmtop first - either by transfer via serial cable, copying it via an SRAM PCMCIA card or through the matching Sharp Floppy disk drive. Unfortunately the cables and floppy disk drive are pretty rare so most people get an SRAM card. We are working on a custom serial cable for the Sharp at the moment.

So here's the CF cards that actually confirmed to work (Card name is what is written on the label, names in brackets are what windows reports the drive hardware to be):

SOME cards larger than 32MB will work if you partition it so the first partition is 32MB or less. All other partitions can NOT be accessed from the Sharp though.



Minix for the PC-3100


Minix for the PC-3100. Yes there is a Minix you can start from within MS-DOS. It's an extremely small (and old) Linux. Works on the PC-3100. Get it HERE









Back to the Palmtop PC index