Nascom News­let­ter

DCS-DOS

For those of you who are wondering from the introduction what DCS-Dos is, we will explain. For these of you who own DCS-Dos please read on, there are some comments here directed specifically at you.

DCS-Dos is a disc operating system which was originally developed by Steve Parrish of Dave Computer Services for use with the old G***** disc drives connected to the Nascom via the Henelec controller and the PIO. A much improved version of this disc operating system became Nas-Dos for use with the Nascom disc drives and the Nascom Floppy Disc Controller card. Steve has now upgraded the original DCS-Dos to DCS-Dos 2, which is generally similar to Nas-Dos but still for use with disc drives fitted with the old Henelec controller connected via the PIO.

To DCS-Dos owners we would like to suggest that you consider changing to Nascom discs and the FDC board. This will give you the following advantage:

Double disc capacity (quadruple if you go for the double-sided drives)
Media compatibility
Access to all standard Nas-Dos software

The obvious problem is that you will need to buy new disc drives and the controller card. As we have already mentioned, there is a special offer on until the end of November so if you are considering a change, now would be a good time. We regret that, as we had no involvement with the sale of the original drives, we are unable to make any other additional offer ourselves with respect to your existing disc hardware. However, we have agreed with DCS that if you send us your DCS-Dos chips we will upgrade these to Nas-Dos for a charge of only 10 pounds. This software swap should be done through ourselves rather than dealers in order that the serialising and registration can be performed correctly and the original DCS-Dos registration can be cancelled.

We are looking into the possibility of making some Nas-Dos software available in DCS-Dos 2 format for those users retaining DCS-Dos. This may not prove possible and such software will only be available to special order at an additional charge of 5 pounds per software package. If you need such software ask your dealer to contact us.

This edition of the Newsletter has been sent to DCS-Dos owners via DCS. If, as a DCS-Dos owner, you want to be put on our mailing list then please write to me giving your name, address and DCS-Dos copy number.