Creative Solutions

January 11, 2021 by Arthur Dickerson

Sometimes difficult problems need Creative solutions.

My first real IT job was at a manufacturing company named Dresser-Rand. They manufactured huge compressors for oil pipelines.

While working there a big ongoing project was upgrading all of our computers to Windows 7. Most computers were using Windows XP at the time but we had one very old 5-Axis Milling machine that was connected to a Windows NT computer. The computer communicated with the machine’s controller over an RS-485 Serial Interface to download instructions.

The program was a 16-bit DOS program, meaning it couldn’t run on Windows 7. In order to update the software we would have had to update the controller on the machine, which would have cost thousands of dollars.

The solution I came up with was to run this application inside of DOSBox, a DOS-Emulator mostly intended for retro gaming. When you launch DOSBox it opens to a standard looking DOS prompt and an empty file system. The file system is simply a folder you designate in the config file. So, I was able to copy the program from the Windows NT computer and place it in a folder that I told DOSBox was the C: Drive. Then, in DOSBox settings I was able to enter some commands that DOSBox would automatically run on startup. These commands changed directory and launched the program, success! However, now there is the challenge of connecting the machine’s controller to this tiny little computer-in-a-computer. Thankfully DOSBox has thought of that and there is a section in the config file where you can create a virtual Serial Port that corresponds with a physical Serial Port on the computer. Once that was setup we were in business. The operator was able to simply launch DOSBox and it automatically opened the same program they were used to on their old Windows NT computer.

Sometimes it takes some out of the box thinking to get a problem solved. And sometimes the inspiration comes from playing Zork on your modern home computer as a teenager.